Colombia. Teleantioquia is the first channel of Colombian regional public television. In its 36 years of history it has been at the forefront of technology and content production, managing to position itself today as the fourth channel with the largest audience in the country.
Engineer Boris Díaz, the channel's director of technology about a year ago, spoke to TVyVideo+Radio about the processes and changes he has led with the team of 19 engineers and technicians he is in charge of.
He stressed that a planning of the channel was made from the technological part, with a short-term vision to 2025, medium term to 2030 and long term to 2040. "It is due to having a structured projection that marks the direction of the channel in the long term, so that we have final objectives and that all investments and efforts are directed towards that final objective. This plan was validated with peers from other channels and with the ICT Ministry."
Some of the projects are the strengthening of the infrastructure, automation, fully migrating to the UHD, and integration with the regions.
News Automation
The automation of the news system is based on technology from the Spanish company VSN. Continuity is a process that has been impacted, with remote access to the system, the telepronter.
"In the short term we are going to automate production processes, robotizing some capture systems, tasks, tracking, and involve augmented reality concepts, to generate in spaces such as newscasts and news systems, unconventional pattern," said Boris Díaz.
Virtual and augmented reality
This is one of the most important projects for the channel. Today in studio 2 there is a set with a chroma where everything related to virtual reality is done. The idea is to integrate a large-format LED screen into this digital scenography and join it with chroma and have some interesting proposals for the 2022 elections in Colombia.
"No investment has been made in this regard, for this we have based ourselves on the technology available in the channel and the strengthening of internal technical knowledge," he said.
Regions Channel
Teleantioquia has an initiative called Edumóvil. It is a mobile broadcast unit equipped with professional solutions that travels to the regions, making a presence as a channel0 to all regions and training for the inhabitants of the region. They are groups of 20 people who are trained in production, post-production and television production for a week. It is an intensive course that ends with the realization of a production that is transmitted by the second signal of the channel.
In 2021 it has been carried out three times, including one of the indigenous communities of Antioquia. Additionally, they take the opportunity to contact the community channels of the regions, train them and accompany them technically so that they develop in production, post-production and television broadcasting, and provide them with alternatives that they can easily assume in economic terms so that they can be integrated into the programming of the channel. Thanks to the success of the programme, it has received international financial support and support.
A green channel
The channel wants to start leading the adoption of green policies. While it is true that at the regional level, the Government of Antioquia is taking the first steps, the channel has gone a little further and has taken actions to minimize the carbon footprint in the work they do.
Boris Díaz commented that "some of these actions are: efficient use of all materials and production resources; migration to lighting of low consumption LED technology for both internal and external productions; power plants seek not to generate environmental pollution and the rational use of resources. To achieve this, we have begun to build some policies to lead that process in terms of public channels and at the national level."
Conservation of audiovisual heritage
Teleantioquia has an audiovisual heritage conservation plan, its own plan generated in a structured way that in 2022 will begin the implementation. The channel has about 47 thousand storage media that are distributed in XDCAM, Betacam, Betamax, DVCAM, VHS, DVD and with an estimated 20,600 hours.
"Although they are stored in good condition, as long as that content is not cataloged and properly stored, nothing can be done. The interest is that this material is not lost and becomes an intangible asset of the channel, a heritage of the people of Antioquia. The project proposes the process of preservation and digitization of the historical content of Teleantioquia and includes the historical content that is in the hands of the Government of Antioquia," concluded Boris Díaz.
