BATON ROUGE, La.–As director of operations and chief engineer for two locally-owned ABC affiliate stations in Baton Rouge, La. (WBRZ and KBTR), I maintain the technical side of our on-air structure, which includes master control, transmitters and scheduling.
When I joined these stations two years ago, WBRZ had no automation in place for our master control and our playout servers were well past their end of life. Our operators were manually firing all sources and were writing and initialing paper logs. The whole process was complicated and required manual reconciliation. My job was to get a new system in place, and I’m proud to say that we’ve now built a new TV station with updated playout servers, routers, encoders and Crispin automation.
Support & Flexibility
This was my first master control overhaul and as I began doing my research on automation companies, Crispin kept coming up again and again for their reputation, reliability, and solid support. I spoke with numerous playout manufacturers and toured other stations, many of whom were using Crispin and were very happy with the results—which speaks volumes in this industry.
Another indicator of Crispin’s dependability was on display during their demos. I’ve witnessed many demos that don’t run as expected, so seeing Crispin’s expertise during these product overviews gave me the confidence and peace of mind that their solutions were reliable, which is critical in my line of work.
What ultimately made Crispin such an attractive option was its flexibility. In addition the support team is top notch and has exceeded my expectations, helping address our specific needs in a realistic and beneficial way that suits both of our Baton Rouge stations. With Crispin, we’re not locked into just one box—it can be customized to the different requirements of each station.
For this specific project, I once again turned to Technical Services Group for integration, who I’ve worked closely with for more than 20 years. They’ve continued to be a supportive partner throughout the process, which required many moving parts.
Smoothing the Transition
Now that we’ve deployed Crispin’s platform, we can tangibly experience the numerous benefits. With every new technology and process comes a learning curve but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how quickly my operators have adapted to Crispin’s automation. It’s very intuitive, straightforward and simple—all very important features. With Crispin, our shifts not only flow better, our operators are also more informed and empowered. Overall, the transition has been smooth thanks in large part to Crispin and TSG.
One of the biggest benefits of Crispin’s master control automation is the secondary records. They remove the need for operator intervention, as they can be scheduled automatically. This has really simplified the workflow for recording our newscast and playing it back on our other channels. Before Crispin, those records would’ve gone to an external recorder which then would have had to be clipped and ensured that the clip was ready for air and scheduled properly in order to be aired again. With Crispin, this is all done seamlessly and flawlessly.
As we look ahead, KRGV in Weslaco, Texas, another locally owned ABC affiliate, will be updating their automation system in the near future and Crispin is at the top of our list.
For more information Crispin, a Sony company, visit https://crispincorp.com/.
