Grass Valley reported in the first quarter of this year on two ongoing installations in Latin American channels that are migrating to HD production. TV Cultura, a publicly funded network in Sao Paulo, Brazil, installed LDK 4000 Elite cameras, a second technical control room that will feature a Trinix HD router and other signal conversion products, three new servers in addition to the existing eight to program ingestion, ten Aurora HD workstations, for the newsgroup, and a new mobile unit that includes a Concert router and an HD Kayak 250 switcher.
Colombia's Caracol Televisión is converting its control rooms with the installation of six HD Kayak switchers (five with 1.5 M/E channels and one with 2 M/Es), a new master control and Maestro brand system, and numerous audio and video conversion modules that are part of the expanding family of GeckoFlex signal equipment of Grass Valley. The new Maestro HD is being used in tandem with the Jupiter controller and with the existing Saturn SD switcher, from the same manufacturer.
FOR-ALatin America, Inc., a division of FOR-A Corporation, announced the sale of broadcast equipment, including an HVS-3800HS HANABI multi-format switcher, to TV Azteca's subsidiary channel in Guatemala. The operation was carried out by the Mexican distributor of FOR-A, Excellence in Communications and Technology (ECT). TVAzteca produces news, sports and other live events in Guatemala, and is gradually converting its entire plant to digital in high definition.
