Tech Spotlight

Wireless Broadband ENG Gaining Ground

While not ready to displace microwave or satellite as the best ways to get news coverage back to the station from the field, wireless broadband technologies are making life easier for reporters as the quality continues to improve.
By
TVNewsCheck,

Wireless broadband is slowly changing the way reporters send stories in from the field, giving them more freedom to roam, if not the video quality they would like.

This doesn't mean conventional transmission will disappear overnight -- or perhaps ever. You still can't beat microwave and satellite trucks for live SD or HD video, but for anything less, broadband in one form of another -- 3G, WiFi, WiMAX, LTE or Skype -- just might do. The field reporter can file without lifting a mast or pointing a dish.

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"People are going to use any and every mechanism available," said John Luff, television technology consultant for HD Consulting, who chaired a panel on new transmission trends at last month's SMPTE gathering. "There is a time and place for every transport mechanism."

The trick to using wireless broadband is understanding its capabilities. It requires "a constant juggling between how much time you have and how much quality you can submit," said Fred Fourcher, CEO of Bitcentral, a digital media management and content distribution management vendor.

Here's a quick look some of the broadband options:

3G

3G cell phone service is a good choice for stories that are not time-sensitive.

Equipped with a laptop with a 3G modem, the user pays a monthly fee for the broadband data service and accepts that a so-called broadband link will rarely exceed 1 megabit per second (Mbps) in transmission speed so uploading large files takes a long time.

On the other hand, because it serves the general public, 3G is available almost everywhere and it is mobile so it can be used to transmit files in a moving vehicle, if needed.

"We found it useful if we're doing something that's not breaking news," said Gerry Gallagher, director of remote operations for Time Warner's New York 1 News.

For non-breaking news, a reporter can shoot and edit a story and send it back as a high-resolution QuickTime file, he said. It could take all night, but if the material is not timely, it doesn't matter.

3G can also be used for live feeds if quality doesn't matter, but even then it's best not to use a single wireless connection to a single network.

Companies like LiveU have technology that combines up to six 3G feeds so the user can access up to six networks. "You can get the [live] signal back with fairly decent [SD] quality," said Walter Raps, CTO of CBS College Sports Network who also presented a paper during SMPTE.

The tradeoff is that the broadcaster must pay six times for six data cards and six data plans, but doesn't always get six times the bandwidth because not every carrier is available at every point.

"Anyone within range of a cell tower in many parts of the world can shoot video and stream it and, if a TV station can get that, they will put that on air and be glad to have it," said Peter Symes, director of standards and engineering for SMPTE.

WiFi

WiFi ihas more bandwidth than 3G and thus offers the possibility of doing better live coverage or getting stored files back more quickly. Unlike 3G, WiFi is not close to ubiquitous. It is, however, a good excuse for a broadcast journalist to grab a cup of coffee at a hotspot-enabled Starbucks.

"It's faster; we do it all the time," said Raps.

It can also be cheaper than 3G.

"You can subscribe to an AT&T hotspot service for $20 a month and that's a lot cheaper than any EVDO [3G mobile] you put in your laptop and the bandwidth on an upload speed is three times better," said Fourcher.

Forward error correction (FEC) technology improves live WiFi transmissions by recovering lost data packets, but nothing overcomes the fact that WiFi contends with other devices on public networks that can become congested and slow.

This makes WiFi unlikely for live content delivery unless "the content is really compelling," said Luff.

4G/WiMAX/LTE

Wireless nirvana might arrive as early as next year with the new 4G cell phone services. They combine the ubiquity of 3G with the bandwidth of WiFi.

Sprint is rolling out a nationwide 4G WiMAX network that promises speeds up to five times faster than 3G and a Sprint executive said the carrier is already in trials with broadcasters to use that network for newsgathering.

"The characteristics of our 4G offering enables you to take a high-definition camera enabled with WiMAX to the scene and provide live broadcasting of that," said Wayne Ward, vice president of Sprint's emerging solutions unit.

WiMAX, like WiFi, is a public network so without a dedicated link and some degree of guaranteed quality of service (QoS), a broadcaster is taking a chance if he relies on it for live feeds.

"We're not quite there yet because we're still in this testing phase, but absolutely we'll be applying technology that gives you a secure wireless channel," said Ward. "That service will come to market in the first quarter of next year."

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PSIPthing Nickname posted over 3 years ago
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However, none of these technologies would seem to support MPEG-2 at 12-15 megabits per second, nor MPEG-4 at 6-7 mb/sec, the data rates necessary to present full-motion compressed HDTV. Sure, these technologies could be useful when and where there is on other way to acquire live video, but they preclude HDTV. It's akin to using cell-phone cameras instead of studio cameras. To show things in the best quality, you generally want your field coverage to be 4:2:2 and down-sample to 4:2:0 for presentation. None of these technologies can handle 4:2:2 at video sizes larger than a postage stamp. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Effectively, nobody needs television stations to provide this type of coverage; anybody with a cell phone camera and a mobile data plan could do it. And, there are many more cell phone cameras with data plans than there are television stations. so, more viewpoints and vantage points at remote venues ...
Bubba Nickname posted over 3 years ago
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One thing that is consistently overlooked in discussions of 3G/4G services for ENG use is that the bandwidth advertised is for DOWNLOAD (network to mobile device) traffic. The UPLOAD bandwidth (mobile device to network) is a fraction of the download bandwidth. Upload bandwidth is the important parameter for sending video back to the televison station. On a system with 1 mb/s download bandwidth the upload bandwidth could easily be as little as 100 kb/s, not likely to work well with a large video file. Live transmission - forget it.
Eric Small posted over 3 years ago
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Gerry Gallagher of NY News One summed it up when he said “I want MY channels.” Wireless (common carrier) and unlicensed (Part 15) systems are nice cost saving alternatives, but don’t count on them when the chips are down and it is the biggest story of your career. Any system that depends on infrastructure you don’t own, or shares spectrum with anyone besides other broadcasters, likely won’t be there when you most need it. Think about it – last year’s minor earthquake in Southern California neither kill nor injured anyone and did negligible property damage, but paralyzed the cellular network for hours. The Governor had to go on television appealing to people to stop using their cell phones except for emergencies. The wireless data network is integral with the voice network and as it grows in popularity it will be become just as subject to blockage. Today, Priority Access Service (PAS) preemption of wireless circuits by emergency workers only applies to voice, but law enforcement and emergency response workers are integrating data and video into their communications too. Soon there will be PAS for data. PAS means that even if a major incident does not destroy the wireless infrastructure, its takeover by emergency personnel will render it equally unavailable for news gathering. Comprehensive news coverage in any kind of public emergency is more than entertainment and ratings – it’s a vital public service that saves lives and prevents panic. Licensed microwave (BAS), user managed satellite and transport stream based IFB must remain a dominant component in electronic news gathering. A news gathering network that only works when everything is OK won’t be there to fulfill its most vital role.

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