ABSTRACT
During the late 1990s, television newsrooms took a radical change in not only the output they provided, but more importantly in the workflow used to produce news stories. Many of the changes had already been being brought about by the adoption of lightweight electronic camcorder packages, a compact electronic alternative to the 16mm film package which had been the workhorse of television news acquisition for over a half a century. However, although the change to Electronic News Gathering (ENG) was very rapid, the material to be edited still required the use of cassette-based VTRs and also the journalist still relied on systems that did not marry the technological and journalistic technologies. The skill sets of the journalist/reporter, the technician and the editor still remained separate. In the mid 1990s, a revolution in television news started to
take place. Based upon an electronic system, it boasted interconnectivity and interoperability, the system starting to weave together the skill sets of the journalist and the technician. The revolution in the field began with the move from acquisi-
tion in analogue formats to digital ones. Camcorders had previously been based on the 3=4-inch Sony BVU format based on the ubiquitous Sony U-Format, which by the nature of the tape format and cassette size made the camera/VTR package bulky and cumbersome. Even so, it was an improvement on the 16mm film package as it gave instant replay and access to the material, therefore almost instantaneous access for editing! With the arrival of Betacam from Sony (the early formats being Betacam and Betacam SP, and the later formats being the digital Sony Betacam SX format), the material could now be acquired with a camcorder using 1=2-inch tapes. This change in tape size had an enormous impact in the use of the camcorder, removing the previously bulky package and making the complete package lightweight for field applications. With every introduction of a ENG format, there always
comes a format war, with Sony, Panasonic and others introducing alternative and competing tape formats. Clearly, in the
introduction of the early tape formats, Sony was a clear winner with the U-Matic and Betacam formats. Panasonic tried very hard with M-Format with a few successes. In recent years the M-Format has given way to DVCPRO, which is offered in a number of different bit rates. Avid, in conjunction with Ikegami, launched a camcorder which was the first to offer recording onto a hard disk. However, this also failed to be taken up by users, preferring to continue on with the traditional means of recording using tape. Acquisitions by some organisations are now even using
1= 4-inch formats based on the Panasonic DV format and some of these formats have gained popularity, especially for covert applications. One of the other trends was to consider the recorder/player
that news editors used in pairs to record and edit material in the field. With Betacam SX came the hybrid recorder, a device which provided not only a tape transport but also the addition of a hard disk included in the recorder. The advantage here was that within a single machine it was now possible to play back recorded material as well as copy it onto the hard disk all in one machine. The added advantage of this was that it was now also possible to play-off the machine into a satellite system at four times normal speed using SDDI, previously known as SDTI, thereby reducing the time taken to file a story back to base. In America, the Remote SNG vehicle became the mainstay
to the news operation. These vans were in themselves small news production vehicles, which with a large dish on the roof, enabled news to be reported from the scene as it happened. It also meant that live inserts of news material was also capable of being used as part of the news bulletins. What this all meant for television news was that it was easier
to acquire and produce. Field editing units allowed the stories to be edited in the field
and then, using satellite transmission, allowed it to be played in real time back to the studio. With the introduction of Betacam SX from Sony, this provided the ability to replay back to the studio using four times real-time playback, using SDTI transmission.
