Broadcast Engineering - April 2008 - (Page 10)

DOWNLOAD BEYOND THE HEADLINES The knowledge and experience of a systems integrator can be invaluable when converting to HD. BY PHIL CIANCI HD newsrooms counts from the United States report less than 10 percent of the more than 1500 terrestrial broadcasters are producing their news in HD. A similar pattern is emerging in Europe with initial HD services being sports and movie channels. In order to remain competitive, broadcasters that have not done so are ﬁnding that they have no choice A s countries in Europe and Asia plan new HD services, experience can be gained from experience in the United States. There, the availability of HD programming has continually increased since the ﬁrst national HD broadcasts in the fall of 1998. Beginning with WRAL-TV in 2000, growing numbers of local broadcasters are The new WETA HD video control room for “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” features a Sony MVS8000A switcher, expanded Thomson Grass Valley HD routers and a Barco multiple rear-projection display wall. producing nightly HD news programs. Nationally, Voom offers a dedicated channel, HDNews, 24/7, and CNN has also gone HD. NBC Nightly News began its national HD broadcast in March 2007. However, production of news programming and the upgrading of newsrooms to HD capabilities have been somewhat late arrivals to the transition to DTV. Recent industry but to produce their daily news programs in HD. This is especially true for local broadcasters because news operations make considerable contributions to a broadcaster’s bottom line. If another station in the DMA has gone HD, there is no choice but to follow suit. Two paths Once a commitment has been made, two migration paths to an HD newsroom are possible. The ﬁrst is an upgrade of an existing facility; the other is a green-ﬁeld design and installation. Each has its pros and cons. The choice is dependent on how much (if any) of the existing infrastructure is HD-ready. Upgrades require staying on the air and necessitate scheduling equipment installation and commissioning around production and broadcast schedules. Because newsrooms never sleep, this is not an easy problem to solve. However, if the facility has converted to digital and installed HD-capable distribution equipment, ingest and playout servers, some of the existing infrastructure can be used, resulting in less of a ﬁnancial outlay. On the other hand, a green-ﬁeld design offers the advantage of being free from the constraints of daily production, and equipment can be installed and commissioned on an uninterrupted, realistic project timeline. However, new equipment must be procured and, therefore, the undertaking will cost more than an upgrade of an existing facility. WETA-TV, the Public Broadcast Station (PBS) located just outside Washington, D.C., has just completed an HD upgrade. WETA was one of the ﬁrst stations in the United States to broadcast in HD in 1999 and, in 2006, was the ﬁrst to broadcast simultaneous HD and three SD channels on a 24/7 basis. The upgrade, a signiﬁcant milestone for PBS, enables the HD production of “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” and serves as a representative example of what equipment is necessary regardless of which upgrade path is taken. The project included a new HD 10 broadcastengineeringworld.com | April 2008 http://broadcastengineeringworld.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Broadcast Engineering - April 2008

Broadcast Engineering - April 2008 Contents Editorial HD Newsrooms Wavelet Compression Mobile TV Audio Processing for HDTV, Part 1 QoE for IPTV End Users NAB Update Asset Management Advertisers Index

Broadcast Engineering - April 2008

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