Issues
Tapeless Television:
not as easy as all that
by DAISY WHITNEY
As TV stations continue to transition to digital and slowly jettison
tapes from their repertoire, they are learning that going tapeless
has its own set of challenges.
Being completely tapeless is a bit of a misnomer, since tapes are
still used in the field for shooting and will be until cameras can
accommodate disks.
ABC affiliate KGO-TV in San Francisco helped to pioneer the trail
to tapeless TV in 1998.
When reporters return to the station, stories are edited from tape
to disk, and the file is then sent to the server for playback. In
addition, most news feeds are received directly on servers, eliminating
tape from that process. Archiving is, however, still done on tape,
though the station plans to upgrade its servers next year so they
are robust enough to handle the rigors of backup.
Being tapeless has made the work of writers much easier, said Kevin
Keeshan, news director with KGO. "If you are writing from the feed,
you can go through the video, pick the sound bites and edit right
here," he said. "As opposed to when you went to transmission, got
a copy of the feed tape, viewed the video, wrote the time codes, found
someone to edit and had them cut the piece. Efficiency is there in
helping writers."
The disadvantage is being subject to the nuances and idiosyncrasies
of computers. In mid-June a computer virus brought the station to
"its knees" for a few weeks, he said. Journalists could not edit or
search on the servers because the virus had corrupted the database.
The staff needed to revert to tape-to-tape edit rooms or in-truck
edit bays. "I think it was a wake-up call for all of us in tapeless
environments depending on computers to run our shows that virus protection
and vigilance is a serious concern," he said. "We need to take safeguards."
KGO has closed its network to outside e-mail sources by not allowing
staffers to log on to Yahoo!, Hotmail or other Web-based e-mail accounts
from work computers.
Jeffrey Polikoff, director of engineering and operations at NY1 News
in New York, agreed that the biggest drawback of going tapeless is
computer problems. "One minute it's there, and one minute it's not.
It's not tangible or in your hand," he said.
Still, the benefits outweigh the negatives, he said. NY1 News shoots
and backs up on tape, but the rest of the process is tapeless. When
reporters return to the newsroom, the tape is ingested into servers.
Once the material is on the server, it can be accessed by multiple
people at the same time instead of waiting for a dub, he said.
Northwest Cable News, which launched in 1995, has relied on digital
tools since its inception, using tapes only for archiving, shooting
and airing repeat material. That means the station can go to air while
feeds are still being received, for instance, since all the feeds
go directly to servers. "You can record breaking news and edit as
it is fed into the server instead of waiting for the tape," said Todd
Barkes, operations manager for NWCN in Seattle. "Tapes are expensive,
so having stuff living on the server [makes sense]. You're not wearing
down tape heads and equipment."
He offers this piece of advice to stations beginning a tapeless transition.
"Whatever systems you buy today there is a better system that comes
out tomorrow. Realize it, accept [it] and try to get on a system that
has a reputation for being a solid system with ease of upgrade that
can grow as technology grows."
ABC affiliate WLS-TV in Chicago began renovating its newsroom in
March and will move into the new server-based one in August. The digital
system will afford much more flexibility, but it won't happen with
the flip of a switch. Such a transition requires changes in work flow
and employee adjustments, said Jennifer Graves, WLS news director.
A team of managers is designing the folder structure within the computer
system for stories, such as who has access to which folders and how
to catalog the archives. The station is establishing a protocol for
naming stories with video ID numbers, since digital files are played
to air based on those numbers.
Tim Thorsteinson, president and chief operating officer of the Grass
Valley business unit of Thomson Broadcast Solutions, a division of
Thomson multimedia, doesn't think TV stations will necessarily ever
become completely tapeless. "There are a few applications that suit
themselves well to pulling a cassette out of the tape machine and
carrying it across the room or taking a tape home," he said.
© Copyright 2002 by Crain Communications
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