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July 2006 KLCS-TV/DT Pioneers Digital Media Classroom Paradigm with StreamZ
www.klcs.org
"The StreamZ servers had the best-looking WM9 quality of any solution that I looked at. Nobody else could come close to it in real-time"
"Digital Rapids' StreamZ encoders enabled us to implement our vision with the quality that we wanted to achieve. They’re the best-kept secret in broadcast"
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KLCS-TV/DT is a non-commercial, PBS member station licensed to the Los Angeles Unified School District, serving the educational and instructional television needs of the LAUSD and Southern California for over 30 years. When KLCS made the shift to DTV, they also set out to change the paradigm of how digital media is used in the classroom by taking advantage DTV capabilities such as data carriage. KLCS now datacasts four streaming channels of educational content directly to the desktops of students and teachers – currently in 25 high schools and eight middle schools, and expanding – and when fully implemented will have a potential daily in-school audience of nearly one million LAUSD students and staff. Digital Rapids' StreamZ media encoding servers play a key role in KLCS' architecture.
Alan Popkin, Director of Television Engineering and Technical Operations at KLCS-TV/DT, knew that the quality of the media streams would be a critical factor in the success of the project. "A key enabler to this model is high-quality, real-time Windows Media 9 streaming," says Popkin. "If the quality isn't there, the students won't be engaged, and the teachers won't use the channels." Popkin found Digital Rapids at NAB, and StreamZ met his exacting quality requirements.
"The StreamZ servers had the best-looking WM9 quality of any solution that I looked at. Nobody else could come close to it in real-time. StreamZ also had the integration features we needed, including external control and SDI with embedded audio. Coupling that with an easy-to-use interface and the best cost-per-stream at its quality level, StreamZ was the ideal solution."
Popkin conducted tests projecting analog video and WM9 side-by-side, and found a subjective preference towards the WM9 content amongst those surveyed.
The four streaming channels – a primary school channel, a secondary school channel, a professional development channel and a replication of the KLCS over-the-air main DTV
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