HD Feed Streams

High-Definition News Emerges Slowly By Michael Murrie, for Communicator, April 2001 High-definition television newscasts are slowly emerging, despite controversy about digital television standards and formats, slow digital television sales, limited programming, and reluctance among owners to make big initial investments. At least two television stations now have regular HD newscasts, and several others have experimented with HD news production. There’s even a molasses-paced rivalry evolving. In May 1999, KOMO-TV in Seattle started what it called the first local daily news in the world to broadcast in HDTV. A month later, rival KING-TV also started a high-definition newscast. KOMO recently began using full-motion HD news graphics, and KING is unveiling a new weather center that works with HD. Greg Thies, news operations manager at KING, says the framework of every such project must consider HD’s detailed resolution and wide aspect ratio. “It’s not a simple flip of the switch,” he says. This year, WRAL-TV in Raleigh, NC, the first station in the nation to broadcast HDTV, began a high-definition newscast on Super Bowl Sunday. WRAL says it’s the first television station in the nation to produce newscasts in high definition, including field newsgathering and editing. So what’s the difference between what WRAL just started and what KING and KOMO started almost two years ago? Not much. Most of KOMO’s and KING’s news video is shot in DTV wide screen in the field, while WRAL says its field video is all HD. “The HD video quality is stunning on an HD set,” says John Harris, director of special projects for WRAL-TV. “But we also see a very clear improvement in the down-converted analog video from our HD studio cameras and the new HD field cameras. This is most apparent when we go directly from locally shot sports video, for instance, to video we’ve taken in on a feed–the quality is so different it’s jarring. We’re now trying to improve the quality of all outside video because it looks terrible on the air next to our down-converted HD material.” At least as significant is another rivalry, the one between Sony and Panasonic. KOMO and KING use Sony Betacam SX camcorders to shoot wide-screen (16:9 aspect ratio DTV) news stories in the field and up-convert them for the HD broadcasts. KOMO also shoots some HD field video with Sony’s HDC-750 portable camera. As for Panasonic, it says WRAL’s accomplishment demonstrates that all-HD news can be implemented in mid-sized markets. WRAL purchased scores of pieces of Panasonic’s DVCPRO HD equipment, including 59 AJ-HD150 studio videotape recorders, 29 AJ-HDC20A 1080i camcorders, an HD switcher, and an AJ-HDR150 video server with multi-resolution recording and playback. The server plays mostly short, repetitive video elements such as bumpers. The list price for the camcorder is $60,000, and the video servers start at $80,000, but you can bet WRAL received deep discounts with these quantities, especially being the first to use them on a regular basis. Though it shoots in HD, WRAL continues to frame material for the standard 4:3 aspect ratio. The station’s satellite and microwave trucks are wide screen, but standard definition. WRAL previously used Panasonic DVCPRO50, (50 megabit per second compared with 100 for DVCPRO HD) for newsgathering. Panasonic says the DVCPRO HD is backwardly compatible with the earlier DVCPRO formats. “It’s a big investment,” says Harris, “but you can’t top the quality of the pictures.” –Michael Murrie is Communicator’s products writer.