What
Stations Want at NAB
Different sizes, different agendas, same deadline: Feb. 17, 2009
Among the throngs
at the National Association of Broadcasters convention April 11-17 in
Las Vegas will be the top engineers for major broadcast groups. All
come with slightly different agendas and some with radically different
timetables. All of them, however, will have their minds on one date
for certain: Feb. 17, 2009, the last day broadcasters will be allowed
to transmit an analog signal. Here’s a look at how six of the major
broadcast groups will spend their time on the NAB floor making final
plans for the digital transition.
Fox Television
Stations
When you’re
buying for 26 stations…
With Fox’s 26 markets just beginning to implement high-definition newscasts,
Earl Arbuckle, the Fox Television Stations’ VP of engineering, is looking
for equipment in almost every possible category.
“We
have three stations broadcasting local, in-studio newscasts in high-definition
right now, and we are working on another half-dozen,” Arbuckle says.
“It’s going to take us about three years to migrate the entire group.”
Across the board,
the group is going with Panasonic P2 cameras, which it is using to shoot
high-quality standard-definition video and then upconvert it. “We feel
that P2 is the most compelling solution out there with respect to no
moving parts and reduced maintenance costs,” Arbuckle says.
In its studios,
Fox is getting ready to make a serious investment in cameras. Arbuckle
expects to purchase Sony HDC 1400 and 1500 cameras, with the HDC-1400
retailing at $65,000 each, plus $8,000 for the viewfinder, and the Sony
HDC-1500 retailing at $90,000. “We will be buying a fairly substantial
number of studio cameras in the next couple of years,” he says.
While Fox is sticking
with upconverting SD from the field for now, it wants get all its news
helicopters transmitting in high-definition as soon as possible. “We
had the first HD helicopter in New York with SkyFox HD,” Arbuckle says.
“That is a compelling application because the panoramic views you get
from the helicopter really take advantage of the HD detail.”
Fox needs to upgrades
its monitors, but is weighing options. “Our monitor situation is in
a state of flux,” he says.
The departure of
CRTs has left Fox in a conundrum because the group finds that the alternatives
don’t do as good a job of color imaging as CRTs did. “Our lab in Los
Angeles has looked at these things, and unfortunately they all have
some compromises compared to CRTs,” Arbuckle explains. “We’ve looked
at the solutions out there, and we feel that [flat-screen, rear-projection]
D-ILA probably offers the best picture [for accurate color imaging]
at this point in time. Still, LCDs are destined to be the mainstay of
control room monitors, and we’ll probably be considering those for all
of our new control rooms.”
Fox also will be
switching to new storage systems in the next few years. “For the next
several years, HD-based storage is going to be the sweet spot,” Arbuckle
says. “We are basically looking for reliability and cost-effectiveness
in all of our storage solutions.
“We also are looking
at what some people would term near-line archive storage. For that,
we are inclined toward spinning-disk storage as opposed to tape-based.
For long-term archiving, we’ll stick with LTO [linear-tape open] storage.
LTO tape has so much capacity and recording density that with relatively
few LTO tapes, you can back up an awful lot of material. It’s expensive
but not as expensive as spinning-disk storage.”
Arbuckle wants
to integrate digital asset management into his Avid iNews-based newsrooms.
“Metadata is still in its infancy. In years past, metadata largely consisted
of what people wrote down on the tape with a Sharpie. It’s true that
things you’d like to find go unfound because of the lack of metadata.
These days, metadata has taken its rightful place—it can be stored within
the content files themselves so search engines can delve into those
files and pick out keywords.”
Fox also is hunting
for a look. “Graphics are an important element of news production, and
we want a high bling factor with ours. Standardization has benefits
in terms of procurement, operator training, maintenance—it’s helpful
all up and down the line. We would like to have the same types of platforms
at all of our stations that do news. We are actively investigating what
is out there and looking forward to any breakthrough graphics technologies
that might present themselves at NAB.” —P.A.
Media General
Going slow,
going mobile
Ardell Hill, Media
General’s senior VP of broadcast operations, has his eye on high-definition
and mobile TV at this year’s NAB.
“NAB
is usually an opportunity to see and touch technologies. It gives us
hands-on opportunities to see all the new technology that’s being brought
to market, and the chance to stay in step with industry developments,”
says Hill, who will be accompanied by a small contingent of engineers
at this year’s show.
Media General is
converting its stations to hi-def newscasts on varying timetables, although
all of its 23 stations are broadcasting in digital.
“We have taken
a pretty measured approach to making the digital transition,” Hill says.
“We still have a number of stations that we will have to make changes
once the analog shuts down, and we still have significant expenses related
to completing the transition.”
