KMBC-TV launches HD local news from new broadcast center
Sep 25, 2007 9:00 AM
One of the surprising things about the launch of KMBC-TV’s HD local newscasts was the number of converters required, said station director of engineering Jerry Agresti.
HD local news came to HD Technology Update’s hometown last month when KMBC-TV, the Hearst-Argyle ABC affiliate became the first station in the Kansas City market to offer viewers its newscasts in high definition.
The roll out of HD local news roughly coincided with the launch of a new broadcast facility. HD Technology Update spoke with KMBC director of engineering Jerry Agresti about how he approached putting HD local news on the air.
HD Technology Update: Within the past month, KMBC made the transition to HD with its local newscasts. I believe you are working from a new facility as well. What were the primary engineering considerations that went into the design of your new facility with the knowledge that HD newscasts were coming?
Jerry Agresti: The biggest concerns were to future-proof the technology as much as possible and to stay within budget.
HD Technology Update: What are your plans for live ENG shots in regards to HD contribution?
Jerry Agresti: Presently we are shooting 16:9 SD in the field. Hearst-Argyle as a company is looking for the correct solution in an HD ENG camera. In addition, the implementation of digital ENG brought about by the Sprint Nextel BAS relocation will also affect when we are able to actually shoot and bring back true high-def from the field.
HD Technology Update: The other component in that equation is HD encoding and decoding. What are your thoughts about that aspect, particularly the cost?
Jerry Agresti: Once digital, the up charge for the encoders and receivers is in the neighborhood of $60,000 per transmit receive pair. As with most technology, every year the price goes down.
We’ve received positive responses from our viewers seeing the 16:9 upconverted SD. Although there is definitely a difference between studio and field resolution, I think viewers are pleased to have their screens filled up.
Since it is hard to eat the whole apple at market size 31, I think the transition as we are doing it is the right way to go. It’s a little more on the conservative side, but we feel we are taking the appropriate steps as we phase into local HD broadcasting.
HD Technology Update: Do your reporters, producers and editors produce their stories in a file-based workflow?
Jerry Agresti: Yes, they do.
HD Technology Update: Can you describe how HD has affected that workflow, for example working with lower res proxies?
Jerry Agresti: We use Avid NewsCutters and edit full res. One of our biggest issues is aspect ratio; it gets a lot of attention. Maintaining the correct aspect ratio was a challenge from the first day and remains a challenge today. As I said, we shoot locally in 16:9. Anything that comes to us from another station if it’s taken direct to air needs to go through an upconverter and the side panels are added before it goes to the switcher.
Anything that is recorded that is edited gets fixed in post. It comes out of the editors with the side panels on it.
So the aspect ratio is fixed, or should be fixed, before it hits air. If it’s live breaking got to get on the air now, we’ll take it to air anyway we can get it. But as a normal operating procedure, it gets fixed to go live, or if it’s recorded for later playback, it’s fixed in post or in the editors.
HD Technology Update: At the same time you’ve launched an HD local newscast you are also distributing video content to new platforms like the Web. How has that impacted your workflow serving the multiple distribution platforms?
Jerry Agresti: We use I.B. (Internet Broadcasting) for our Web provider. They’ve requested 16:9 images. Currently, we hand them a downconverted 16:9 image.
HD Technology Update: What surprises, if any, did you run in to along the way in your launch of HD news on a local level?
Jerry Agresti: The biggest surprise that I had was the amount of conversion gear required. The number is huge. I don’t want to sound like we went into it with our eyes closed, but the count of conversion devices is amazing.
HD Technology Update: Can you quantify that a little bit?
Jerry Agresti: Most every source needs to be tweaked. For example, our analog satellite receivers have to be digitized and have the audio embedded before they are sent to the router. With embedded audio whenever we route these sources to our audio console, we have to de-embed the audio, which has the potential for timing errors.
So the minutia that comes into play when you are trying to serve all the formats and the aspect ratio, whether to add side panels or not, makes the production of news harder.
The other issue of which we were aware but was still a “gotcha” was that none of these formats play well with monitors. Any output of the production switcher fed to monitors in the studio either has to get downconverted to SDI or analog, or it has to pass through an interface device just to enable it to be displayed. As an example, the monitors we use on the set are 42in and 50in plasmas. If you don’t purchase a higher end plasma TV - a commercial grade TV - then you’re stuck with buying an outboard device that has to convert either HD or SD to analog RGB. You’re looking at adding another $800 to $1000 to the cost of the monitor.
The monitors that we are using as our prime display set pieces have optional interface cards. Again, it’s $600 or $700 up charge, but they will actually take native HD or SD and do the conversion inside the monitor rather than having an outboard box with its power cord and associated cables that usually need to be hidden.
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