SECTION MEETING REPORT

Meeting Date:

May 13, 1997

Attendance:

34

Location:

WKBD-TV Studios

Southfield, Michigan

Speakers:

Dan Cullen, Bill Rogers and Robert Fields

Avid Technology, Inc.

Subject:

The Digital Newsroom

Dan Cullen began by giving the audience an overview of Avid Technology and how it entered the news market with the acquisition of BASYS and Softech within the last few years. Avid set to work merging the strong points of its acquisitions, namely news writing, editing and production tools, with its own expertise in digital video. He outlined the current model of a newsroom work flow, which includes a central media server linked by fiber and ethernet to journalists' workstations for low-resolution browsing, text writing and rough cut editing, and high-resolution video to editors' equipment and air playback systems.

Bill Rogers explained that the last-minute nature of a television newsroom can be reduced somewhat by automating many tasks. In the past, computer tools have eased the clerical burden by handling scripts, wires and archiving. With today's proliferation of Graphical User Interface workstations, the text tools can be refined to make them easier to use and provide another level of service to the journalist. An example he gave is a system whereby a reporter can have a message sent to a pocket pager automatically when new information becomes available on a story being tracked. Archiving and database systems now are able to search not only for keywords in context but on descriptions of video in the archive, with a browse window on the reporter's terminal displaying the video. Reporters also have instant access at the desktop to video feeds as they arrive, with no need to wait for a tape to finish recording or to share the tape with other users.

A demonstration of some of Avid's hardware was conducted by Robert Fields. The NewsCutter was shown, with its non-linear timeline and the ability to select clips from bins on the screen, choose and change edit points at will, add transitions, special effects and titles, and assemble a story in a fraction of the time it would take under a linear tape editing system. This technology is not necessarily new, but its application to television news is important. With the aid of a journalist's workstation running Avid News, Mr. Fields also showed how it is possible to preview video, mark it and send it to an editor for finishing, and then for the editor to release the story through Avid News into an on-air tapeless playback engine (Avid demonstrated their AirPlay system) for seamless and virtually instant playback.

Questions followed the presentation, after which attendees had the opportunity to operate the equipment.

Submitted by:

Frank Maynard, WKBD-TV Secretary/Treasurer, SMPTE Detroit Section 810-355-7129 maynard@oeonline.com