AV Specialist Africa Edition Volume 94 - (Page 12)

What is the future of news? NAB2007 saw some exciting new developments in news, with the promise of even more in the very near future. Dick Hobbs looks at the way we will be capturing and editing news in the not too distant future. ot many people would argue with the assertion that, as far as newsgathering is concerned, we are not likely to see many new innovations in tape. Every manufacturer is now moving firmly towards tapeless, file-based systems, and the advantages are clear. There are many reasons to move this way, but for news acquisition in particular there are probably four which are most important. First, tape as a linear medium is really inconvenient in single camera shooting, and doubly so when you have to edit in a hurry as you so often do in news. You have to ingest the whole tape, and cannot start cutting the interview with the reverses until the whole ingest is in: a frustrating waste of time. N I will come back to in a moment. Third, once your video is a data file it can be transferred over any sort of connection. With the growing availability of high speed connectivity that means anywhere can become a feed. It is becoming common now for news crews to simply find the nearest Starbucks and use their wireless internet access to file their stories. As Starbucks coffee houses often have full T1 circuits, and most other users are downloading, this can be a very fast connection indeed. WiMax is the future If and when WiMax becomes a reality then stories can be delivered from anywhere. Indeed several manufacturers – Link Electronics and Grass Valley amongst Standard data storage Second, using standard data storage can reduce costs significantly. In very round terms a minute of HD field recording equates to a gigabyte of data, and 500 GB drives are now readily available for less than $200. This does depend on using standard IT components though, a subject 12 them, alongside WiMax specialist Telabria – are working towards WiMax-based wireless camera technology, so you will be able to broadcast live from anywhere within a city-wide network. The fourth and final advantage of filebased systems is that the content can be wrapped with metadata. Again, this can boost the workflow by ensuring that the right information travels with the content at all times, eliminating errors and avoiding rekeying of important data. With these points in mind, what are manufacturers doing to use these advantages to make newsgathering faster, easier and most cost effective? It is easy to forget that the pioneer in tapeless camcorders was actually Ikegami, which launched a disk recorder, in Avid format, more than a decade ago. The Editcam line is still going strong, with an HD version launched this year which uses Avid’s DNxHD codec for efficient storage of good quality HD. An interesting alliance More interestingly, at NAB this year Ikegami announced a collaboration with

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AV Specialist Africa Edition Volume 94

HD: the winners and losers
The future of news
De Beers Diamond World gets Christie cut
The magic of cinema
SANDF on recruitment drive

AV Specialist Africa Edition Volume 94