Those costs include
moving all of Media General’s stations into the core broadcast spectrum
between channels 2 and 51, and shuffling antennas on towers to maximize
stations’ digital transmissions. While getting the technology right
is important to Media General, none of it will matter if consumers are
caught off guard, according to Hill.
“Our primary focus
is making sure we’re in compliance and done all the things required
to achieve the necessary milestones,” he says.
Meanwhile, Media
General is taking a measured approach to high-definition, rolling it
out in five markets with two or three more in the planning stages.
“The rollout of
high-definition in each market is an individual decision, driven by
things such as the age of existing equipment and the activities of our
local competitors,” Hill says. “If our competitor decides to beat us
over the head with hi-def and we haven’t gone yet, we’re not going to
concede that to him. But we’re not going to go HD just to beat the other
guy.”
Media General’s
stations are continuing to acquire standard-definition from the field,
using Panasonic’s P2 cameras and upconverting the video for now.
With technology
prices falling and equipment aging, Hill thinks the transition to hi-def
in all of Media General’s markets will happen sooner rather than later.
Still, the group is not in a hurry: “It’s our intent to move all of
our stations to HD. The gory details are really in the timing, and that’s
hard to define right now.”
Besides high-definition,
Media General is enthusiastic about the prospect of a new mobile video
standard that will allow broadcasters’ signals to be received on cellphones,
portable media devices and other mobile video players.
The industry is
pushing hard for the new standard to be ready by the end of the year,
so new products can be on the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show
by next January and in consumers’ hands in a year or so.
“It really depends
on how fast the folks on the device side can get gadgets into the hands
of consumers,” Hill says.
“We really expect
to see that market grow quickly as consumers get used to having the
ability to watch free over-the-air TV on their phones, GPS units or
displays on the back of their car seats. We think those opportunities
are really exciting.” —P.A.
Sinclair
Broadcast Group
sprints toward hi-def
Sinclair Broadcast
Group is investing heavily in high-definition in 2008, both to upgrade
master control operations to play out HD commercials and syndicated
programming, and to launch HD newscasts in several markets.
“This
is a pivotal year for us,” says Del Parks, Sinclair VP of engineering
and operations, who oversees technology investment and provides sales
services to Sinclair’s 58 stations.While Parks has made decisions on
HD master-control gear for eight markets and HD news gear for four,
he will head to NAB with an open mind.
“We’re in the throes
of a major HD build-out, and we’re always looking at ways to do that
better, less expensively and more efficiently,” Parks says.
By May, Parks expects
to convert master-control operations to HD in eight markets representing
17 stations (reflecting duopolies and/or LMAs): Buffalo, N.Y; Charleston,
W.Va; Columbus, Ohio; Baltimore; Pensacola; Asheville, N.C.; Nashville,
Tenn.; and San Antonio. By early third quarter, Sinclair plans to launch
local HD news in Columbus, Baltimore, Asheville and Pensacola.
Upgrading master
control means not only installing an HD master-control switcher and
playout server, but also revamping routing infrastructure to support
1.5 gigabit-per-second uncompressed HD signals, sometimes replacing
analog gear that is more than 20 years old. “You throw out the old and
bring in the new,” Parks says. “Obviously, there is very little in the
existing plant that’s HD-capable. It’s a huge undertaking.”
Sinclair is leaning
on Miranda Technologies equipment including its PresStation switching
and branding panel, Imagestore HDTV branding processor, Kaleido-X multi-image
display processor, and “digital glue” products such as upconverters
and digital-to-analog converters. Hi-def playout will be handled by
Omneon Spectrum servers, under the control of Sundance Digital automation.
On the news side,
Sinclair has purchased 12 Panasonic HD studio cameras and four Panasonic
HD “box” cameras for remote shots and installed new sets from Devlin
Design Group. Production control rooms have been outfitted with Snell
& Wilcox Kahuna switchers and Miranda Kaledio-X multi-image display
systems for monitoring. Sinclair has also purchased Avid Pinnacle Deko
3000 and Thunder HD graphics systems, as well as HD weather graphics
systems from Weather Central including its ESP:LIVE storm tracking product,
which it is installing across all of its news-producing stations to
replace AccuWeather graphics systems. Parks likes Weather Central’s
touch-screen presentation technology.
Sinclair has standardized
on Panasonic’s P2 solid-state standard-def camcorders, and will continue
to capture field footage in standard-definition for some time. Parks
is in no rush to replace the standard-def Avid NewsCutter nonlinear
editing and ISIS (Infinitely Scalable Intelligent Storage) server-based
storage systems that stations currently use, and even if he were, Avid
doesn’t yet have a cost-effective solution for HD. Parks is looking
closely at BitCentral’s Precis server and Oasis storage products, which
he views as more affordable than comparable HD systems from Avid. Raycom
and several other groups already successfully use BitCentral.
