Testimonials - Synergy 3

WXXI's State-of-the-Art Facility Starts with a Ross Synergy

Eric Fundin
Director of Operations
WXXI TV
Rochester, New York

Since 1958, WXXI Public Broadcasting has provided the greater Rochester area with top-quality local and national television productions.

A state-of-the-art digital broadcast facility, WXXI is a PBS affiliate and a technology leader in the market.

Currently, we are completing our transition to digital broadcasting including tape-less automation systems and state-of-the-art digital equipment including the Ross Synergy 3 with Squeeze & Tease 3D DVEs in 2 of the MLEs.

We will be the first broadcaster in the market to broadcast a real digital signal not an up-converted analog signal.

At WXXI, we operate 3 studios and are also a full-service production facility. Each studio has access to 6 Sony HD700 series cameras and 2 Sony HD750 HH cameras. We also have 3 Avid suites and an FXDeko character generator. We shoot in the field with 2 DVCPro 50 camcorders. WXXI also has a 7 camera remote truck and the only uplink services available in Rochester.

WXXI produces several studio productions - 11 regularly scheduled programs each week. Some are local, some are regional and one is a national program. We also produce local and national documentaries for PBS.

We knew it was time for a new switcher (a key piece to the plan) as we converted the physical plant to digital, and discovered the Ross Synergy 3 would fit nicely into our plan.

We looked at a lot of features that Synergy had to offer and also looked at the Grass 4000. However, in weighing feature set versus value, the Synergy was the better choice. You can't beat it for the money.

This is our first Ross switcher. The Ross Synergy has given everything we do a fresh look and the producers have a lot more options available to them.

As far as installation there were no problems, and we were able to get up and running without any down time. We haven't had any Ross training yet, the switcher has been very user friendly - the learning curve was not steep at all and Ross' Tech Support has worked with us from the beginning. They are always willing to help when we have questions.

We are using the Ross Synergy for all of our studio productions. We do everything with Synergy - DVEs, multiple keys, chroma keying, control servers... everything we've tried has been easy and has looked great.

We are currently testing the dual output functions on Synergy and have already used the Aspectizer to letter box a show.

The Synergy 3 was one of the first pieces in our digital puzzle and we love it!