Tech Spotlight: ENG

A Field Guide To TV News Editing

In the modern TV operation, manufacturers of end-to-end systems are now focusing on a process that involves all aspects of the story. The portable tools of the multimedia reporter working in the field are integral to that process. All the story elements — including video, audio, text, graphics, Web links and metadata — are brought together in the field and sent back to the station via an expanding range of options, including microwave, satellite, aircards, Wi-Fi and even 3G smartphones.
By
TVNewsCheck,

Television news editing has quickly moved from the TV station to the field. Now, more than ever, stories are being edited on laptops from where the news is happening or in nearby coffee shops or even at a reporter’s home.

This shift, over the past two years, comes as a tough economy has caused news operations to downsize staff and do more stories with fewer producers and reporters who are busier than ever. In addition to newscasts, they now must feed websites and mobile devices in a never-ending 24/7 news cycle.

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“Traditional news roles are disappearing. There used to be writers, reporters, editors and producers. Now one person is being asked to do all of these things,” says Jeff Broderick, product manager for Grass Valley’s Aurora news editing system. “This has caused vendors of news production equipment to create simpler user interfaces and much tighter integration that allows a single operator to move from one task to another.”

At Avid, a major newsroom systems competitor to Grass Valley, there’s agreement about the rapid pace of change in newsrooms.

“We are probably going through a period of greater change now than ever before,” says Patrick McClean, Avid’s director of segment marketing for post and broadcast. “The forces of the economy and technology are very strong and being felt by our customers. We are constantly adapting.”

Key to the transformation is the editing software running on the laptops. It varies from specific, simplified workflow tools for cutting basic video to full craft editors with the capability to handle a range of formats in different resolutions and aspect ratios.

Many companies, even those without complete newsroom automation systems, are competing in the news editing market. And some stations mix several brands of editing systems with news automation from different vendors.

This is possible due to MOS (Media Object Server), an XLM-based protocol for transferring information between newsroom automation systems. A refined MOS protocol has created a wide level of interoperability among the news systems of many vendors.

The field edit systems are designed to work with small, low-cost HD cameras that record video onto solid state media as well as conventional ENG camcorders.

Most can handle proxies — low resolution, low bitrate copies of the source footage — in a fast, efficient way. Only when the story is complete are the high resolution shots needed. This contributes to speed in the field.

Another important feature of field editing is smart rendering, says Fred Fourcher, CEO of Bitcentral, a maker of newsroom automation technology. Many of the new cameras use a long GOP format that enables smart rendering, he says.

“Smart rendering means that you are not re-encoding the bits. These cameras produce transportable formats. They are already compressed and very small,” he says. “Editing without re-rendering requires fewer processor cycles on the laptop. All the laptop is doing is stitching together the frames of the transitions.”

With a modern news production system, Fourcher says field reporters can go from the camera to air without re-encoding. “In news, time is the most important thing and this saves lots of time.”

Apple’s Final Cut Pro is a leading full-feature editor that can be used in the field or as a craft editor back at the station. Most broadcasters with complete news automation systems can integrate Apple’s technology into their systems.

Supporting a broad range of video formats, Final Cut Pro edits in SD or HD; has ProRes, a popular Apple codec; and uses open standards like Quicktime, FxPlug and XML interchange.

Apple declined to comment for this story.

At Grass Valley, the solution is Edius, a full-featured, craft-style editor that can run on a laptop and take just about any format. Aurora is a stripped-down editor supporting fewer formats and offering a more simplified editing interface. Both are used by reporters in the field on laptops.

At IBC2010 in Amsterdam, beginning Sept. 9, Grass Valley will introduce Edius 6, a new version of the editing system. Users will have the ability to work with any video standard up to 1080p50/60 or even 4K digital cinema resolution.

All major codecs in use in the industry will be supported natively, with no transcoding required even when different compression formats are mixed on the timeline. Preview effects will be viewable in real time. 

At Avid, the problem of handling various formats has been addressed through Avid Media Access, a plug-in architecture that allows the quick support of new formats by creating a new plug-in. For example, Avid recently added support for Canon’s digital SLR system, an emerging competitor to standard ENG cameras used for newsgathering.

KTBS, the ABC affiliate in Shreveport, La., is installing a complete Avid system, including several variations of Newscutter editors in the field, iNews automation, ISIS shared storage, DS graphics and full-featured Media Composer editors. The station also upgraded to Sony HDcams, making a transition to HD and a completely tapeless work environment.

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