Testimonials - RVS 216A

Ross RVS 216A Providing More Than a Decade of Dependable Performance for ACAC

Thomas Moore
Technical Services Supervisor
Austin Community Access Center (ACAC)
Austin, Texas

ACAC is a public access television facility here in Austin, Texas founded in 1973 under the name of Austin Community Television (ACTV). ACAC is a project of the City of Austin and is funded by cable subscriber fees. The two local cable companies (Time Warner Cable and Grande Communications) provide equipment and technical support. We program three channels which are shown simultaneously on both cable systems.

Our mission is to train independant producers (average citizens) to produce their own programs for playback. Our active producers supply an average of 600 hours of new programming every month.

We provide training in single camera field production (Sony DSR PD100 and Sony DSR300 cameras), basic editing (linear, cuts only), advanced editing (linear A/B roll), basic and advanced studio production, and multi-camera field production. We also have workshops in non-linear editing.

We purchased our Ross RVS 216A analog production switcher in 1991 for our main studio and it has been providing dependable performance for more than 10 years. The only problems we've had with it is a broken fader (over-enthusiastic directors) and a worn out auto-take switch. The Ross service department has quickly and efficiently provided us with parts and advice.

We selected the Ross because we needed at least 14 inputs for a reasonable cost with chroma key and downstream key - Ross fit the bill. Most of the operators are amateurs and their productions range from simple talk shows to complex variety shows.

Producers can also go live from the main studio. The RVS 216A has withstood our assaults and continues to meet our current needs.