Russia’s TV Center builds HD studios around Grass Valley Karrera Switcher

Russian broadcaster TV Center (TVC) has upgraded its main production studios in Moscow to HD. A central part of the system is a new Grass Valley Karrera Video Production Center 2.5 M/E switcher — the first delivered in Russia to date.

TVC is owned by the administration of the city of Moscow and offers programming that highlights various aspects of Moscow life. The Grass Valley Karrera production switcher will support the TVC crew, as well as improve productivity by speeding turnaround between shows. The goal of the upgrade is a faster, higher quality production for major entertainment shows, news, and current affairs broadcasts.

“The time had come to take the next step to HD production and we wanted to support our new studios with the best and most flexible technologies that will allow us to produce a variety of programs in the most efficient way,” says Alexey Brusnitskiy, Technical Director at TVC. “The Grass Valley Karrera offered great value and a lot of the high-end features we were looking for in a production switcher.”

Project management and system integration for TVC’s new control room and production studios will be completed by local Grass Valley partner, Vidau Systems.

“We are seeing a large uptake of Grass Valley equipment across Russia as the country’s production facilities continue to upgrade to full HD operations,” says Alan Wright, SVP, Europe, Middle East, and Africa for Grass Valley. “As a major broadcaster, TVC sets the mark in production quality which many others follow, so it was very careful in selecting the appropriate technology solutions. The fact that they chose Grass Valley is a real testament to us and we’re thrilled to be involved in this exciting upgrade.”