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August 9, 2007
Big Ten Network Fires Up In HD
This weekend, the Big Ten Network, an HD channel that will focus on college sports and other campus content, will begin its testing phase before going live August 30.
The network is housed in a 40,000 sq. ft. facility in Chicago that was built by Azcar Technologies and will help serve out up to 85% of its schedule in HD.
Big Ten Network executive producer Leon Schweir says the decision to build an all-HD facility was a no-brainer because the network facility was built from scratch. If the network had invested in standard definition digital gear, it would have found itself behind the times in a year or two when HD becomes the standard. The tapeless facility can handle up to 10 incoming channels and six playout channels via an Avid Unity Isis storage system. Avid and Apple Final Cut Pro editing systems will tap into the Isis system and allow for incoming games to be cut down to two-minute packages for the highlight show. A Sony production switcher and Ikegami HD cameras operating at 720p/60fps on two sound stages are also featured at the facility.
“The file-based workflow presents all kinds of new challenges,” says Joe Coffaro, Fox Sports national director of engineering. For example, there is still a large amount of videotape that exists at the Big Ten schools.
The network will also have three unique HD production vehicles built by the Mobile TV Group. The 40-foot units are designed to be cost-effective and flexible; many of the venues for non-major sports (sports other than basketball and football) will require a generator to power the production truck. But instead of renting a generator for $1,500, Phil Garvin, Mobile TV Group president, decided to build one into the truck.
The trailer contains a 72-input 3ME Grass Valley Kayak production switcher with 12 internal DVEs, two 6-channel EVS replay systems, six Grass Valley LDK-8000 cameras (it can handle up to 10), 72-times Canon lenses, Chyron Hyper-X2 for graphics, a Clipstore, and a Yamaha 5000 audio mixer.
Garvin says cutting back on items like the amount of EVS channels and cameras helped reduce the cost of the truck without compromising the quality of the smaller show. “It has the same cameras and the same fantastic quality,” he says, “but at a much lower cost.”
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Iconix Offers HD View To A ‘Kill’
The Spike miniseries The Kill Point is the latest TV project to make use of mini-HD camera technology. Thanks to Iconix and its HD-RH1 video camera, director Steve Shill and cinematographer Bert Dunk got some unique shots in HD, including an entire scene shot from inside a bank's air ducts.
Dunk says that when he first saw the script he immediately envisioned using the Iconix camera, which is about the size of a golf ball and weighs two ounces. (The camera system is comprised of a 1.32-inch x 1.50-inch x 1.92-inch POV camera head weighing 2.5 oz.; a 3.5 lb. universal HDTV controller unit measuring 8.4-inches x 1.8-inches x 12-inches; power supply, and 3, 6 and 10 meter cables.)
The camera is priced at $16,000 and the company says it can make the head smaller by changing the dimensions of the prism block and the mounted array of three CCD chips. The remote head can keep pace with larger HD video cameras and can shoot in 35 different formats and frame-rate combinations.
"We're able to feed the Iconix footage into an SRW1 recording deck, essentially feeding it a 4:2:2 signal with much less compression than, say, a Sony HDCam deck," Dunk explains. Bill Hill, co-producer of The Kill Pointfor Lionsgate Television, credits Panavision's Plus 8 Digital rental facility with tracking down the Iconix. "We've tried to get everybody on set involved in coming up with various ways to use the camera,” he says, “and it's great to see how many different ideas everyone has."
Michael Endler, first assistant cameraman for The Kill Point, notes that the Iconix footage had complete intercutability with the two Sony HDC 950 and Arri SR 16 mm cameras used to film the series. "We've placed it behind railroad ties for actors to run and jump over during chase scenes,” he says. “We've rigged it to a boom pole and manipulated it inside of air ducts. During one scene showing a spy cam coming up from the bank floor, we were able to place the Iconix behind where the camera was to appear, and shoot it as it came up out of the floor.”
