Vizrt has delivered one of the industry's most exciting advancements in IP infrastructure.

CNN’s new Hudson Yards digs in Manhattan make a fresh start for its tech infrastructure and on-air look.

Get IP Ready

Learn more about how Vizrt delivered one of the industry's most exciting advancements with SMPTE ST 2110-based infrastructure supporting IP transport and production

CNN’s move this spring from Time Warner Center to its new Hudson Yards headquarters in Midtown Manhattan meant the chance to start with a clean slate of technology and a fresh look—an opportunity the news network was determined to exploit to the fullest.

“This is a greenfield installation,” says Gregory Pocali, Senior Broadcast IT Support Engineer at CNN. “It gives us the unique opportunity to be able to address a number of pain points associated with traditional video installation.”

From an infrastructure point of view, that means starting from scratch with a SMPTE ST 2110-based infrastructure to support IP transport and production rather than tried-and-true HD-SDI signals with their cable run length limitations and inflexibility.

“Hudson Yards is a larger facility, so in our old HD-SDI facility [at Time Warner Center] we would have to have rooms dedicated to re-clocking signals so they could reach edge-point studios that were over the maximum distance [about 328 feet via coax] from the router,” he explains.

“To build a facility that wasn’t out of date on the first day it went on air, we had to be IP.”

Bob HesskampWarner Media's Executive Vice-President of Engineering

“When you have a company like Vizrt that is responsive to what you are asking for, that works with you day in and day out as needed when you are launching new things, that provides that level of support that you need, for example to inter-operate across an IP infrastructure that no one else in the world has built yet, that says something.”

Lisa PedrogoVP, NY Engineering & Strategic Initiatives