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While the program focuses on agriculture with the Georgia farmer in mind, national issues, consumer information and interesting feature stories about rural life in Georgia are also part of the broadcast each week.
Denny Moore writes the show and is the program's co-anchor along with Paul Beliveau. Regular segments feature Rick Treptow, Michael Edmondson and Mark Wildman. Vickie Amos operates the prompter on the program. The show is videotaped each Wednesday morning. For more on the Staff, choose "Monitor Staff" in the Main menu above on left.
The Monitor is carried on 13 Georgia television stations each week (CLICK HERE for a list). In addition to all the cable systems carrying these stations, the program is also carried by a number of cable systems throughout the state on their local origination channels.
In 2000, the Georgia Farm Monitor was one of the first programs to begin airing several times per week nationally on the RFD-TV Network, which originates in Nashville, Tennessee.
RFD-TV is distributed in the U.S. on Channel 379 of DirecTV®, Channel 231 on the DISH Network™, plus cable systems in all 50 states, serving over 50 million U.S. homes, with another 19 million homes in Brazil now enjoying select RFD-TV shows on the Terraviva Network.
Cable systems include: Comcast, the nation's largest cable system serving a total of 24.1 million cable customers in Georgia and 39 other states; Mediacom Cable - which currently
serves over 2.7 million homes in Georgia and 22 other states. It is also carried on Charter, NRTC, Bresnan cable systems, and NCTC Cable Systems - the National Cable Television Cooperative. The NCTC is made up of over 1,000 independent cable operators, representing over 6,500 systems and over 14 million subscribers located throughout rural America in all 50 states.| The Georgia Farm Monitor is broadcast nationally on RFD each Sunday evening at 7:00 p.m., Wednesday evening at 8:30 p.m. and Thursday morning at 10:30 a.m.. |
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• Check the Georgia TV station schedule by clicking HERE.
The Georgia Farm Monitor has come a long way technologically! We started shooting on 16mm film back in 1966 using the venerable Swiss-made Bolex (a wind-up, silent film camera) and that original camera (shown at left) still works today! It has spent the last 22 years collecting dust, sparking occasional conversation, and acting as a bookend in Paul Beliveau's office bookcase.The next step after the Bolex was to add sound to our program. Farm Bureau added a
couple of Canon Sound Scoopic cameras (right photo) for SOF's (sound on film). Note the film cannisters under the camera body and the umbilical cord to the magnetic film sound recorder at back left. We still have an "Auricon all-transistor high-fidelity" sound recorder from those days, although the film cameras were given away in the 1980's.Videotape cameras and decks became smaller and more affordable in the mid 1970's and so people began moving away from film, which had to be processed to be viewed and used. Videotape, which offered instant pictures and sound, was also much easier to edit since there was no "hot splicing" like film! GFB purchased 3/4" editing decks in 1978 and began producing the show in-house after using the facilities at WMAZ-TV for 12 years.
Along with the rest of the television industry at that time, the Farm Monitor went through the natural progression from the film era to videotape, starting with the huge (and heavy) 3/4" U-Matic "portable" tape decks with a shoulder strap and a cumbersome "umbilical cord" linking it to an equally heavy shoulder-mount camera.
See the picture at left:A dark-haired Paul Beliveau interviews then U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn at his Washington office while Rick Treptow shoots using a JVC KY-2700 camera with that huge Sony 3/4" U-Matic deck on his left shoulder. This was probably our 3rd generation video camera. Note the "Bat-Belt" around Rick's waist. That was a very heavy battery pack belt that operated a high-wattage TV light.
From 3/4 inch tape, we progressed to state-of-the-art, lightweight, integrated S-VHS camera/recorders in the early 80's, then on to Sony Betacam format in the early 90's.
Today, stories are shot in the field on our two Panasonic Digital AJD-400P DVCPro field cameras or our Panasonic AG-HVX200 High Definition "P2" camera. We also have a Panasonic AJ-PCD20G DVCPro/HD P2 Drive Bay deck to ingest HD/SD video from the HD camera.
Our television equipment and Farm Monitor studios were completely updated in 2001-2002 from tape-based editing and analog signals, to Non Linear Editing (computer-based editing) and SDI digital signal paths. (SDI, or serial digital interface, is a system whereby the digital video and embedded digital multi-channel audio are carried on the same coaxial cable.)
Our Master Control room and two edit suites have been upgraded again in 2007. We are now producing the show and editing field stories using AJA I/O's with Final Cut Pro 5 HD Suite in all three rooms. Master Control uses a Kona 3 card, which permits SD to HD and HD to SD conversion in real-time. We use a Grass Valley® switcher for the three Ikegami studio-configured cameras, two HC-400W Digital Ikegamis for talent and an analog HC-340 for wide-shot. We use the QTV FDP-17S teleprompting system on our studio cameras, and a Link closed-caption encoder when we master the show.
A master PESA® routing system handles both SDI digital, AES audio, or any analog audio/video signals and routes them between rooms and an Ensemble Designs' "Avenue®" audio and video signal integration system handles Digital to Analog and Analog to Digital conversion between components. While we are totally SDI, we maintain a redundant analog signal path between equipment.
A C-Band satellite downlink is used for USDA, or other news feeds.