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TV4 Sweden Expands HD Facility
As Great Britain struggles with its HD upgrades, TV4 Sweden recently added a new installation in Stockholm that includes HD ingest, up-conversion of SD material and transmission facilities. Per Atterving, TV4 Sweden consultant engineer says system integrator ATG Broadcast played a key role in the network’s first phase in the transition of TV4 from SD to a full SD/HD parallel service. "Our SD infrastructure uses a highly-efficient, fully file-based system and we were very keen to retain that efficiency in the rollout of HD," says Atterving.
TV4 made its HD debut during the 2006 FIFA World Cup with soccer games airing on a channel called HD-kanalen ("the HD channel") in co-operation with Sveriges Television. The channel was broadcasting on satellite from Canal Digital and terrestrially from a few selected transmitters.
Work on the new facility began in March with the installation of an HD ingest area that included a Snell & Wilcox Memphis MPEG2 HD encoder and the addition of HD ports to TV4's Omneon server. It also included a substantial investment in Axon interfaces and format converters.
Atterving says channel branding will be performed using an Avid DekoCast graphics system incorporating clips and cell animation options. A new NVision HD presentation switcher will work alongside the existing Eyeheight SD switcher, providing the network's program controllers freedom to operate the SD and HD sister channels in tandem or with separate content.
An existing 64-square Pro-Bel SD router has been expanded to accommodate 32-square HD crosspoints. The contract also includes a 16x16 HD router and Tektronix WFM7100 HD waveform monitor.
"This layer of the project included adding 2.7 terabytes of disc storage to the Omneon archive, increasing the total online system capacity to nearly 11 terabytes,” says ATG Broadcast Sales Director Alan Pimm, “all with practically instant access."
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Filling in the HD Gaps
While events like the Oscars, Grammys and Super Bowl air in high definition, there are still thousands of events that broadcast in standard def. Mark Howorth, CEO of remote production services provider NMT, discusses the challenges of getting smaller events on board with HD.
Q: What steps are you taking to help make it possible to move smaller-scale productions to HD?
A: NMT is attacking the small-scale HD productions in two ways. We have built three 30-foot foot mobile units, which we call the SBS units. These units can do a stand alone HD telecast in the three-to-six camera range and we can offer a full HD telecast for a price that is half what would normally be charged for a 53-foot truck. Our second initiative is the Sony MVP units. These are small trailer-type units (capable of being pulled by a standard pick-up truck) that are a product of Sony and built by Venue Services Group, NMT's wholly-owned subsidiary. We see these units going into the non-professional sports world and the corporate world as well. They sell between $500,000 and $2 million list price.
Q: What are some of the more popular HD questions you hear from clients?
A: The biggest is, "When is an HD truck going to cost the same as an SD truck?" My guess is that will not occur for quite some time, if ever. The reason is that our pricing tends to be driven by the cost to build the trucks. Since HD equipment is still significantly higher cost than SD, we are forced to have prices that are still about 25%-30% higher than SD.
The other question that sits out there is, where does 1080p fit into the remote production landscape over the next five years? The increased resolution means that it will be a goal that forward-thinking telecasters will look to utilize.
And [other] questions we are hearing are, what part of the equipment chain should be 1080p now? How do we integrate it into the workflow to make sure that we don't create compatibility issues, especially when we need to make a TV truck last for 10 years? Clearly cameras are the first step. But it will be interesting to see what happens after that.
Q: Do you think the February 2009 digital switch will drive more HD production?
A: I don't think the DTV transition has direct impact on the growth of HD. Many people seem to confuse the discussion about distribution technology and content creation technology. I think that it is great that America will have a digital distribution infrastructure by 2009. But I worry that many consumers may think that in 2009 all signals will be in HD, or if they don't have an HD set (as opposed to just digital), they will lose the ability to receive a signal.
This fear, uncertainty and doubt may lead to more television sales over the next two years, but ultimately will lead to a lot of frustration. The TV producers and carriage providers need to improve their delivery of simple education to the end-consumer.
