WRAL-TV, the Capitol Broadcasting-owned CBS affiliate in Raleigh, NC, is adopting Sony Electronics’ new XDCAM HD422 Professional Disc technology for electronic newsgathering (ENG) and news production operations, according to station chief engineer Pete Sockett.
Throughout the next two years, the station will roll out more than 30 of Sony’s new PDW-700 optical camcorders and several PDW-HD1500 decks. The new XDCAM technology will deliver greater production flexibility for the station’s news crews working in the field, higher image quality and a more efficient overall workflow, Sockett said.
The XDCAM technology will provide the station’s ENG crews with the flexibility needed to capture and send footage back to the station’s studios quickly, he said. “This translates into getting news on the air more quickly and more efficiently, which, in the end, increases our competitive advantage,” he added.
The new HD products deliver recording capabilities at data rates of up to 50Mb/s using MPEG-2 4:2:2P@HL compression technology. They also provide multiformat (1080i/720P) recording flexibility as well as HD/SD conversion and crossconversion during playback between 1080i and 720P.
WRAL-TV became the first commercial TV station in the United States on the air in HD when the FCC in 1996 granted it an experimental license to transmit HD.
Listen to an interview with Sockett conducted at NAB2008.
For more information, visit http://news.sel.sony.com/en.