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"The Guerrilla Model"

Small-Market ENG Strategies

Ed Agre chuckles at the question: Will his station, KXGN-TV inGlendive, Mont., be upgrading its electronic newsgatheringinfrastructure any time soon?

“We are the smallest market in the entire country,” saysAgre, news director at KXGN and a 50-year broadcast veteran.“Dead last. I'm a one-man news crew here, and I'm still using a10-year-old Panasonic camcorder. There is lots of new technology outthere, but I don't see us having much of a budget to upgrade any timesoon.”

While that may be true in Glendive, many small-market stationsaround the country are implementing or investigating various modelsdesigned to permit them to evolve their newsgathering equipment fromanalog or first-generation digital to DV. Most stations have limitedfunds, and are, therefore, intrigued about the notion of combining DVor mini-DV acquisition technology with software-based field editingtools to improve mobility in the field.

At such stations, “one-man bands” routinely do the bulkof the newsgathering. Therefore, “any combination of tools thatmake it easier for one person to shoot news, record audio, report, andedit their own pieces naturally interests us,” says Lee Anderson,news director at KTVZ in Bend, Ore. (market 201 in the nation).

Anderson and officials at other small-market stations around thecountry recently discussed their ENG technology upgrade strategies andwish lists with VideoSystems.

According to Anderson, KTVZ recently implemented a major overhaul ofits ENG infrastructure with guidance from equipment dealer InfiniteSolutions of Beaverton, Ore.

KTVZ in Bend, Ore. recently overhauled its ENG infrastructure withpurchases of JVC GY-DV500 cameras (shown above with reporter/producerKelsey Hertig) in combination with Avid DV Express editing stations(bottom).

“The change has made our newsgathering far moreefficient,” says Anderson. “We have 11 full-time employeesfor news, one microwave truck, and typically, our ENG crews are one-manaffairs. We were looking to upgrade from using analog S-VHS Panasoniccameras and half-inch edit decks to tools that would make us moremobile and efficient. In February, we made a major purchase to makethis happen.”

That major purchase for a station KTVZ's size, however, still camein under $70,000, according to Scott Wehba, president of InfiniteSolutions, who sold KTVZ executives on the equipment overhaul plan.

“Their goals were to upgrade acquisition from analog todigital, add multiple non-linear editing stations to replace analogeditors, and to come up with some kind of work-group network mediasharing situation at a low cost,” Wehba explains.

To accomplish those goals, KTVZ purchased three JVC GY-DV500Professional DV cameras for field acquisition, in combination with fourAvid DV Express editing stations. Those edit stations have beennetworked together through a gigabit Ethernet network, permitting KTVZto play stories direct-to-air from Avid workstations.

“We aren't editing in the field yet, but with this kind oftechnology, we'll get there eventually,” adds Anderson.“Meantime, DV cameras have lightened the load for our reporters,and the Avids have allowed them to edit their own material. That hasimproved the quality of our work because the creative people are nowputting the pieces together directly. In a place where everyone wearsmultiple hats, this was the best approach.”

Wehba concedes that some people still question whether the mini-DVtape format is robust enough for daily newsgathering, but he insiststhe answer is “yes.”

“The misconception is that mini-DV tapes are weak and not upto the wear and tear of daily news gathering, and that is true oflower-grade tapes,” says Wehba. “But Sony, Panasonic, andJVC are all offering more robust tapes now — professional gradeDV tapes — that have made that a non-issue.”

For financial reasons, many small stations find themselves upgradingslowly and modestly, waiting until their current technology hascompletely worn out. But they also face cultural changes in upgrading— changes in their traditional newsgathering approach.

In Wyoming, for instance, sister stations KTWO, Casper (market 200),and KKTU, Cheyenne (market 197), cover the entire state with a tiny,combined staff. According to news director Susan Burk, the two stationswere upgraded a few years ago to DVCPRO cameras and edit bays, but theyhave never had a satellite truck. That limitation on their ability toreport instantly from outlying areas has led to a tradition of usingedited feature reports on tape from stringers — features that,due to logistical issues, often take several days to put together.

The KTWO news department routinely waits for raw tapes to be mailedin, or driven in, from news locations hours away. Burk says KTWO is nowinvestigating purchasing a satellite truck sometime in the next year,budget permitting, but adds that the station has been eager to findother ways to bring in material from remote areas more efficiently.Shortly before press-time, she said the station had finally conductedits first successful experiment with electronic, remotenewsgathering.

