What it takes to produce an HD newscast
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Aug 30th 2007 9:01AM
posted Aug 30th 2007 9:01AM
WFTS started their HD journey way back in 1999 when they started to broadcast ATSC in preparation for the digital transition, and while some of that infrastructure is still in use today, much of it has already been replaced. Even way back then they spent around 2 million, and still didn't have the ability to do much more than upconvert or pass on the national ABC HD feed. After about 8 years of passing on ABC's national HD, they finally decided they wanted to be the first local HD production in the area, and like many of us, once they made the decision, it couldn't get done fast enough. So, 4 months and about 1 million dollars later, they produced the first local HD broadcast on July 28th, 2007 -- this didn't include the $800,000 in cameras they bought the year before. You'd think the cameras would be the biggest expense, and while they're probably the single biggest, you still have to buy an HD switcher, encoder, sync-master, HD video server, as well as a whole list of other equipment and cables.
There are a few control rooms, but the two main ones are: production control and master control. Production control is where the directors work during a live broadcast; from here they control which cameras are used and when the newscast should switch from the studio, to on location, weather map generators, or pre-recorded segments. In order to go HD, WFTS had to upgrade all their monitors and switches, so that the directors could see what you'd see. Among other things, this consists of two large switching infrastructures; and they still can't show HD segments or HD from the field -- but they are planning on fixing that.
Production control, this is where the Technical Directors work, they ensure that they're using the best angle available. All of these screens were upgraded in the move to HD, as well as the switches to supply them.
This is the Evertz MVP that allows them to display all their sources to the monitors in the production control room.
How'd you like to have to run and terminate all these wires, that's a lot of sources! Yes, they're all new.
The control panel for the Kalypso HD production switch from Grass Valley. It allows the Technical Director to control exactly what video is displayed during the live HD broadcast.
This is the actual broadcast switch -- the Technical Director uses the remote panel.
The production switch doesn't have as many wires as the multi-display control, but still more than we do at our house.
One of the HD cameras.
The Canon lens for the HD camera.
The teleprompter attached to the HD camera.
Since much of the HD equipment needs to stay in sync (60Hz in the case of 720p) this is the sync-master that makes it happen.
For locally produced segments, there are G5s right next to the old tape machines, eventually they'll go all HD and get rid of the older equipment.
Final Cut Pro in action
The video server used to store segments for the live broadcast; these are SD, but the capture devices can be replaced to support HD, and they'd have to add more disc space.
That's all the production equipment, but without the base HD equipment they wouldn't be able to send the HD broadcast outside of their offices, so here is the rest of the equipment that is needed. Most of this was required for them to start passing on the HD programming as well as digital broadcasting.
That's all the production equipment, but without the base HD equipment they wouldn't be able to send the HD broadcast outside of their offices, so here is the rest of the equipment that is needed. Most of this was required for them to start passing on the HD programming as well as digital broadcasting.
D-5 HD tape machines, this is how they will record syndicated shows like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, so they can be played back at the appropriate time. Unfortunately these can't be used to feed the local newscast with things like HD highlights from a football game.
Like many tape devices, they are on the way out, this is the future home of the HD media server, which will also be used to record syndicated programming.
This is master control, this is the guy that's at the switch. That's right, if he doesn't hit it, you won't get HD, but instead an upconverted SD signal.
At the top of the rack is the remote console for the master control switch, it's used to turn on the HD goodness.
This is the real HD switch, it allows them to switch from the upconverted SD feed, the national HD feed, locally produced HD or the D5 tape machines.
These are the MPEG encoders, they compress the signal in preperation to send the signal to your house. There are two HD encoders and one SD for their sub-channel.
The PSIP generation device, it collects information from a service and inserts the data into the stream, so that your TV knows information about the channel and current programming.
The multiplexers that put it altogether, from here it can go to the transmission tower or the other MSOs that carry their feed. Most providers receive the signal via a dedicated fiber connection, but others receive it OTA just like many of us do.
This is actually Jack's office. How many of you have an HDTV in your office? We sure don't!
We'd like to extend a very special thanks to Jack Winter and everyone at WFTS for their time and dedicated to our passion, --yeah we're talking about HDTV -- and for taking the time to show us around and answer our questions.
