City of Torrance Makes the Digital Transition with Crispin's System 2000
by Renard Ricks, Production Supervisor, City of Torrance

Torrance, CA - August 29, 2006 -- The Office of Cable Communications operates, oversees and houses four access channels in Torrance, California on Time Warner Cable. CitiCABLE Channel 3 (government access) is considered one of the most reliable and trustworthy sources of local information in Torrance. It is highly looked upon for weekly city council meetings as well as several informational and entertaining programs such as: This Week in Torrance, The SportsDesk, Spotlight Torrance, Senior Scene, Common Cents, Art Studio and Community Cooking.

Torrance Community Television (public access) is available to residents on channel 28. TCTV provides the equipment, facilities, training and support free-of-charge to Torrance residents so that they can produce and cablecast their own "free speech" cable television shows.

Torrance Community Channel 22 is a shared (mixed-use) channel. Along with specialty programs such as local concerts and classic black and white movies, we re-transmit the California Channel, which originates in Sacramento, CA and the Pentagon Channel, which feeds their satellite from Alexandria, VA. These additional feeds help keep residents of Torrance up-to-date on state and military news while blending in a nice mix of entertainment programming.

Lastly, El Camino College Channel 8 (educational access) is operated from the Torrance facilities. This channel provides distance learning for students that can't make it to the classroom for various reasons. It also provides students with additional training from other institutions around the state.

Torrance began investigating the replacement of a Channelmatic Broadcaster I & II automation system in early 2003 due to a lack of system stability. We hired a nationally recognized systems integrator, AF Associates, Inc. (now Ascent Media), to help research and recommend a new solution. After several meetings with the design team, we decided to select Crispin. Our decision was fairly easy; Crispin's solution was affordable and provided a flexible system that met our workflow requirements. In addition, Crispin's solution was modular, which would allow us to expand the system easily if our workflow changed.

We communicated very early in the process that we needed to upgrade immediately. AF Associates, Inc. and Crispin worked together quickly to set detailed expectations and a timeline to bring us on-air as soon as possible. Our initial goals were simple:

• Create a digital infrastructure to support several channels of playback
• Create greater operational/staffing efficiencies
• Build and increase name branding and credibility in the community

The core system installed is a Crispin System 2000 automation system controlling an Omneon server, Pinnacle DekoCast character generator and a Leitch router. This design provides the flexibility needed to run four standard definition channels with scalability to increase as we move forward. The new facility went on-air August 14, 2005 after about five weeks of construction.

Crispin's on-air playback application, RapidPlayX, provides playlist monitoring and control, allowing our operators to create and load playlists, edit events, issue playlist commands and monitor event status. The application automatically loads daily program and record schedules for 7/24 operations and instantly updates events when new material is available on the video server or is updated in AssetBase, Crispin's Web-enabled database.

Crispin's DeviceServer, which runs on a standard Windows workstation, interprets commands from RapidPlayX and controls our broadcast devices via RS-422. DeviceServer reads the event tables and carries out the commands to cue and play all devices in perfect synchronization with reference to the house clock. We have an additional DeviceServer loaded on a separate workstation for redundancy.

There are also two ingest workstations in the facility running Crispin's Dubber software. We use Dubber to control various source devices including VTRs to acquire and prepare video assets for air.

The heart of the automation system is Crispin's AssetBase, which allows us to manage programming, inventory and satellite feeds. In the past, all this information was placed on paper and then delivered to our operators to be manually entered. AssetBase really ties everything together.

Since we've been on the air with Crispin, our reliability of playout for each channel has significantly improved. Crispin has increased our ability to manage a variety of sources without manual interruptions. The stability of the system has helped to reestablish our credibility of playout and has helped us build a renewed sense of confidence in the community.

For more information, contact Renard Ricks at rricks@torrnet.com.

Equipment List
Crispin Corporation
RapidPlayX
TurboBrowser
DeviceServer
RecordScheduler
Dubber
AssetBase
ClipCopX

Omneon
Omneon MediaServer 2101

Pinnacle
DekoCast

Leitch
Leitch Integrator 64x64 Serial Digital

Design Team
Crispin Corporation
Rodney Mood, CTO
David Jones, VP of Customer Service & Support
Brian Gleason, Director of Sales

AF Associates, Inc.
Mario Patuto, Senior Project Engineer
Scott Buchholz, Senior Project Engineer
Jim Fitzpatrick, Director, Project Development City of Torrance
Renard Ricks, Production Supervisor
Gustavo Ponce, Senior Operations Assistant
Michael D. Smith, Cable & Community Relations Manager

ABOUT THE COMPANIES:

CITY OF TORRANCE - The Office of Cable and Community Relations manages four local channels on the Time Warner cable system in Torrance, California. Along with management of all external communications for the City, the Office manages CitiCABLE 3, programming for and about the City; El Camino College 8, distance learning; Torrance 22, government access programming; and TCtv 28, public access programming. www.torrnet.com.

CRISPIN - Founded in 1997, Crispin Corporation is a leading worldwide provider of broadcast automation software, equipment, services and support. Modular in design, Crispin's flexible systems help small to large-scale facilities develop and customize cost-effective solutions designed to connect elements from existing and new systems into one, integrated, easy-to-use solution. Based in Durham, NC, with regional sales offices located throughout the United States, Crispin offers automation solutions to over 370 broadcast facilities worldwide. For more information, contact Crispin at (919) 845-7744 or visit us on the Web at www.crispincorp.com.