“I saw the product
in the field, and it works really well,” Parks says. “It’s something
we’re going to consider.”
Sinclair still
has work to do to complete its DTV conversion; it wants to maximize
transmission power in a few markets and switch three VHF assignments
for DTV to UHF channels if possible. So it will be looking at transmission
equipment such as filters and antennas.
Parks is interested
in seeing file-based solutions for delivering syndicated content in
HD, a challenge that delivery service Pathfire and various server and
automation vendors have been working to address. “That’s really important
to us,” Parks says. “We want to get as much program content as we can
in HD.”—G.D.
Hearst-Argyle
Seeking interoperability,
better service
As he considers
new equipment purchases, Hearst-Argyle VP of engineering Marty Faubell
has a problem. He says the interoperability and troubleshooting capabilities
of broadcast equipment vendors lags behind other industries.
In
particular, interoperability solutions between file-based camcorders,
nonlinear editing systems and servers is lacking, despite industry efforts
to make it easier to pass files between different vendors’ gear with
the Material Exchange Format (MXF).
“The industry right
now is problematic,” Faubell says. “There are too many codecs, too many
[file] wrappers. What happened to the premise of MXF? Where is it? That
doesn’t work.”
Faubell wants vendors
to back up the IP-based equipment they sell. “We have to have diagnostics
as smart as the tools embedded in the system from vendors,” he says.
“I’ll push every vendor in this direction. Why don’t they have an online
NOC [network operating center] to monitor the performance of the equipment
that they sold me? I pay huge annual warranties, and they won’t tell
me when it’s about to fail?”
Four of Hearst-Argyle’s
28 stations have launched local newscasts in HD, and two more will go
by this summer. As he considers smaller-market HD launches, Faubell
is looking to economize. “Now as we get down to the meat of the group,
I don’t want to write the same checks as I did in the big markets,”
he says.
HD news stations
are shooting field footage in widescreen standard-definition, but Faubell
is considering whether stations need to produce field footage in HD.
Besides the cost of new cameras, editors and microwave links necessary
to do true HD ENG, Hearst-Argyle also does a lot of satellite newsgathering,
which presents a bandwidth challenge.
At NAB, Faubell
is looking for equipment with Active Format Descriptor (AFD) technology
to automatically deal with ingesting content in a mix of 4:3 and 16:9
aspect ratios. Hearst-Argyle plans to upgrade its weather and traffic
graphics to hi-def, and in master control, to have HD channel branding
ready to go for all stations by the Feb. 17, 2009, analog turnoff; Faubell
says the group is close to picking a vendor.
He is also searching
for an HD play-to-air server to replace the Avid Pinnacle MediaStream
servers that two-thirds of Hearst-Argyle stations currently use to play
out commercials and syndicated content.
Avid has discontinued
the MediaStream line, removing a major vendor from the traditional broadcast
server market. While stations certainly are buying HD servers today,
Faubell isn’t sure existing products meet all of his requirements for
closed-captioning, multichannel playback, storage, file-based ingest
and transcoding of syndicated content.
“Right about the
time we need the most solutions for the industry, we have the least
choice,” Faubell says. “I’m most frustrated about it.”—G.D.
Scripps
The script’s
already written
Michael Doback,
VP of engineering for Scripps Television Station Group, is taking engineers
from all 10 Scripps stations to NAB, but after spending the past three
years upgrading its stations, many of Scripps’ technology decisions
have already been made.
“We’ve
committed to JVC for HD ENG cameras, NuComm for digital microwave equipment,
Fujinon for high-definition lenses, and Apple for Final Cut Pro and
other editing solutions,” Doback says. Doback expects to have all of
Scripps’ stations—WXYZ Detroit; KNXV Phoenix; WFTS Tampa; WEWS Cleveland;
WMAR Baltimore; KMCI/KSHB Kansas City, Mo.; WCPO Cincinnati; WPTV West
Palm Beach, Fla.; and KJRH Tulsa, Okla.—broadcasting their local newscasts
in high-definition by the end of this year. Seven of the stations are
already up and running in HD.
Otherwise, Scripps’
digital transition is practically complete. Its remaining conversion
tasks involve fine-tuning its transmission equipment so the entire group
is fully up and broadcasting in digital by Feb. 18, 2009. “We are still
overwhelmingly committed financially to the digital television conversion,”
Doback says.
“We’re still investing
in antennas, transmitters and towers, but we are currently broadcasting
digitally in all our markets. At this point, we are refining our facilities,
building out to cover the most viewers that we can by moving antennas
around, and installing new transmitters where required.”