We'd like to extend a very special thanks to Jack Winter and everyone at WFTS for their time and dedicated to our passion, --yeah we're talking about HDTV -- and for taking the time to show us around and answer our questions.
Hey! can you ask them to take an original frame of their HD broadcast and compare it to a frame taken from the Cable's HD feed, and the Over the feed, and do a comparison???
I bet the cable's compression is insane... But I'd would be interesting to see exactly hat it was doing!
They do this internally, but you can check it for yourself as well. Just get a PC capture card that will capture both OTA and QAM. Then capture the same channel from each source and compare. Here in Tampa, Ch28 isn't recompressed that much, but other channels are.
nice feature!
This is one of the best articles I have ever read on this site. Well done!
-KLH
Plural for "Mac Pro" is "Mac Pros" ...
Possessive for "Mac Pro" is "Mac Pro's" ...
A note on terminology: The Technical Director (or TD) is the one who pushes buttons on the switcher during the newscast. At some stations (not sure if WFTS is among them), a Director is also present, generally just talking and not pushing buttons. The Producer is responsible for news content, communicating with the anchors in the studio and reporters in the field, ensuring the show finishes on time.
Thanks for the correction.
I'm a director at my local TV station. We're starting the HD conversion process as we speak. Things will probably get interesting!
have you ever heard of the band Six feet Under?
Aaron is correct. Most, if not all, large markets have a TD, and a Director. Smaller markets have one person doing both jobs.
Like me!!!
It pains me to see a station who still has to use a router as their HD master control switcher and delay programing on tape.
That's no Mac Pro, it's a G5 ;)
Like that? -> https://www.intelco.com.br/p/Rack/M9742LL-A
Great article! I work at a REALLY small local cable channel with no production capabilities (except for one old G5 running FCP 4!), and looking at all this HD goodness just makes me drool... I mean, we still run Betacam SP for editing and playback! Yikes!
Why is it guys in baseball caps with ponytails always have so much power?
Living in this market, it's great to see a local channel step up and give us more HD. That said, they also remind you that they are in HD, with everything (including weather radar) now in "HD". "First in HD" and an "HD" tag to everything gets old. We get it, you now have HD. Also switching to field reports in SD as well as other out of studio shots gets annoying. As a side note, the NBC affiliate in the Tampa market is now running promos that they too will have HD newscasts "soon".
Yeah they're definitely proud of themselves, and the weather is my favorite part of the broadcast. When I was at the station they were doing the 5'oclock news or I would have gotten some pics of that equipment.
As for WFLA, they've been saying that for some time, but rumor is that it will happen today or tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath.
In response to the part about the field reports being in SD... the national ABC and NBC HD news feeds do the same thing. Yes, it's annoying, as only 10-20 seconds of in-studio reporting are in HD before they go into another field report. But, if they aren't doing it yet, I'm not sure how you can expect a local Tampa station to beat them to it. There's a lot more in-studio HD time for a local news broadcast though, so it would be less annoying in that respect.
i don't have an HDTV in my office but I do have 2000+ laptops =)
If you think that's special, you should check out any of the HD trucks out there. $10 million production facilities that can pack up and do a show from the middle of the desert (if necessary).
http://www.mobiletvgroup.com/mtg_frameset.html?menu=mtg_menu.html&page=mg_17_gear.html
Yeah I don't like that weather guy. I think he's a douche!!
How about referring to the producer (with a strikethrough) one more time in this story?
That's nothing. You should see what we had to do to get CNN HD out the door. Basically rebuilt the facility from the ground up.
"HD Newscast"? You've got to be kidding me. I live in the Tampa Bay area, and WFTS isn't doing anything close to "HD News".
Post an article when the station is broadcasting HD field video and HD inserts instead of just HD talking head shots. THEN you can call it an HD Newscast.
You can call it what you want, but most of the newscast is in HD. They are working on making the entire show HD, I for one and happy they didn't wait to start broadcasting any HD till they could do it all in HD.
I spent a nice relaxing week on vacation in the Tampa area a few months ago. Too bad the condo I stayed in didn't have an HD set. It would have been nice to see. None of the local stations in CT broadcast their news in HD.
