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Operations Engineer, BBC Cymru Wales, Cardiff

As a member of the technology department I supported the full range of technology used in BBC Wales including TV and Radio studios, news, playout and also general office IT issues.

Worked on the technical and operational acceptance testing of TV Studios for BBC Wales’ new building at Central Square in Cardiff. The design uses SMPTE 2110 IP technology with both commodity IT hardware and broadcast specific devices to provide a state-of-the-art broadcast facility. The TV studios are fully automated with support for Augmented and Virtual Reality.

Initially worked primarily on post production support. This involved looking after Avid editing systems, Isis/Nexis and NAS storage, Media Asset Management and workflow tools such as Signiant, Vantage, Media Silo and Baton (AQC). These systems are used by major drama productions: “Dr Who” and “Casualty”, sport and factual programmes such as “X-Ray” and “Bargain Hunt”.

Worked Master Control shifts, managing incoming and outgoing vision and audio and communications circuits using appropriate codecs, IRDs and monitoring equipment.

Supervisory Engineer, BBC Studioworks, Elstree

Was responsible for ensuring that facilities met the needs of the production and that technical faults were cleared, or alternative ways of meeting production requirements identified and implemented with the minimum loss of time. Principally involved in the day to day recording of the continuing drama “EastEnders”, helping to produce 2 hours of TV drama every week. The role included operational vision engineering, racking and colour balancing cameras, both in studios and outside on the back lot.

Worked with the senior management team at BBC Studioworks on a project to refresh the studio acquisition and post production areas used by “EastEnders”. The project involved configuring more than 20 servers; Win 2012 and Red Hat Linux, including Windows and Linux clusters, setting up L2 & L3 switches and client workstations. On the team that won the contract to provide post production services for “Holby City”, working closely with the outgoing service provider to ensure a smooth transition with no impact on the programme’s production.

Principal Engineer, BBC Technology, Television Centre, London W12

Worked in the Studios and Broadcast Infrastructure team supporting systems used within BBC television, radio and interactive news production.

• Support for TV studios including N6 and N8 which were ‘On Air’ 24/7.

• Post production systems; Adobe Premier, Avid Media Composer, Final Cut Pro and Quantel Q-Edit.

• Took responsibility for a project to upgrade 3D graphics workstations to run the departments’ desired version of Maya whilst maintaining compatibility with their other software packages. This involved new hardware and an OS upgrade from XP to W7.

Technical Director, TV Four Ltd, Brussels, Belgium

TV Four was started to exploit a niche for independent broadcast facilities and services at the European Parliament in Brussels. Based just outside the Parliament building, the company supply ENG facilities and web streaming services to broadcasters and businesses.

• Provided business and technical expertise for this startup company.

• Implemented SaaS and hosted server solutions for IT and telephony to minimise investment and running costs whilst providing enterprise class services.

• Financial control of company including multi-currency accounting and pay roll.

Technical Operations Manager, ITV Millbank Studios

Based at Number 4 Millbank, opposite the Houses of Parliament, ITV’s Millbank Studios provides the Westminster coverage for ITV’s news services. After initially joining as a sound recordist, I rose through various roles to become Technical Operations Manager and supervised the team of technical staff, from junior operators to senior engineers.

ITV Millbank Studios also provided playout facilities for BBC Parliament. During my tenure I specified and delivered a system to generate on screen graphics from meta-data which was stored in the vertical interval of video recordings.

After successfully bidding to provide the Met Office with a new London studio, I project managed the building work and installation. Working with the architect, contractors, building manager and systems integrator to ensure that the project was completed on schedule to the exacting MOD standards required by the Met Office.

Planned and delivered broadcast facilities for the coverage of events such as the political party conferences. Providing everything from camera crews to office equipment to create a complete tapeless production centre on location.

Developed broadcast facilities for a major city bank providing  a “Live” trading floor camera position, multi-camera studio and robotic cameras to cover meetings.