SBE Ennes Workshop on Infrastructure at the NAB Show

The 2001 NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference (BEC), which is part of the education program at the 2011 NAB Show in Las Vegas, Nev. will feature the 16th SBE Ennes Workshop on Saturday, April 11 from 8:00 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. This year’s workshop was organized for Ennes by Frederick M. Baumgartner, the director of broadcast operations for the Broadcast Communications Division of Harris Corporation and SBE Education Committee, Ennes Foundation; Robert J. Russell, the manager of engineering, BYU Broadcasting andTom Mikkelsen, broadcast engineering and project management executive.

Infrastructure – Keeping It Going in Challenging Times

Morning session moderator – Fred Baumgartner
Afternoon session moderator: Tom Mikkelsen

8:00 – 10:00 a.m. Tutorial: Infrastructure 101
Is it time for you to build a new facility, studio, technical, or non-technical space? Are you faced with challenges in maintaining or fixing an existing one? This session will cover:

• The basics – architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing
  The players – architects, design consultants, MEP, GC, contractors, integrators, inspectors


• Project management – developing a scope of work, design, costing, scheduling, finance, contracting, insuring, construction


• Regulations – code (ADA, NEC, security, fire, earthquake, flood), regulatory concerns (approvals, permitting)


• Technical Design - space planning, power, acoustics, noise and vibration control, cooling, sound, video, data, lighting


• Budgeting - ROM figures for studio, tech and office space


• USGBC LEED - strategies aimed at improving performance (energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts)

Presenters: Stuart Reynolds, senior manager (Video Engineering), Diversified Systems; Ron Eligator, principal consultant, Acoustic Dimensions (Acoustician); Arthur Metzler, managing principal, AMA Consulting Engineers, P.C. (MEP); Neil Tucker, AIA Leed AP, designrepublic (Architect)

9:00 – 9:10 a.m. Opening Remarks
Presenter: John Poray, executive director, Society of Broadcast Engineers

8:00 – 10:00 a.m. Tutorial: Infrastructure 101 Continued

10:00 – 10:45 a.m. Broadcast Engineering in Modern Economic Times; Bankruptcy and the Reorganization of Broadcast Facilities
This presentation will address issues faced by broadcast engineers whose companies are in reorganization or bankruptcy. An overview of United States bankruptcy laws will be provided followed by a discussion of some of the unique problems faced by broadcast engineers whether they are employees of the company in reorganization or contract engineers.
Presenter: Chris Imlay, counsel, Booth, Freret, Imlay & Tepper, P.C.

10:45 – 11:30 a.m. Keeping It Going in the Real World
When critical station equipment is down, the pressure is on the engineering department. This is a time for engineering to shine – if advance planning has been implemented. In this presentation, a variety of solutions to catastrophic problems will be discussed. Not all solutions need to be costly, and their implementation may save your job!

Presenter: John Bisset, business development executive, Americas, Tieline Technology

11:30 a.m. – 12:15 a.m. Monitoring and Control for Broadcast Infrastructure
The modern remote control system is a necessity that can also assist the engineering staff by tracking the routine and mundane items that often get overlooked. While we expect monitoring and control systems to alert key personnel to prevent downtime and avoid damage to the station’s systems, they can also track the health of the PCs in your play-out and support systems -- even things as mundane as available drive space, fan and power supply statuses. Monitoring off air data for program statistics and time information as well as closed captioning and other announcement services are all on the modern monitoring and control capabilities list. Monitoring and control systems can support your operators with ready access to information, policies and practices, and even root cause analysis so they have the information in front of them automatically to get to the answers when alarms occur.
Presenter: Brad Strommen, project manager, engineering, Comcast Entertainment Group

1:30 – 2:15 p.m. IT Infrastructure and the Accidental Administrator
In this presentation, attendees may recognize the long path which can lead from a career squarely oriented in the broadcast domain down the slippery slope of IT to the role of accidental system administrator. AS-02 and AS-03, which are critical components of file-based workflows, will be discussed. The presentation concludes with a discussion of service-based media workflows - the next likely evolution in the merging of broadcast media and the IT world.
Presenter: Brad Gilmer, president, Gilmer & Associates

2:15 – 3:00 p.m. Improved Tower Management by Understanding the Three C’s of Structural Failure: Causes, Cost and Cures
Broadcasters may have choices concerning which structural design code or parts of that code can pertain to analyzing or reinforcing their towers. This presentation will explain how to effectively use the intricacies of each design code to achieve the broadcasters’ objectives, which could include: increasing the tower’s antenna load capacity, meeting insurance or community requirements or most importantly preventing a tower disaster.
Presenter: David K. Davies, director, structural engineering products and services, Electronics Research, Inc.

3:00 – 3:45 p.m. KREX – The Real World of Disaster Recovery
For most engineers, the Disaster Recovery Plan is a file on their hard drive that is a rarely updated and a sketchy plan on what should be done if the station is destroyed. Find out what real world lessons in disaster planning were learned when the CBS and Fox affiliate in Grand Junction, Colo. burned completely to the ground and the Super Bowl was just two weeks away.
Presenter: Skip Erickson, manager of systems engineering and applications, Harris Professional Services

3:45 – 4:30 p.m. Maintaining Power for Broadcast Facilities
For most broadcast engineers, it is critical to have reliable back-up power in the case of a power outage. A good preventative maintenance program is essential for the emergency back-up generators and transfer switches. A proper preventative maintenance program also will save the end user money in the long term as costly corrective maintenance is reduced. Bay City learned in the last two rounds of fires in Southern Calif. just how absolutely critical the power systems are and will share their lessons learned.
Presenter: William T. Havrilla, director, product support and service operations, Bay City Electric Works
Steve Agan, director of business development, Bay City Electric Works

4:30 – 5:15 p.m. Transitioning to IPv6
This presentation will cover the fundamentals of IPv6 addressing by providing a technology foundation to understand the addressing terminology and fundamentals. Comparison and contrast to familiar IPv4 concepts will be used to assist in the understanding of IPv6 basics. IPv4 to IPv6 migration strategies and challenges will be incorporated with examples oriented toward the broadcast and media content provider to help chart your IT infrastructure preparation for the future.
Presenter: Wayne M. Pecena, CPBE, CBNT, director of engineering – Educational Broadcast Services, Texas A&M University

Last Day to Save $100 on Conference Registration

For 2011, the NAB Show registration packages give you access to more sessions, more cross-conference access, more year-round learning opportunities, more networking – all for one great price. Through January 31, you can save $100 on conference and training packages. When you register use code ST23 to save $100 on education packages. Check out the special registration packages including the SMART Pass that gives you access to just about everything the NAB Show® has to offer, including post-show online education or the Conference Flex Pass that allows you to choose from 200+ sessions in 8 different conferences.

The NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference is co-produced with the Society of Broadcast Engineers. The BEC Platinum Sponsor is Advanced Broadcast Solutions and the Silver Sponsor is National Semiconductor.

The complete schedule for the NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference is available here.

Additional information on the NAB Show is available online.