--Interviewed by Ken Kerschbaumer
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WPTV Becomes 50th HD News Station
(From an August 6 article at BroadcastingCable.com)
WPTV, the NBC affiliate in West Palm Beach, Fla., launched high-definition newscasts on Aug. 4, becoming the 50th station in the U.S. to offer at least part of its newscast in HDTV. It is the second Florida station in as many weeks to launch HD news, following Scripps sister station WFTS Tampa, which began its HD newscasts July 28. WFTV, the Cox station and ABC affiliate in Orlando, became the first Florida station with HD news in June 2006.
For more…
HBO Taps Thomson For HD Expansion
(From an August 1 article at BroadcastingCable.com)
HBO, which has announced plans to offer all 26 of its networks in high-definition by mid-2008, is buying more than $5 million in HD playout and production equipment from Thomson Grass Valley to support its HD ramp-up. The premium cable network, which previously used Grass Valley Profile video servers and Venus routers, is buying 30 Grass Valley K2 HD Media Servers, including eight 4-channel servers for its network playout operations; a dozen 2-channel time delay servers (for multiple time zone support); two 4-channel ingest servers; two 40-channel breakaway servers (for late-breaking and live events); two 2-channel on-demand servers; and four 4-channel recovery servers.
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NCTA Appeals Set-Top Waiver Denial
(From a July 31 article at BroadcastingCable.com)
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association continues to fight the FCC's denial of its request for a waiver of the rule mandating that the security and channel-surfing functions of digital set-top boxes must be separated. In appealing the decision to the commission, NCTA argued that the denial was discriminatory and arbitrary. The FCC's denial of the waiver was the second loss for NCTA, which had already appealed a bureau-level decision denying the waiver. NCTA, using words like "insidious" and "mishandling," pointed out that the commission has granted 140 waivers, but denied NCTA's request to supply "the very devices for which others were granted waivers." The FCC had signaled it would not grant a blanket waiver, but would look at requests on a case-by-case basis.
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NCTA Distributes First HD PSAs
(From a July 25 article at BroadcastingCable.com)
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association will distribute its first-ever public service announcements in the high-definition format this week on Internet safety for children. It is part of the "Point Smart, Click Safe" effort launched last month. The announcement of the new PSA's comes a day after the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on "Protecting Children on the Internet." The PSAs were delivered via satellite July 25 and 26 and are available in both standard and HD versions.
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Not Ready For HD Close-Up
(From an August 6 article in Multichannel News)
While it’s no secret that a rising number of U.S. consumers continue to purchase televisions capable of broadcasting in high definition, only about 44% of HDTV homes actually receive high-definition channels. That’s one reason adult entertainment networks are taking a “wait-and-see” approach when it comes to making their content available in HD, according to Michael Paxton, a principal analyst with In-Stat, a sister company to Multichannel News. “Adult channels aren’t missing out on a great revenue opportunity yet,” said Paxton. “They are waiting until the market matures and the distribution is more widespread.”
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Independent Cable Operators Eye Digital Transition Opportunities
(From an August 1 article at MultichannelNews.com)
Independent cable operators agreed that they need to have a voice and a role in the looming digital-TV transition, but they haven’t reached a consensus yet on exactly what their strategy should be. That was the message at a breakfast panel discussion, “The Digital Transition and How It Affects the Consumer,” at The Independent Show, a joint conference of the National Cable Television Cooperative and the American Cable Association. “While our role is not defined and we seem unwilling or unable to define it for ourselves, there are forces at work that are trying to define our role for us,” said panelist Bob Gessner, president of Massillon Cable TV in Ohio and NCTC chairman.
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Time Warner to Offer In Demand’s ‘Mojo Mix’
(From a July 31 article at MultichannelNews.com)
Time Warner Cable picked up “Mojo Mix,” a five-hour, HD video-on-demand programming block from In Demand Networks. Content, which will be refreshed each month, includes music videos; episodes of Mojo original HD series such as Three Sheets, King of Miami and Wall Street Warriors; various specials; and short-form content. The service may also feature stunts, sneak previews and behind-the-scenes and bonus footage. Time Warner will offer the block across its entire on-demand footprint this summer, making it the first cable operator to do so. In Demand is offering Mojo Mix to all of its affiliates.