Although a heavy
financial commitment still is required to complete Scripps’ conversion
to digital, HD equipment prices have finally fallen to the point where
it is affordable to replace aging SD equipment with state-of-the-art
HD.
Doback has been
particularly happy with JVC’s GY-HD250 line of cameras, which cost less
than $10,000 apiece. Scripps has been testing the JVCs in the field
for a year. “It’s very hard to justify buying a very expensive camera
in light of the high-quality stuff coming from JVC and Panasonic,” Doback
says.
With storage prices
falling as well, Doback plans to investigate some options while he’s
out in Las Vegas. “The cost of spinning-disk storage makes the question
of online, near-line and off-line very blurred at this point. We might
be looking at some long-term off-line media, but we haven’t made a determination
of what direction we’re going in yet. At this point, we still use [Linear
Tape-Open} LTO tape for our archival storage.”
Like most, Doback
is replacing aging systems with ones that are open-standards-based when
possible. “I have not been in favor of dedicated box hardware for functionality
for quite some time,” he says. The Scripps stations use Apple’s Final
Cut Pro, and “we’re happy with our Mac-based graphics departments. They
communicate seamlessly with our news and promotional editing systems.”
Still, many of
Scripps’ older systems still function, and the company has no plans
to replace them. For example, while many networks and station group
engineers are looking for digital asset management solutions, Doback
says that “we have no plans to uproot existing infrastructures and architectures
to make room for a brand-new approach to doing business.”
Like others at
the NAB Show, Doback will be looking around to see what competitors
are doing, and he wants to compare notes. “We’re looking to see where
the industry is going,” he says. “NAB has always been an educational
opportunity to listen and look to see what people know that we don’t
know.”—P.A.
CBS
Jeff Birch is
looking for the gear no one else has
If you’re a vendor
with the latest and greatest to show at this year’s NAB, you’d better
grab the attention of Jeff Birch, VP of engineering for CBS Television
Stations.
“If
a guy has a product out there that would set me apart, a whiz-bang [gadget]
that no one else has that might grab a couple of new eyeballs, I want
to know about it,” says Birch, who is attending NAB this year with a
team of just four.
CBS recently built
new high-definition facilities at KCBS/KCAL Los Angeles and KYW/WPSG
Philadelphia, with WBBM Chicago due for a rebuild this summer. In addition,
the CBS station group is producing hi-def newscasts at WCBS New York,
KPIX/KBCW San Francisco and KTVT/KTXA Dallas-Fort Worth.
“Everyone is in
the process of being upgraded. It’s going to take a tremendous amount
of retrofitting to get all the graphics done, all the ENG [electronic
newsgathering] done, all the little peripheral stuff you don’t think
of,” Birch says. “All these stations have digital master control today,
but they don’t necessarily have all the ancillary equipment you need
to do all the little things on-air.”
Besides talking
with vendors in Las Vegas and seeing what’s new, Birch looks forward
to chatting with other engineers who face the same challenges he does.
“We’d like to believe
we’ve done a lot of it right, but the only way to know is to compare
notes with our peers at NAB and then try to do things with the best
of the best,” Birch says. “We want to see what we can use to improve
our lot in the industry and make sure we are on the cutting edge.”
Birch is in the
market for two specific categories: nonlinear editors and graphics systems.
In three markets, including WCBS, CBS is using Thomson Grass Valley’s
Edius system to cut stories, but that doesn’t mean Birch isn’t always
on the lookout for the next generation of improvements.
“Every year someone
comes out with something that’s a little bit better,” he says. “I want
to see what’s out there that nobody else has that I can be first with.”
He says CBS now
is “standardized as a company” on Sony’s XDCam camcorders and Sony studio
cameras. It did stick with Panasonic studio cameras at KYW/WPSG because
the stations already owned them and upgrading them to HD was cheaper.
For now, CBS—like
its New York competitors—is shooting in standard-definition in the field
and upconverting the pictures until the Sprint-Nextel-led BAS 2 GHz
migration is complete.
“The next step
is to do live shots as easily in high-definition as we do them in NTSC
today,” Birch says.
“A lot of that
is hinging on getting equipment from the Nextel conversion. It’s a shame
I’ve got these brand-new high-definition stations out there and I’ve
got very limited ability to do HD ENG.”
Besides the slow-moving
spectrum migration, Birch says another problem is acquiring enough encoders
to make full HD ENG possible.
“At a price range
of $20,000-$50,000 per encoder times every helicopter and every truck,
that starts to run into serious money,” he says.
“We’ve been doing
some testing with Sprint/Nextel off the Empire State Building. We can
set up an analog shot and almost with our eyes closed get that signal
to air. It takes some finessing to get that HD shot home.” —P.A.
By Paige Albiniak and Glen Dickson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/31/2008
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