That was a great article. Thanks Ben.
Here in Las Vegas, KLAS-TV, the CBS affiliate, has been showing HD news for quite a while now. Even the stories from the field are recorded in HD. And they just upgraded their chopper to HD. AMAZING!!
On the other side of the coin, our NBC affiliate just upgraded their newscast to HD...but only the in-studio shots are HD...all of the field recordings are still in SD.
Our ABC and Fox affiliates have yet to make the transition.
Good article explaining all the really expensive crap we have to buy, install, cable and use these days. (And nice that it's written in layman's terms instead of reading like an article in TV Technology).
Only correction I have: the Kalypso is a switchER, not just switch. And I prefer the Ross Synergys over the Kalypsos...
Interesting, what is the difference between a switch and a switchER?
WFAA in Dallas went HD back in January. Pretty much the same set-up. They are also the ABC affiliate. Interestingly, they upconvert all of the 720P network stuff to 1080i for broadcast. I got to tour their facility back in June.
One thing you didn't mention in your article is how the talent is affected. Due to HD's resolution, they have to now apply make-up with an airbrush as traditional methods look caked on. In short, it's a major undertaking. Another trend is control rooms with virtual monitor walls. This allows for re-purposing the monitor wall with the push of a button. For example, NBC Today show and the NBC nightly news share a common control room even though they originate from different studios. The virtual wall allows them to avoid a dedicated control room for each studio.
My college, Columbia College Chicago, just bought a live production truck, and through a partnership with Chicago's only local HD news station, ABC 7-WLS, the truck is being outfitted with HD gear. The empty truck I heard cost about $250,000, and all that is is the truck, cabinetry, and racks for the new equipment. You can read more and see a pic of the truck here:http://broadcastengineering.com/infrastructure/columbia-college-media-production-truck-0823/
-Brian
Man, someone needs to do a better job dressing the back of their equipment rack. I work as a custom integrator, and an equipment rack dressed like that would be trouble...
One of our big local TV stations in the Boston area is WBZ, and they are switching not only to HD, but also to a tapeless workflow. This article in Broadcast Engineering describes what they have done to implement this transition: http://broadcastengineering.com/infrastructure/broadcasting_triple_play/index.html
According to the article, the SD to HD transition isn't nearly as big a deal as going all tapeless. Storing everything on big Avid servers instead of tapes is really making their news production faster and more efficient.
Great article. How does the weather map get into the system? Do they use a HD scan converter that is timed to the plant for keying? Let me know if you need a DVI-D to HD-SDI converter.
MikeF,
Sorry but since they were doing a newscast when I was there, I wasn't able to see the weather equipment.
They do use a scan converter as you have described.
This is a G5
Like that https://www.intelco.com.br/p/Rack/M9742LL-A
Kids if you liked that - you would love the place i work -
550hrs of online uncompressed storage - 12.5petabytes, 10,000hrs of offline storage in one of theese http://www.sun.com/storagetek/tape_storage/tape_libraries/sl8500/
300hd monitors within 100ft of where i sit, 22 40"HD plasmas within 15foot of where i sit, 12HD studio cameras within 20'foot
12500miles of HD Fiber spanning the globe, 12500miles of SD fiber connecting our 4broadcast centers, all built from scratch starting in 2005
Wow!
We'd love to see it, just say when and we'll be there with our cameras.
Ben
Thanks for the free advertisment for our multiplexers (the Logic Innovations 1RU boxes) ;-). We actually got some calls because of this article - how cool is that?
You missed one bit of kit and fact though - the muxes are actually in a redundant configuration pair, with a smart redundancy switch (the 1/2 with RU box) to switch the two for failover. Same goes for the Tandberg encoders which look to be configured in a hot-hot pair with secondary subchannel passed to both muxes.
If you guys would ever like to do an in-depth of the nitty gritty of end to end HD data delivery feel free to hit me up via email :).
sadly not on your door step - i worik in the gulf
Yeah, that is a G5. When they upgraded to the Mac Pro line they loved how well the case handled air-flow and stuff, they just kept it. Why change something that works? The only big difference is the ports on the front and the addition of another Optical Drive door. Steve Jobs explanation? "We had more space"