City Studios (scoTV)

The City Studios are the complex of studios recently opened in Aberdeen as the headquarters for scoTV. It consists of a multi-storey building which includes a streetfront studio. It is located not far from the ocean, but still near the city, on 1 Aquidia Place.

Construction and Ownership
The building was built between October and December 2007 by CONstruct, a local firm who won the tender. Costing a mere &pound;5,000,000, the building came in under budget and with time to spare. The building is owned by Aquidia Holdings Limited, the owner of scoTV. Equipment was moved on the 2nd of January, 2007, during the night, when the Taff Media News Channel was being broadcast on scoTV. The building became operational and transmitted its first broadcast at 9:25AM the following morning.

Floor Layout
The building, made from brick and covered in cement, is four stories high and hosts a majority of scoTV's operations. The grey part of the building with the scoTV sign contains a fire escape stairwell and lifts. Communications equipment is housed on top of the building, mainly on the grey sign, with the STL most obvious.
 * Basement - equipment, power plant, bomb shelter, parking, storage
 * Ground - reception, offices, Studios 1 - 4 and S
 * Level 1 - control rooms, top of studios, dressing rooms, storage
 * Level 2 - newsroom, playout, editing and technical
 * Level 3 - offices, sales and miscellaneous

Playout is handled from a large suite on the second floor. The suite manages both regions of scoTV as well as digital channels (for any local modification if needed) as well as uplink to the Six News Channel when needed or the general network (eg Andy Wilkins Live). The system outputs to all transmission methods and contains built in redundancy for use when needed. Powered by the fourtimate system, in emergencies playout can be routed to Complex 2 in Manchester, or the playout system can be skipped by patching a studio directly into an encoder in the equipment room. The playout system was installed when scoTV first moved to the City Studios in late 2007/early 2008, however some equipment was integrated from the old temporary studios which were in operation since 2006 - such that the equipment has mixed vintage from 2006 onwards, due to new equipment being added to facilitate sub-regions and Six News Channel. One interesting feature is the use of a virtual wall of video sources to enable flexibility - achieved through CRT projectors.

Studios
All of scoTV's studios are located in the buildings. They are labelled 1-4 and S.
 * Studio 1 - home to Andy Wilkins Live and Variety Specials
 * Studio 2 - home to the Newshour
 * Studio 3 - home to other scoTV Productions
 * Studio 4 - multi-use studio
 * Studio S - home to other news, occasionally Newshour. Is a small studio containing a small desk and green screen (also used for IVC).