For the first time, Silver Oaks Communications’ high-definition capabilities enabled an award-winning Davenport choir to be showcased on national public television.
The renowned choirs of First Presbyterian Church annually perform a Christmas concert to sold-out crowds. In 1999, Silver Oaks taped the December “Sing We Now of Christmas: A Festival of Carols” for broadcast a few days later on WQPT, the Quad-Cities public television affiliate. Later, the show was re-edited, and submitted to PBS, which offered it to its national affiliates through its PBS Plus Catalog. Nearly 70 percent of the affiliates — a total of 226 — aired the show. “This was a national achievement not only for the acclaimed First Presbyterian choirs, but also for the Quad-Cities and Silver Oaks Communications,” said Greg Scott, president and founder of Silver Oaks.
Again, in 2003, Silver Oaks filmed and produced the program. But this time, Silver Oaks rented five special-use cameras from Chicago so that, later, the show could be broadcast in high-definition. (High-definition, which is a process developed in the late 1980s, uses digital technology to transmit the picture. It utilizes more data and a wider-screen format to provide a significantly clearer picture than standard television broadcasts.)
“The project presented a a two-part challenge,” Scott said. “The concert was right before Christmas, and WQPT wanted to air it on Christmas Eve. To get it on the air quickly, we used techniques normally used in live television. For example, the cameras were directly connected to the director in a booth.”
The real-time edit was recorded to a tape in standard definition, then re-edited from scratch for PBS submission. “We edited it in our regular off line Media 100 suite, then exported the show to our new high-definition suite,” Scott said.
“Technically, what Silver Oaks does for us is put us on a level playing field with the very best of the musical productions that the United States has to offer,” said Steve Jobman, minister of music at First Presbyterian. “We were on the same stage with a program called ‘Kennedy Center Holiday for the Troops,’ the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and ‘A Chris Isaak Christmas,’” all of which were being offered to PBS stations along with the First Presbyterian choirs performance.
The show, which aired in high-definition, again was offered to PBS affiliates in the PBS Plus Catalog. PBS also has a high-definition channel of its own, and the show was presented seven times on the national PBS high-definition channel.
“High-definition work still is a relatively new innovation,” Scott said. “We’re pleased to be able to offer this service to our clients.”
