The latest high-definition production equipment from Grass Valley is helping to produce comedian George Lopez's late-night TBS talk show Lopez Tonight.

Sweetwater Video Productions set up a double-wide production trailer outside the studio in Burbank, Calif., and outfitted it with a Grass Valley Kayak 2.5 M/E HD video production switcher and Grass Valley K2 Summit production client server.

Pre-recorded footage is acquired in the field as an MPEG-2 file using XDCAM HD (@ 50Mb/s) cameras. The file-based workflow facilitates the efficient production of video segments and fast turnaround times by editing in that same XDCAM 50 format with Avid Media Composer workstations.

The sequence is then sent across a network via a Transfer Engine and automatically imported into the K2 Summit server as a natively supported codec. By using the Grass Valley AppCenterPro file management applications suite (a standard feature on all Grass Valley servers), the segments are played to air from a four-channel Summit server. The Kayak is used to switch all of the various video sources for the live-to-tape show, including graphics and a mix of live and pre-recorded material.

"We have been a longtime Grass Valley customer due to the technology's reliability and cost-effectiveness," says Stephen Sharp, director of research and development and lead installations engineer for Sweetwater Video Productions. "The fact that the K2 Summit supports MPEG-2 playback capabilities, and knowing that we can transfer material natively between the server and the edit bays is a big advantage for the digital workflow. The Kayak switcher's compact size and features also fit our client needs perfectly."

The K2 Summit production client includes HD/SD operation, smooth slow-motion playback and up to four bi-directional channels in a rugged 2RU chassis. The server features agile playback of DV, MPEG, HD and SD content with built-in aspect ratio conversion and can provide 20 hours of HD or 80 hours of SD internal storage or connect to a shared SAN.