By James Careless
As the storms of war whip across the world, Satellite Newsgathering (SNG) crews are dispatched to cover them. To aid them, Via Satellite contacted some of the top SNG equipment and service providers. Our goal: to alert SNG crews and their managers to the latest in SNG equipment and support. Based on our research, here is how the leading-edge SNG products and services stand today.
A Link In The SNG Chain
It is not enough for CBS News to gather SNG reports on site and send them stateside by satellite. The network also has to get the reports to 200-plus stations and affiliates as soon as possible, in a way that doesn't slow down anyone's news day.
Getting the news out is the job of CBS Newspath, the network's 24-a-hour-a-day digital distribution system. Making Newspath accessible in a Web browser-based format is the task of Bitcentral and its MediaPipe software/server package. Under the name of CBS Newspath Now, MediaPipe allows each authorized CBS user to access the full range of SNG reports online. The stories themselves are transmitted by satellite from New York. At the receiving end, they are stored in broadcast quality MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 for fast access via a Web browser. Then, to see what is happening, a news person just has to click on a video window and presto: the story's playing on the desktop.
MediaPipe lets CBS organize stories by category, subject and region. As well, users can create custom pages that automatically include the categories they need. The result is that a producer can see the latest stories available from CBS, and stack them into a newscast without ever resorting to videotape. In fact, they don't even have to leave their desks, because CBS Newspath Now sets up broadcast versions of the stories in order, for playback to air during newscasts.
Better yet, Bitcentral has developed a way to edit MPEG-2 Long video without first decoding and then re-encoding it. As a result, not only can a news editor save time by working directly with an MPEG-2 video file, but the edited product is "absolutely lossless," says Fred Fourcher, Bitcentral's CEO.
The bottom line: CBS Newspath Now completes the SNG chain from field reporter to actual newscast. It is fast, friendly and a much better use of time than waiting for and taping an analog satellite feed.
SNG To Go... Anywhere
The focus on Afghanistan/Iraq notwithstanding, SNG is a global discipline. This is why Crawford Communications continues to add to its fleet of U.S.-based SNG trucks (a.k.a. "transportable earth stations"). These SNG trucks are frequently used by major U.S. networks for news and sports coverage on location. As well, Crawford will arrange to have units booked and shipped for overseas use, as required by their customers.
"We've just rolled out a new 28' Ku-band 'city truck,'" says Paul Edwards, Crawford's transportable operations manager. "Like all of our other trucks, this new unit is digital, DVB-compliant with a full suite of redundant digital compression gear onboard and capable of supporting up to four feeds at once." Next up is a 39' SNG truck. In today's busy news environment, Crawford needs all the SNG units it can get.
What makes Crawford's SNG service special are its operators, Edwards adds. "We believe we have some of the best engineers in the business," he explains. "These guys are loyal, hardworking, team-oriented and dedicated to their jobs. You can trust them with your life, as well as your SNG uplink."
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