Q+A CENTER

Golf Channel recently acquired two FOR-A (Fort Lee, N.J.) FRC-7000 HD Frame Rate Converters for its facility in Orlando, Fla. The converters will be used to convert all of its PAL production feeds from Europe and Asia.

“Previously, our frame rate conversion was done by a third party. We decided to streamline the process and perform in-house frame rate conversion of PAL signals,” said Ken Botelho, Golf Channel senior director of engineering. “Now that we control the quality of that signal in-house, it saves time—and that saves money.”

Golf Channel is an international programming network serving more than 120 million homes with four different discreet output paths: SD and HD domestically, SD to Asia and the Pacific Rim, and a world feed that’s coming soon.

Not only does the FRC-7000 improve Golf Channel’s picture quality, it is the standards converter needed to receive the PAL signal from Europe directly via satellite. “The two units have definitely exceeded our expectations in terms of the integrity of our signal,” said Botelho. The two FRC-7000 units serve as the “traffic cop” for signals entering its facility from Europe. They interface with the master control and then converted footage can be routed to the server or record decks.

“We find the FRC-7000 is very easy to operate and control,” said Botelho. “Our operators appreciate that the unit has plenty of ‘handles’ on it. The ability to manipulate the audio and video is a very handy feature when you’re taking in satellite feeds. Once we configured it for our system, the FRC-7000 has pretty much been a ‘set it and forget it’ part of our workflow.”