Broadcast Engineering - April 2008 - (Page 14)

DOWNLOAD BEYOND THE HEADLINES the future, new graphics will need to be produced in HD. WETA delivers its HD broadcast in a letter-box format for its SD viewers. This alleviates the need to consider framing content for a 4:3 center cut as NBC does. CNN tries to leverage the best of both worlds by creative integration of graphics and windowing that is visually appealing in both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios. Regardless of the technique, the infrastructure must be than SD. Expect to double or triple storage capacity and the network backbone bandwidth. The challenge is to develop a production workﬂow and infrastructure that maximizes quality and minimizes HD content data rates while staying within budget constraints. Large HD ﬁles require greater bandwidth than SD ﬁles when sent over IT networks. A network that works ﬁne during normal production may fail under the strain of a breaking news story, when double or triple the number of newsroom personnel are trying to access the content. This is when a failure or glitch will have the largest effect on production. Production delays could allow a rival to break the story ﬁrst. It’s necessary to upgrade video servers to HD capability and signiﬁcantly increase disk storage. Network bandwidth should be for HD ﬁle-based production. Deciding on a network and storage topology is also important. A key decision is whether to store content in a federated storage area network (SAN) with local proxy editing or employ local editing of The WETA digital audio control room employs an SSL C100 5.1 surround-sound console. full-resolution video as the preferred workﬂow. designed for the frenzied newsroom audio production personnel. MonitorMaybe the answer is both. An expeproduction environment. Conversion ing becomes critical. (See the Decem- rienced systems design and integrasteps must be minimized. ber 2007 Broadcast Engineering article tion ﬁrm can present viable system “Dialnorm: A good idea gone bad?” implementation options based on its Sound decisions for further background on the use of experience. It can work with your inAudio requires special consider- dialnorm in broadcast environments. house IT department to ensure the ation. Even if a production has “gone The article is available at http://broad- broadcast and production networks digital,” it is still probably only pro- castengineering.com/audio-/dialnorm_ are properly integrated with the busiducing stereo audio for SD resolution good_idea/index.html.) ness and corporate network and apvideo. Dolby Digital encoding will be plications. At this time of transition, needed for program release. A deci- IT matters knowledge of the particular needs of sion must be made as to how audio Because many newsrooms have al- broadcast IT can be transferred to should be formatted and distributed ready migrated to a tapeless, ﬁle-based nonbroadcast technologists. during production. Discrete and em- production workﬂow, one important bedded audio require different distri- consideration when converting the Take heed bution and processing techniques-. newsroom to HD is the increased Physical considerations cannot Because viewers now have high- requirement for network bandwidth be overlooked. New HD systems are quality audio systems in their homes, and storage capacity. Regardless of more compact but are power hungry. consistent audio presentation is im- the house compression format, HD This may strain the existing power perative across live studio and remote data rates are considerably higher and cooling infrastructure. It is also segments, preproduced clips and commercials. Changes in level and quality from segment to segment that were not previously noticeable are now glaringly obvious and annoying. Differences in source volume levels can be a large problem in HD audio presentation. Appropriate Dolby metadata must be generated and included in the audio bit stream. This will require an upgrade in audio equipment and the added attention of 14 broadcastengineeringworld.com | April 2008 http://broadcastengineering.com/audio-/dialnorm_good_idea/index.html http://broadcastengineering.com/audio-/dialnorm_good_idea/index.html http://broadcastengineering.com/audio-/dialnorm_good_idea/index.html 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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