Turlock city and educational information has a new state-of-the-art outlet at California State University, Stanislaus, as their new professional quality production studio has come on-line to serve the needs of the Turlock community.

The City of Turlock Local Government and Local Public Education Cable Television Access Studio is ready to begin producing and editing high-quality programs for public education and city government.

The studio was made possible by a $150,000 grant to the City of Turlock from Charter Communications, required as part of it’s franchise agreement with the city to provide cable access. The agreement was signed and approved in May 2000 and allows the studio to access and broadcast on cable channel 2. The same grant provided $50,000 to the city council to provide the equipment to broadcast their meetings.

Using the studio to create programming cost $50 an hour, and all the editing can be completed by the studio based on quoted costs. The facility is available by reservation only on a first-come-first serve basis.

It is important to note that the studio is only available to government and public education for uses pertaining to residents of Turlock and the surrounding communities.

“This is not public access,” said Norm Wagner, director of mediated and distance learning and the office of information technology. “This is not for private schools, political candidates or special interest groups.”

Wagner said one of the more common uses for the studio might be Turlock school district tutoring shows, where students are able to call in and receive televised help from a teacher.

The castings reach the audiences of Turlock, Ceres, Delhi, Denair, Hilmar, Keyes and Modesto north of Ceres but south of the Tuolumne River.

The 20’ by 27’ studio is equipped with $75,000 in high-tech equipment, anchored by a Newtek VideoToaster 2 switcher, and can record in a variety of formats.

“We have a basically unlimited capacity for recording,” explained Broadcast Engineer Loren Foster. “We can record in DVD format, VHS tapes, just about anything you want,” he said.

Foster characterized the studio as state-of-the art and quite capable of the staple recording effects and more, including chromascreening, the process of placing images over blue and green screens such as weather maps and graphics. It is furnished with a talk show / newsroom style set donated by KGO-TV in San Francisco.