Houston Television Cable PEG Channel: Empowering Community Connection and Positive Impact through Technology Investments
By Ted Irving
Houston Television (HTV) Cable, a remarkable platform that has been serving the Houston community since 1986, is a vital link between the local community and a diverse range of content and programming. This channel, dedicated to Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) broadcasting, has made a significant impact by fostering community engagement, promoting local talent, and delivering valuable information to. Recent strategies surrounding technology and infrastructure at Houston Television has bolstered public awareness of this indispensable asset for the community.
HTV empowers the community by providing the mayor, council representatives, and city departments, a voice to constituents, organizations, and businesses. The Federal mandate for HTV is to provide transparent government through broadcasting and streaming technology. To achieve this, the station has worked with local content delivery house, CReed Global Media, to install 5 Teradek Prism Encoders. Each will handle one of the government channel signals to the HTV local cable partners while also allowing HTV to have its own channel app for Roku, Apple TV, Firestick, Chromecast, and the majority of smart tv manufacturers.
HTV, Houston Television, is also a Ross house. Designed by senior engineer, Al Byers, the house has seven control rooms including broadcast (Master) control, three studios, and our emergency center mini studio with PTZ camera. All areas link back to the new Ross Video Ultrix FR12 Router, the heart of the entire broadcast plant. This new addition gives HTV two new Ultrix Carbonite production switchers, a 90 channel ULTRASYNC frame store and 12 ULTRISCAPE multi-viewers.
Additional Ross upgrades, done in conjunction with partner Digital Resources Inc, include two new Ross Video XPression 4RU 12G character generators, and two new Ross Video TRIA+UHD-202 video playout servers.
The HTV large studio, using local talent Formative Structures, has invested in new set designs for its large studio. Sets are a mix of traditional and digital. Every monitor is fed content via HDMI direct from the terminal room new Ross Ultrix Video Router. Further investments were made, in quarter one of 2023, on a host of lighting grid updates that include DMG Lumiere by Rosco, several FilmTools one ton grip packages, grip accessories for studio use, and a package of Rosco Braq Cubes.
In the HTV small studio, with green screen, a Planar URX100-ER-T988 100” ShareScreen monitor was installed allowing users to pull video or graphics directly from their mobile phone to the screen to decrease recording times. This model also allows for up to 8 simultaneous mobile phone connection with touch-screen access.
In addition to two television studios, HTV boasts a Podcast studio using GoPro cameras on ever microphone with a tie- in to a LiveStream HD550 portable production unit. Audio is processed using an Arrakis Systems console that saves sessions to the station 100TB EditShare LAN. Editors using Davinci Resolve 18 can pull any podcast show, video, or editing project, direct from the Edit-Share. As an added bonus for each editing suite, monitors have been replaced with new ASUS ROG Strix 27” 16:9 Curved screens.
All studios this calendar year were outfitted with Evoko Liso Room Schedulers. City employees, and HTV staff, can now book studio rooms just using Microsoft Outlook Calendar. In addition, new studio cyber keys were installed in June providing more data collection on foot traffic and employee use of rooms.
Houston Television field gear has continued its expansive dive into 4K. All 1080i JVC ENG cameras have been replaced with 4K big brother the JVCGY-HC500U. Each is a solid complement using J-Log in conjunction with the shop Sony A7siii 4K DSLR cameras operated at S-log.
Live television streaming is conducted using several Live-U (LU600) units with HDMI & SDI inputs, along with 10 licenses for Live-U LLU-Smart App use on all employee iPhones.
For multi-cam live streams, or recordings, the station investment included three ACME Go 4K, three LiveStream boxes, several Teradek Bolt 6 Transmitter Receiver Kits, & one ATOMOS Sumo 19. Each is used with a bevy of sliders, such as the Edelkrone SliderPlus , mobile phone gimbals, GoPro gimbals, robust grip kits and more.
The Houston Television government channel has positioned itself to provide the highest quality possible to the public, city employees, and city administration. Going the extra mile to have a positive and informative impact on Houstonians is why we cherish the craft of storytelling, live streaming, and transparency, as we continue to be a beacon for community connection. Contact CReed Global Media at info@CReedGlobalMedia.com or click here to learn more!
Ted Irving
Director, HTV-Houston Television
832-393-1277 Office
Ted.irving@houstontx.gov
Htvhouston.net
iPhoneApp 
AndroidApp 
