West Works Studios Wins Broadcast Engineering Excellence Award
Denver, CO
Takes First Place in Post and Network Production Facilities Category: Station Automation
Comcast Media Center’s West Works Studios™ unit has been named a winner of the Post and Network Production Facilities Category in the 12th Annual Broadcast Engineering Excellence Awards. The Award, which honors “the industry’s best examples of innovation, high-quality design, and construction,” will be presented by Broadcast Engineering magazine at the 2013 NAB Show on Monday morning, April 8 at its booth (North Hall – N5135). West Works Studio’s operations will also be showcased in the magazine’s special March NAB edition.
West Works Studios, formerly known as CMC Production Services, refreshed its five production studios and 12 nonlinear edit rooms in 2012 by upgrading its enterprise-level edit system and optimizing the facility’s operational footprint. The upgrade has allowed West Works Studios to meet the increased volume of services offered to its clients, which include independent film makers, television production companies and Fortune 500 companies. Bolstered by the State of Colorado’s new film and video incentive program, the more client-friendly “boutique” environment has also allowed West Works Studios to become more competitive in the national marketplace.
“We are honored by the recognition from Broadcast Engineering and our industry peers for the innovative design and technology choices represented by our new production and postproduction facilities," said Paul C. Catterson, Comcast Media Center’s Senior Director of Broadcast Engineering.
Added Catterson, who oversees West Works Studios, “I am particularly proud of what this recognitions means for our in-house management team, which includes Engineering Manager Robert Baker, West Works Studios’ Operations Manager Todd Smoots, and Production Engineers Judy Bandstra, Kerry Hart and Tom Wise. We are also grateful to Bruce Jones and Rich Griffin from Avid and Bruce Harvey from Wise Guyz Global Integration for their invaluable assistance on this project.”
As part of the multifaceted upgrade and relocation project, the legacy edit rooms were relocated to position them closer to the facility’s main entrance and client services such as the commissary, conference rooms and business offices. The rooms were optimized for audio sweetening, music composition and voice-overs, with lounge-like comfort. Two of the edit suites were constructed as multi-function edit (video and audio edit) using ProTools systems, each with a look into the 200sq-ft “quiet room” — a floating floor, mechanically-isolated space. An Avid Isis 7000 system (running Interplay 2.5, Symphony 6.0 and four multichannel Airspeeds) was provisioned to allow direct-to-disc ingest and edit-on-the-fly in a newsroom-style capture-and-edit workflow.
With the enterprise-level integration provided in this installation, editors, producers, content capture staff and management all have per-mission-based access and viewing into the total system. Resource and content sharing allows an editor to complete an end-to-end capture-and-edit without having to physically travel to another side of the operation — or “wait in line” to use a pooled resource.
Comcast Media Center’s Content Solutions unit also won an Excellence Award, for the third consecutive year, taking home top honors in the Awards’ Network Automation category for its work in designing and building the PAC-12 Distribution Center.
About West Works Studios
West Works Studios is operated by Denver-based Comcast Media Center (CMC), a subsidiary of Comcast Cable. West Works Studios offers full production services from one central location, including studio/stage rental, HD studio production, and video/audio post. More information about West Works Studios may be found on the Web, at www.westworksstudios.com
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Comcast, Comcast Media Center and West Works Studios are trademarks or registered trademarks of Comcast. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners.
Media Contacts:
Andy Holdgate
720-2780-1325
holdgatepr@comcast.net
