March 14, 2017 – TV Tech Managers, a provider of customized technical production services to the entertainment industry, incorporates Pronology’s mRes ™ standalone encoder as an essential tool for the acquisition phase of many of its projects. Specializing in both studio and mobile productions, TV Tech Managers works with a wide variety of clients, where it uses mRes to record live-to- air and pre-recorded shows.
“When we take on projects from clients we identify what their needs are, as far as their production and post workflow, throughout the lifecycle of a project — from acquisition, to delivery, to post,” says Kevin Hartmann, president, TV Tech Managers. “We look for tools that give us the most flexibility and reliability. The client relies on us to pick out technology that they can trust to deliver, no questions asked, which is why we recommend Pronology and its mRes encoder as part of the acquisition phase. We often find ourselves limited to a small number of tools we can trust so when we identified mRes as one of those go-to solutions, we started to use it as much as we could.”
mRes, an award-winning standalone multi-resolution encoder, seamlessly records three tiers of uncompressed video per SDI input channel prior to compression and wrapping, without missing a frame of action: a high-resolution media file, an edit proxy and a live Web-streamable proxy, all while offering users flexibility and ease of use at a low-cost point.
With a unique, uncompressed recording architecture that provides various file formats without any loss of quality or signal degradation, mRes was recently used to capture a full season – 17 episodes – of The Business of Life, from VICE News. mRes was called on to accommodate the various departments’ requirements of different codecs, wrappers and resolutions. When using mRes, a production team now has access to the content they need, in any of the required compression formats, instantaneously.
“Two selling points that make mRes attractive to our clients are its ability to offer one tool that supports a wide variety of file formats while also being able to write to a single storage appliance,” explains Hartmann. “mRes allows our clients to edit directly from the storage device while recording, which really streamlines their onsite workflow.”
mRes has also been used on Bravo TV’s, Inside the Actors Studio, proving to be overwhelmingly efficient. “When working on an episode of Inside the Actors Studio, no sooner was the show over before the recording was given to the editor’s assistant on the shared storage appliance, delivering all the recorded assets for the show, including the audio multi- track on the RAID,” says Hartmann. “By the time the TV truck was packed, we received a call from the editor’s assistant telling us that all of the assets were loaded and ready for edit. In terms of quick turnaround, there’s nothing out there, at this price point, that can match Pronology’s mRes.”
During production, there is a lot of time spent consolidating media onto a single hard drive. However, mRes allows users to write to a single drive. “Time savings for the consolidations, as far as this model compared to other models, is one of its biggest advantages,” states Hartmann. “During the consolidation process, mRes eliminates much of the room for error. Prior to mRes, transferring media could be nerve wracking. I would have a bunch of cards around me, which needed to be kept in orderly piles. If a file name was spelled incorrectly or a file was misplaced, among other things that could go wrong, it’s nice to be able to have it all in one place with mRes.”
TV Tech Managers and Pronology have built a strong working relationship over the years. “We own a lot of different types of audio and video equipment, from many different manufacturers and none of them call us up to let us know they have an update to their equipment, except Pronology,” explains Hartman. “Pronology installs the update for us and then checks back to make sure it works and that the equipment is ready for the next job. That level of customer service just doesn’t exist in most companies.”