“We have a reporter named Penny Preston in the northwestquadrant of the state, in the Jackson/Cody area, far from where we arelocated,” says Burk. “She has recently been shootingmaterial using her own mini-DV cameras [Panasonic consumer units,PV-DV900 and PV-DV221 palmcorders], and mailing raw tapes to us withnotes, and then we would have to edit it ourselves before putting it onthe air. But working with the engineering staff at our station group[Equity Broadcasting, Little Rock, Ark.], she is now starting to edither own material on her laptop [using Adobe Premiere 6.0]. We conductedour first test last week, during which she sent the video to a website,where we downloaded it. The test wasn't perfect, the video still lookeda little pixilated, but it was acceptable quality, and with some work,we think we can get it better. We'll shortly be airing her reports thisway. The problem with those outlying rural areas, of course, is thatit's hard to find high-speed transmission lines. But the idea is farmore efficient than what we've been doing, so I expect we'll eventuallyexpand the concept and have other reporters doing it sooner or later.I'm definitely putting into our next budget some money to purchase atleast one mini-DV camera for this purpose.”

Burk adds that the station also recently aired two other remotereports that were shot on mini-DV tape and edited later in thenewsroom.

“One report was from a producer on staff who went to the RedDesert, which is a very wild area that the government has targeted foroil and gas exploration,” explains Burk. “Environmentaliststook him there for a report on their objections, and he had to hike in,with goats carrying supplies, which is pretty common in that area. Itwasn't practical to lug along a big camera, so he borrowed a mini-DVcamera [Sony's DCR-TRV11] and got great broadcast footage that way. Inthat case, even if we had a satellite truck, it wouldn't have helped,so those small cameras are definitely useful in remote areas. We didanother report recently showing viewers a training exercise by theMountain Special Response Team here in Wyoming, and our reporter shotthat also using one of those cameras [Sony's DCR-VX2000Handycam].”

At KNVN and KHSL in Chico, Calif. (market 133), a shared serviceagreement has led to one news operation providing coverage for twoseparate stations — an NBC affiliate and a CBS affiliate. Newsdirector Scott Howard says that when the two stations unified theirnews departments a couple of years ago in a deal struck between theowners of the two stations — the Catamount Broadcast Group andthe Evans Broadcast Group — they experienced their most recentequipment evolution: KNVN was using analog S-VHS and KHSO was 3/4in.analog. Both transitioned to Panasonic's DVCPRO for acquisition andediting.

Reporter/producer Brent Kocal uses a DVCPRO AJ-D215 camera to shoota water safety story in Chico, Calif.-the kind of rough terrain thatsmall-market stations routinely cover with one-person ENG crews.

“We've been happy with this technology for traditionalstuff,” says Howard. “But we are still doing linear editingwith the DVCPRO equipment, and we are beginning to see, two yearslater, the value of moving into the DV world and taking advantage ofnewer, less expensive tools. We are waiting for our next budget cycleand have not yet made a commitment, but certainly I think prosumercameras and non-linear editing, even field editing, would be helpful atour level. We just want to get as much mileage as we can out of ourexisting DVPRO equipment first. After that, moving to DV might makesense. I know that in larger markets, the idea of reporters shootingtheir own stuff is not well received, but in smaller markets like ours,we've always done things that way. Lighter, more compact cameras wouldtherefore make sense, and so would laptops for fieldediting.”

The potential of such technology to save money in small markets isvery real.

“Take the notion of bureau offices,” Howard says.“With broadband improving, why couldn't we have our bureaureporters just work from their homes with a mini-DV camera, editingsoftware, and so on? They could write it, shoot it, edit it, and sendus the report over high-speed lines. All we would need to pay is thatperson's fee and the capital cost of the equipment. You wouldn't havethe overhead of a field office to worry about anymore. Stations likeours have wide, rural areas to cover, and sending out live trucks orhaving bureaus in all those areas is frequently impossible anyway. So Ireally like that model and see lots of potential in it for improvingthe way we collect news in the future.”

KMIR in Palm Desert (market 161 in the nation, serving the PalmSprings/Coachella Valley area) still relies on the analog Beta formats,according to news director John LaPorte. KMIR is part of a largerstation group — Milwaukee's Journal Broadcast Group — andso is also part of a larger strategic upgrade plan.

