TV STUDIO

Doordarshan has two studio halls. One is used as a Newsroom and the other one is used for
shooting various programs. Artificial sets are created in the studio hall according to
requirements of the program to be shooted.
ACTIVITIES IN TV STUDIO
Activities in a television studio can be divided into three major areas such as:
1) Action area, 2) Production control room, and 3) Central apparatus room
Action area -: This place requires large space and ceiling as compared to any other
technical area. Action in this area includes staging, lighting, performance by artists, and
arrangement to pick up picture and sound. Hardware required for these activities in a studio
(typical size 20 x20x8.5 cubic meters) are:
1. Very efficient air conditioning because of lot of heat dissipation by studio light and presence
of large number of persons including invited audience performing artists and operational crew.
2. Uniform and even flooring for smooth operation of camera dollies and boom microphone
etc.
3. Studio cameras (three to four) with one of the cameras fitted with teleprompter system and
pressure dolly
4. Cyclorama and curtain tracks for blue and black curtain for chroma keying and limbo
lighting respectively.
5. Audio and video monitoring facilities.
Production control area: - Activities in this area are: -
1. Direction to the production crew by the producer of the programme. 2. Timing a
production/telecast. 3. Editing of different sources available at the production desk. 4.
Monitoring of output/off air signal.
Vision mixing and switching
Television media allows switching between different sources simultaneously at the video
switcher in Production control room operated by the Vision Mixer on the direction of the
program producer. The producer directs the cameramen for proper shots on various cameras
through intercom and the vision mixer (also called VM engineer) switches shots from the
selected camera/cameras with split second accuracy, in close cooperation with the producer.
The shots can be switched from one video source to another video source, superimposed, cross
faded, faded in or faded out electronically with actual switching being done during the vertical
intervals between the picture frames. Electronics special effects are also used now days as a
transition between the two sources.
Character Generator (CG)
Character Generator provides titles and credit captions during production in Roman script. It
provides high resolution characters, different colours for colorizing characters, background,
edges etc. At present bilingual and trilingual C.G are also being used by Doordarshan.
Central Apparatus Room (CAR) - This is the nerve center for a television station. Activities
in this area include:
1. Distribution of stabilized power supply to different technical areas with protection devices. 2.
Sync pulse generation and distribution. 3. Distribution of sources to various destinations 4.
Video processing and routing. 5. Electronics for camera chain, video switchers, special effect
generator, and test signal and pattern generator. 6. Monitoring facilities 7. Patch panel for video
and audio lines 8. Electronics for micro wave links.
Other technical areas associated with central apparatus room (CAR) are-
Camera Control Unit (CCU) -The television cameras which include camera head with its
optical focusing lens, pan and tilt head, video signal pre-amplifier view finder and other
associated electronic circuitry are mounted on cameras trolleys and operate inside the studios.
The output of cameras is pre-amplified in the head and then connected to the camera control
unit (CCU) through long multi-core cable (35 to 40 cores), or triax cable.
Light Control -The scene to be televised must be well illuminated to produce a clear and noise
free picture. The lighting should also give the depth, the correct contrast and artistic display of
various shades without multiple shadows. The lighting arrangements in a TV studio have to
be
very elaborate. A large number of lights are used to meet the needs of key, fill, and back lights
etc. Lights are classified as spot and soft lights.
Audio facilities -An audio mixing console, with a number of inputs, say about 32 inputs is
provided in major studio. This includes special facilities such as equalization, PFL, phase
reversal, echo send/receive and digital reverberation units at some places Meltron console tape
recorders and EMI 938-disc reproducers are provided for playing back/creating audio effects as
independent sources (Unmarried) to the switcher.
Video Tape recorders- VTR room is provided at each studio center. It houses a few Broadcast
standard Videocassette recorders (VCRs). In these recorders, sound and video signals are
recorded simultaneously on the same tape.
Equipment In Telecine Room- Telecine is an equipment to convert film-based programme
material to a video tape. Optical image produced by the film projectors is converted into
electrical signal either by using a camera or by CCD line scanner.
Digital Library System - A digital library system can grab and store pictures electronically from
live video, telecine or video tape recorder in the form of stills. Thus, it is an electronic store for
still TV pictures. A picture is frozen and recorded in memory. It can be numbered in stacks or
Induction Course (TV) STI(T) Publication 116 003/IC(TV)/2004 individually. Any picture can
be sized, cropped and can be provided with a border of any colour.

Transmission Chain
 MASTER SWITCHING ROOM

MSR is used for transmission media. It is the heart of the studio. Each and Every type of data
passes through it. The main function is monitoring and routing. The MSR cannot be bypassed.
It is the Mater Switching Room fuser for transmission of media. It is the
engineering co-ordination centre for a TV station. This room is the centre of
activity for selecting & routing the signal from various sources to transmitter. The
Master Switching Room is certainly room where all different sources from the
outside studio come first here & enroots transmission to different destination like
Transmitter. The different incoming sources are TVRO signal (DD-1, DD News)
from transmitter, any live coverage signal or the signal being transmitted from any
other of the Doordarshan studios which are switched here. The output signals are
fed to the transmitter for transmission purpose and some signals are distributed and
given to various PCR, VTR or any other appropriate places. This room comprises
of Routine switcher, stab amplifier, Video/Audio distribution amplifier, frame
synchronizer, digital/satellite clock monitoring system, logo generator vector scope,
video monitor. The programmes from TVRO & OB program are also taken to MSR
switcher unit to form part of the 16 inputs. On 16 x 8 switcher is used for its
activity like on air transmission, networking monitoring, etc.