17 January 2007
Chattanooga based WRCB has recently installed a Quantel Newsbox system to deliver its daily news production. WRCB Channel 3 is an NBC affiliate serving Southeastern Tennessee, Northwestern Georgia, Northeastern Alabama, and Southwestern North Carolina.
WRCB was In the Mood for a new production system so veteran Production Manager Doug Loveridge set off on a fact-finding mission to NAB 06 in Las Vegas. Doug met with several vendors at the show, and was particularly impressed with the Quantel Newsbox. A couple of weeks later, the WRCB project team comprising journalists, reporters, editors and producers visited KWTX in Waco, TX, who installed a Quantel sQ news system in 2005. I went to NAB in April and we went live on 13th November so it was a super-fast project, says Loveridge.
One of the reasons we went with Quantel is that we purchased a Picturebox 12 years ago and it is still in daily use; you dont get much better ROI than that! We have had very few problems with it, but when weve needed support it was excellent and it has meant that in those 12 years we have never been off-air.
The WRCB news system comprises 8 sQ Cut journalist workstations, two sQ Edit seats for craft editors and an eQ multi-resolution editing, visual effects and color correction system which produces promos. The existing Picturebox will also continue in service alongside the Newsbox still producing that old black magic. This is a great set-up as everyone can be working on the same piece of video; the journalist is putting the story together, the producer can do a quick V/O and the editor can make a trail for the nightly news all at the same time, Loveridge added.
The Newsbox takes care of all the news programming for WRCB from the Sunrise to the Moonlight Serenade; namely the Channel 3 Eyewitness News from 5am – 7am, the Live at Five show the 5:30 news and Eyewitness News programmes at 6pm and 11pm – a total of over 4 ½ hours of news programming per day.
With local news speed to air is key – we are making news on the fly. While the news is happening we can send a photographer to the scene, ingest the footage into the Newsbox and air the story while it is actually happening – that is a beautiful thing, says Loveridge.
Archiving is also made easy. As Loveridge explains, Typically murder cases can take months to come to court and we can get the original story back real quick as we dont have to dub it to tape. This is a much simpler workflow but also as space is money we have been able to free up a lot of room at the station as we dont need a tape store.
The fact that the Newsbox came with 5 years QCare was very important to us, concludes Loveridge. Dave Black and the Quantel team really took care of us. They were very responsive and made us feel that we really mattered to them. Quantel engineers were here throughout the installation and the go live. We didnt need to call on them at go live as everything went like a dream, but it was great to have them there, and its great to know they will fully support us in the future too.
17 January 2007
Bangladeshi broadcaster Channel S Television has struck a deal with leading content management and delivery company GlobeCast to deliver three of its channels – Channel S, Channel S World and Channel S Plus – to the Sky platform using GlobeCasts capacity on the Eurobird satellite.
The broadcasters flagship station Channel S Television is the fastest growing free-to-view Asian television channel in the UK. It is the only free-to-view broadcast tailored specifically for the UK’s growing, Sylheti-speaking Bangladeshi community.
The multichannel offering including Channel S World and Channel S Plus, broadcasts 24 hours a day free-to-air. The multi-channel offering aims to inform, entertain and educate British Bengalis and British Asians in the United Kingdom and Ireland. As such, programmes are bilingual in English and Sylheti and cover themes of interest for all British Asians. The channels feature both traditional and progressive content in their line ups of talk shows, kids shows, documentaries, current affairs and news programmes.
GlobeCasts tailored solution for the three channels includes fibre connectivity from the broadcasters studios in Walthamstow to GlobeCasts London Technical Operations Centre, where the signals are uplinked to the Sky Digital platform via the Eurobird satellite at 28.5ºE.
The Channel-S offering will join the over 50 video channels and 11 radio channels which GlobeCast delivers to the platform, including major television broadcasters such as EuroNews, Abu Dhabi TV, Extreme Sports, CCTV 9, Audi TV and others.
17 January 2007
As of 2007, Arabic will be the 29th language in which the international all-music MTV television will broadcast its musical repertoire. The Dubai-based al-Arabiya Television network has just signed an accord with MTV Networks International to launch MTV Arabiya in 2007.The announcement of an Arabic channel had been made last summer but MTV reportedly lacked a local partner until now.
The new MTV Arabiya, a free-to-air channel, will broadcast 24 hours a day entertainment and music programmes for young viewers in the Middle East – a significant audience considering that approximately half of the area’s population is under 25.
Producers in Dubai have said that the channel will also broadcast local programmes. The network should be launched in the second half of 2007 and will challenge two Middle Eastern music and entertainment giants – Rotana TV and Melody Music.
16 January 2007
Joanna Shields, Google’s European MD of Strategic Partnerships and Syndication, has left the search engine for social networking company Bebo.
Shields, who comes from an engineering background, is credited with putting together Google’s deal with the UK’s BSkyB last year and will now head up Bebo’s new international division.
Shields will be based at Bebo’s offices in Carnaby Street, central London.
16 January 2007
Broadcasting Board of Governors Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson has asked President Bush not to put his name in nomination for another term. Tomlinson said he serves at the pleasure of the President and plans to remain in office until his successor is confirmed.
In a letter to President Bush dated January 9, Tomlinson said he is proud of his record of service and appreciated deeply your repeatedly submitting my name to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for reconfirmation to this position. However, I have concluded that it would be far more constructive to write a book about my experiences rather than to seek to continue government service.
In the letter, Tomlinson cited the role he has played in launching Arabic-language satellite television across the Middle East, daily Persian-language satellite television to Iran, expansion of radio and television to Afghanistan and significantly increasing radio and television transmissions to Cuba.
Tomlinsons chairmanship of the BBG began in 2002. He previously served as Editor-In-Chief of Readers Digest following a 28-year career with the magazine. In 1982, he was appointed by President Reagan and served two years as Director of Voice of America. He later served as a member of the Board for International Broadcasting (which supervised Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) for eight years beginning in 1986.
16 January 2007
The latest baby of Skype’s founders, The Venice Project, has been rebranded Joost. The peer-to-peer video network has acquired its new Dutch-sounding name as part of the company’s intention to “become synonymous
with the best of TV and the best of the Web”.
Presently beta-testing (the AIB is one of those test beds), Joost will have a new release in the next few weeks. We’re already impressed with the quality of the video delivered to an AIB computer, and we believe that this could mark the start of the future of web-delivered video content in a secure, DRM-compliant way.