Photojournalist Eddie Luna of KMIR, Palm Desert, uses Betacamtechnology for the station’s ENG work.

“The station group has plans to take us all digital, but itwon't happen for a couple of years because we have to wait our turn asthey first convert larger stations in the group,” LaPorteexplains. “They recently converted our Las Vegas affiliate [KTNV]to digital, and so we inherited some of their analog Beta cameras andother equipment that was still in good shape. After we use it for awhile, we will get upgraded.”

KMIR has been using VOD news servers to take NBC network video feedsfor a couple years. The station was also one of the first small-marketstations in the nation to begin transmitting an HD signal this pastMay. The relative health of the station's Beta equipment, combined withthe HD transmission project, caused the station to prioritizetechnology upgrades in other areas ahead of ENG in recent years.

“We've recently installed a sophisticated rack ofup-converters [a combination of Miranda, Tandberg, and Evertztechnology] to turn our NTSC signal into HD, so that project has beenthe top project for a while,” says Greg Green, the station'sdirector of operations. “With the timeline of the company'scapital plan for converting all its stations to digital being aboutfive years, we are hoping our future ENG upgrades will eventually getus technology that will permit us to head toward a tapeless newsroomsomeday. But keep in mind, we are a smaller station and we are notdoing volume news, so we will always work within certain financial andmanpower constraints. But certainly, there is technology out there nowthat is starting to make sense within those constraints, and we'reresearching it carefully.”

How long before local news reporters, using low-cost, micro-sized,digital cameras plugged into cell phones, start routinely filing live,wireless reports from remote locations, eliminating the need forsatellite and microwave trucks, or even relatively new satellite phonetechnology?

For most industry watchers, that evolution is still far fromreality; not because such technology isn't viable, but because it isn'tcost-effective yet, especially for small market broadcasters.

Sony’s mini-DV unit, the PD-150, is making inroads intonewsgathering at various market levels around the country.

“Networks will pioneer that stuff, and local stations willfollow, but their needs and budgets are different,” says ChrisBone, a broadcast sales representative at Video Tape Products,Glendale, Calif. “Clients at the local level purchase based onperformance and cost. Right now, performance is pretty even on theacquisition side, so they are basing choices mainly on cost. This iswhy so-called prosumer and consumer tools aimed at videographers andthe general public are making their way into local broadcasting. Localnews in small markets will always rely on lower-cost tools, and some ofthe coming big advancements won't reach their price level for a whileyet.”

Still, manufacturers are developing various tools aimed at gettingnews people transitioned to the mobile digital world at a reasonablecost.

“Look at Sony's DSR-DU1 [compact video disk recorder,compatible with many Sony DV-Camcorders],” says Bone.“That's a DV recorder about the size of a camera battery that youcan use to turn a camcorder into a disc recorder. I'd think that wouldbe a nice tool for a news photographer. Lots of manufacturers arecoming out with such things. The third-party folk are also making audiopackages and adapters for these DV cameras so that you can get mostprofessional-level functions out of them.”

Industry people are watching such developments closely. Greg Thies,operations manager for KING TV, Seattle, for instance, is optimisticabout the evolution of recordable disc camera technology.

“Right now, we use Beta-SX, and that is a fine application forgathering news at our level,” says Thies. “But one reasonwe are holding off on exploring DV or mini-DV too deeply is we arewaiting to see what happens with field acquisition once we can get awayfrom tape. I like the DVD disc option more than hard-disc basedcameras, because I see the cost for storage as being expensive withthose cameras. But with DVDs, you have a writeable medium that providesexcellent storage, without taking up much physical or network space.Blu-Ray [an in-development recordable disc technology created by aconsortium of manufacturers, including Sony, Matsushita, Hitachi,Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Thompson, and others] is certainly somethingwe are following, and I think in the next 12 to 18 months, we might seeapplications for broadcasters.”

Many news veterans, however, wonder about the durability of eitherhard drives or DVDs in the field.

“Tapes are very durable generally,” says Devin Burress,assistant chief engineer at WPTV, West Palm Beach, Fla. “You candamage a tape and still get most of your data from it. If you crack aDVD or smash a hard drive, you have probably lost everything you shot.That's why news people are still waiting to see how it will all shakedown. We need to see more field tests performed with this technology.In the end, cost and which is the more durable media will determinewhich direction the industry goes.”