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Smaller Cable Operators Ponder HDTV
(From a July 30 article at MultichannelNews.com)
HDTV may be a bandwidth hog, but it’s a compelling product that independent cable operators need in order to compete against satellite. “It’s a race against satellite to get more HD on,” said Steve Weed, CEO of WaveDivision Holdings. “It’s a big issue, but we’re ahead of them today.” Bandwidth constraints are a top issue, especially in an era when smaller operators need to be offering more HDTV services to compete with rivals such as DirecTV. “Last year was a great year,” Weed added. “Most of us took subscribers from satellite. And a large reason for that is that we got HD launched before they did. DirecTV responded -- we kicked the giant in the toe and they responded by spending millions of dollars on an ad campaign
saying, ‘Back to the Future, 100 channels of HD.’”
For more…
Xbox HD DVD Price Cut
(From a July 26 article at Twice.com)
Microsoft cut the price off its HD DVD add-on drive for the Xbox 360 console by $20, to $179. The price, which is being offered only in the United States, took effect Aug. 1.Also, purchasers of an Xbox 360 and HD DVD drive between Aug. 1 and Sept. 30 will be eligible for five free HD DVD movies through “The Perfect Offer” campaign from the HD DVD Promotion Group.
For more…
Toshiba’s New HD-DVD Decks
(From an August 6 article at Twice.com)
Toshiba America Consumer Products provided more details on its HD DVD players for the U.S. market. The decks in the new line, which are all priced under $500 retail, have selected features such as 1080p/24 fps support, 1080p, CE-Link connectivity and high bit-rate audio capabilities, the company said. Films are traditionally captured at 24 fps and select Toshiba third-generation HD DVD players will be able to maintain this frame rate, allowing consumers to enjoy movies in their native frame rate.
For more…
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Has HDTV’s Defining Moment Finally Arrived?
USA Today reports that popular channels such as CNN and History Channel are adding high-definition counterparts. At the same time cable and satellite systems are expanding to include a bunch of high-def channels too. Take the “flood” of HD channels DirecTV will offer in September and couple it with falling HDTV set prices, and HDTV is finally ready for its close-up.
For more…
Satellite Remains Dominant HD Platform
Broadcaster Magazine reports that the worldwide market for HDTV is forecasted to grow strongly over the next four years, with satellite remaining the dominant method of distribution. IMS Research predicts the market growing to nearly 148 million HDTV households by 2011, with nearly 41% of those receiving HDTV programming via satellite. In Western Europe, the slow advancement of digital cable in recent years has helped position satellite as the most common method of receiving pay HDTV. Recent consolidation of the cable TV markets in several countries is expected to aid European cable HDTV growth over the long term. Satellite is still expected to make substantial gains in the U.S., thanks to focused marketing efforts by US satellite operators to push HDTV as a competitive
differentiator.
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Why HDTV Prices Don’t Matter As Much As You Thought
CNet.com reports that as iSuppli market research expects LCD prices to rise in the coming weeks due to limited supply and increasing demand, it should impact sales. While LCD prices rise, the impetus for retailers to drop plasma pricing is no longer there. Regardless of pricing, the average consumer couldn't care less if an HDTV is a plasma or LCD as long as it looks nice in the store.
For more…
Evaluating Next-Gen Camcorders
TV Technology reports that PBS, while shooting a documentary in Dublin, Ireland, has had a chance to evaluate Sony XDCAM HD and HDCAM. The reporter found that both the XDCAM and HDCAM outshone HDV enough to make it worth the extra cost. Expect XDCAM HD to become a big part of future projects, says TV Technology.
For more…
QVC Rolls Out HD Truck
Broadcast Engineering reports that QVC has rolled out an HD production truck for remote production and broadcast. The 53-foot vehicle completed the company’s inaugural project on Monday, July 24, in Aberdeen, MD, for a Baseball Collectibles program featuring baseball star Cal Ripken, Jr. The truck carries eight Sony HDC-1500 HD multiformat studio cameras, a Sony MVS-8000A production switcher and eight Sony PDW-F350 XDCAM HD camcorders.
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