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WTWB-TV, a Leading WB Network Affiliate in North Carolina, Wins Snell & Wilcox’s “Digital Makeover” Contest at NAB 2004

Pappas Telecasting Station Wins $100,000 Worth of Snell & Wilcox Infrastructure Equipment and Networked Control and Monitoring Software

Santa Clara, California (April 30, 2004) -- WTWB-TV/Channel 20, Pappas Telecasting Companies' WB affiliate in Greensboro, North Carolina, has won Snell & Wilcox's "Digital Makeover" contest at the NAB 2004 convention. In a drawing during the final hours of the show, WTWB was selected to win $100,000 worth of Snell & Wilcox IQ Modular infrastructure equipment and RollCall control and monitoring software. Snell & Wilcox sponsored the contest to draw attention to how an intelligent infrastructure can help broadcasters transition to new technologies in a cost-effective and non-disruptive way.

WTWB is located in the Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem Designated Market Area, the 47th-largest DMA in the United States. The station is licensed to Pappas Telecasting Companies, the largest privately held, commercial television broadcast group in the United States. WTWB's companion digital station, WTWB-DT, can be viewed over-the-air on Channel 19.

"We congratulate WTWB and Pappas Telecasting and look forward to working with Chief Engineer Don Moore and his staff on ways to enhance WTWB's broadcast facility in Greeensboro," said Joe Zaller, Vice President of Marketing at Snell & Wilcox. "In awarding this prize, we also hope to increase awareness across the industry of the choices available from Snell & Wilcox that can smooth transitions from analog to digital, from SD to HD, and from baseband to file-based operations."

WTWB Chief Engineer Don Moore commented, "We're thrilled to have won this terrific prize from Snell & Wilcox. Our corporate management has spent significant resources on the construction of our DTV facilities, but our station infrastructure is mostly analog currently, so this prize comes exactly at the right time in the development of our digital facilities. Our engineering executives love new technology and the opportunities that come along with it, and we're very excited about working with Snell & Wilcox, one of the best-known names in broadcast engineering, to complete WTWB's digital makeover."

Infrastructure products from Snell & Wilcox are designed to be re-configurable "bridges" between analog, digital and file-based "islands." Modular components provide legacy compatibility with analog and SD standards as well as with HD standards and metadata-rich IT-based infrastructures-creating a single flexible infrastructure system that can be easily reconfigured as needs change.

As the "Digital Makeover" winner, WTWB-TV is entitled to choose components from Snell & Wilcox's IQ Modular, RollCall, RollMap and RollSNMP product lines. The engineering staff may select from nearly 300 unique "self aware" modules, which include dozens of conversion, distribution, routing, video, MPEG processing, monitoring, audio and test generator functions. Some unique image processing modules are one-of-a-kind, embracing well-known, award-winning Snell & Wilcox core technologies in compact, cost-effective configurations.

Each IQ module in the range identifies itself on Snell & Wilcox's highly scalable RollCall network and can be configured and monitored in multiple ways-from "virtual" devices such as simple D/A converters, image processors or routers to vast internal component infrastructures of thousands of modules. Once configured through a PC on the network, each module establishes its relationship with other modules in the system. This relationship between modules is called integrated intelligence, one of the powerful features that distinguish Snell & Wilcox infrastructure products as the most advanced and future-proof in the industry.

SNELL & WILCOX is a world-leading electronics design, manufacture and engineering group with an international reputation for the development of advanced image communications technologies for the world's broadcast television, video, satellite, cable, film and image communications industries. The company is dedicated to preserving the true content of the moving video image. Snell & Wilcox Inc. has offices throughout the United States and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Snell & Wilcox Ltd. is based in Hampshire, England with offices all over the world.

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