CNN Press Release - Atlanta Studio Completes Conversion of CNN/US Programming to HD

CNN this week will unveil the next generation of news studio with the network’s latest high definition set in Atlanta, where rehearsals start today and live broadcasts begin in late spring. The new studio marks the conversion of all four of CNN’s domestic production centers to HD, joining New York, Los Angeles and Washington, DC.

The studio includes a 270-degree rotating anchor desk, multiple set locations, weather center, more than 50 HD monitors, including three 103-inch HD plasmas, HD projectors, a touch-screen and perceptive pixel “magic” walls.

The studio also features more than 2 miles of LED lighting on the floors and in the walls to enable production staff to change graphics depending on the show or news environments. Buried in the wall, floors and ceilings is a further 45 miles of copper and fiber optic cabling for the 5,000 square foot studio.

“We built the Atlanta studio to be flexible by offering different broadcasting angles and set locations,” said Matthew Holcombe, vice president of Network Support for CNN Broadcasting Engineering and Systems Technology. “The studio and its infrastructure represent an evolution based on the best technology available.”

CNN Newsroom, Rick’s List, CNN Saturday Morning, CNN Sunday Morning and Sanjay Gupta, MD will join the line-up of CNN domestic programming already available in high-definition, completing CNN’s conversion to HD in the US. CNN HD stands as a separate high-definition signal offering a programming line-up identical to the CNN/US channel broadcast in the standard-definition format.

CNN HD is part of a continued rollout of high-definition offerings and innovations. CNN Worldwide’s high-definition plans go beyond upgrades of studios and production centers and include a significant investment in equipment in the field to ensure that its journalists can gather news in high definition. For example, crews are already equipped with a combination of HD cameras, laptop editors, trucks and fly-aways and the CNN Election Express, the network’s mobile HD production unit. HLN primetime programming is currently transitioning to HD and will be completed by summer. The entire network will be converted to HD by fall.

CNN Worldwide, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner Company, is the most trusted source for news and information. Its reach extends to nine cable and satellite television networks; one private place-based network; two radio networks; wireless devices around the world; CNN Digital Network, the No. 1 network of news Web sites in the United States; CNN Newsource, the world’s most extensively syndicated news service; and strategic international partnerships within both television and the digital media.