Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago Upgrades In-House TV Station with Broadcast Pix

Dec. 8, 2010 - PRLog -- Billerica, Massachusetts – The Family Life Center on the fifth floor of Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago provides a place for patients and their families to relax, play, and socialize. It also doubles as a television studio for Skylight TV, the hospital’s in-house television channel, which recently upgraded its production capabilities with a Broadcast Pix™ Slate™ 1000 live video production system.

Producer Rene Roy said the center has served as studio space for Skylight TV for more than 10 years. In about 20 minutes, the Skylight TV team can transform the area into a makeshift studio for a two-camera shoot, complete with scenery, wireless mics, and, perhaps most importantly for the young patients, a prize cart.

The hospital maintains a regular schedule of four live shows each week, including bingo-type games that teach about body parts and injury prevention on Mondays and Tuesdays – and often attract more than 200 players throughout the hospital. Wednesdays feature a storytelling program, while Thursday mornings begin with an hour-long music and variety show with patients serving as a studio audience. Skylight TV also creates additional content for its patients as well.

Skylight TV’s control room is located in the basement of the hospital. Roy said the new Broadcast Pix system replaced an aging Play Trinity system. The Slate 1000 was sold to Children’s Memorial Hospital by Roscor Corporation, which is based in Mount Prospect, Ill. Roscor installed the system in August and it went live in September.

Roy said the channel takes advantage of the built-in Fluent™ workflow tools, including the multi-view, clip and still stores, and Inscriber CG. “Broadcast Pix is very much a transition technology from the old into the new,” he said. “I think it’s relatively intuitive. It absolutely makes our productions better.”

The hospital is building a new 23-story facility in the heart of Chicago that will open in 2012 called Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Skylight TV will have a dedicated studio (complete with retractable green screen) and control room in the middle of the new building. “We’re not going to have to learn a new system,” Roy added. “We’re taking the Broadcast Pix with us.”

At Lurie Children’s, Roy plans to involve some of the older patients with what he calls “video therapy” and allow them to help produce the shows. “We have always aspired to having high quality programs and involving the kids as much as we can,” he said. “That’s why we got the Broadcast Pix. It’s really reliable, and it’s easy to run a show.”

Children’s Memorial Hospital Children’s Memorial is one of the top pediatric hospitals in the country according to US News & World Report. Its physicians are on staff at Northwestern University Feinberg’s School of Medicine.

About Broadcast Pix Broadcast Pix is the leader in live video production systems. Its Granite native HD systems are the only switchers with a content server, to provide the best file-based workflow for clips and graphics. Its Slate systems create highly affordable hybrid HD/SD/analog productions. Both systems create compelling live video by integrating a production switcher with a suite of Fluent file-based software tools, including clip and graphic stores, CG, multi-view, watch-folders and macros. Broadcast Pix systems are a fraction of the cost of a conventional control room to buy, staff and operate. Customers include leading broadcast, webcast, entertainment, mobile, corporate, education, religious, and government studios in more than 75 countries. Learn more at www.broadcastpix.com.

Broadcast Pix, Granite, Slate, Fluent and iPixPanel are trademarks of Broadcast Pix, Inc. Patented. Made in USA.

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