In any case, many industry types feel that news broadcasting is theideal venue for the convergence of high-end and low-end approaches— a sort of circular synergy whereby high-end capabilities arefinding their way into low-end cameras, making them attractive tobroadcasters at all levels.

“Look at mini-DV,” says Sal Paglia, former engineeringmanager at Oxygen Media, a New York-based cable network. AlthoughOxygen does not produce traditional broadcast news, it relies heavilyon ENG-style coverage to create a wide range of diverse programming,including several shows that are now shot in the field on DV-cam— Sony's PD-150 — by producers/editors dubbedpredators by the network.

“These cameras originally started as consumer cameras,”says Paglia. “Third-party manufacturers then producedaccessories, such as wireless mic receiver brackets, light posts,balanced audio inputs with level control, matte boxes, and wide angleconverters. As the use shifted back to the broadcaster, manufacturerslike Sony and Panasonic started adding more of these features that arefound in higher-end camcorders. Sony's PD-150 is a good example. In itsprimal state, it was once a VX-1000 [consumer camera]. Throughevolution, it grew XLR inputs, easy audio level adjustments, a shotgunmic, and timecode abilities. The driver in all this has been cost,followed by ease of use, and acceptance. It's a trend that is not goingaway.”

THE TIME WARNER CABLE GROUP HAS AGGRESSIVELY pursued the so-called“guerrilla news” model in recent years, starting with aregional, 24-hour cable news channel in the early ‘90s —New York's NY1. (That channel was re-launched with a new facility andtechnology upgrades earlier this year. See the March, 2002 issueof VideoSystems.) The company has expanded the concept into sixother markets, most recently in Charlotte, N.C., this past June, and itis expected to continue into at least four more cities by the middle ofnext year, according to Harlan Neugeboren, Time Warner's seniordirector of engineering and technology.

Reporter John Agresti heads into the field on the first day on theair for News14 Carolina in Charlotte, N.C., using Sony’s DSR-250mini-DV camera (top), while editor David Hyman works on a PinnacleVortex News Journalist workstation (bottom).

In the Time Warner model, individual video journalists travel theregion with DVC-PRO or DV cameras, collecting large volumes of video,editing that material on Pinnacle Systems' Vortex News Journalistworkstations, and then playing the pieces back around the clock in newswheel fashion through Pinnacle servers, with live updates inserted asneeded.

While NY1 evolved its acquisition technology from Hi8 to Panasonic'sDVCPRO, the brand-new News14 Carolina and future launches are startinglife with Sony's DSR-250 mini-DV cameras as their main acquisitiontool.

“The older stations will start adding mini-DV to the mix, aswell, so they'll end up using an integrated mix of DV-Cam and DVCPROover time,” says Neugeboren. “We had been talking toPanasonic and Sony for a while, after using Panasonic's DVCPRO forabout five years in New York. We kept saying we needed smaller cameras,since we demand a lot from our journalists. DV-Cam is lighter and moremobile, with all the same functionality of the bigger cameras.Essentially, it's perfect for the kind of newsgathering that we do, sowe decided to go with those cameras.”

Still, Neugeboren emphasizes that the ultimate goal of avolume-based, 24-hour news service is sucking edited news reports intodigital servers quickly. As a result, the company is closely monitoringdevelopments related to the evolution of hard disc-cams and DVD-cams as“an ultimate solution” beyond DV-Cam.

“From a field acquisition standpoint, we don't care what kindof camera it is as long as we can reliably record the images,” hesays. “Our bigger issue is how to transfer the material to ourcentralized server. Therefore, recordable disc cameras interest us, asdo cameras with hard drives. The transfer speed from the hard drive orDVD is the whole key for us, so I presume, eventually, hard drives willbe the way we would go since file transfers would probably be thequickest method. But we'll have to see how those technologiesdevelop.”

Similarly, Time Warner has installed Pinnacle's Vortex editingtechnology, and in Charlotte, it has been beta testing the Vortex 200add-on — a software-based editor that includes full-scale effectsand graphics abilities. This ability to transform most PCs in thenewsroom, and eventually, field laptops into potential edit stations is“very appealing for our kind of operation,” saysNeugeboren.
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