Broadcast Engineering Forums

Building a live news studio from scratch?

odc — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:40:31 GMT

Hi there

I have zero knowledge of TV - or even broaddcasting in general - yet I've been taked with project managing the creation of a TV studio which will be used for a live news broadcast nationally.

In order to kickstart my knowledge, can anyone supply me with an example project schedule - for the build of a newsroom studio? Or even an idea of what equipment is needed/considerations for build?

Any assistance provided would be very much appreciated!

Thanks

M.Tech @ ISiM, University of Mysore – Admissions Open

Roopa Gurav — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:40:43 GMT

For those looking for an exciting career in Information Management across the Industries and Knowledge Organizations.

Admissions are now open under Cycle 1 for a multidisciplinary M.Tech – 2010-2012 Programme in Information Systems and Management offered by the International School of Information Management (ISiM), University of Mysore in collaboration with some of the leading Information Schools across the globe - Dalhousie University, Canada; University of Michigan, USA; University of Pittsburgh, USA; Syracuse University, USA; International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore and Informatics (India) Ltd., Bangalore.

What do we offer?

• Cutting Edge Global Curriculum that imparts skill sets across the Information Management space – Databases to Data Mining to Data Analytics; Information Retrieval to Information Systems Design to Software Systems Management; Taxonomy, Ontologies and Semantic Web to Human Computer Interaction. Check out our syllabus for details.

• Unique opportunity to be mentored by Industry Leaders from Google, Yahoo, Intel and others through a path-breaking project - WikiGyan

• Truly international learning experience – with faculty drawn from our partner institutions. Course would be taught by world renowned experts from across the academia and industry

• Need based Bridge courses • World class facilities – a brand new well appointed 24 x 7 accessible Wi-Fi enabled infrastructure in sylvan setting • Internships and projects with leading industry partners

• Informal but rigorous pedagogy Who is eligible?

• Engineering Graduates / 4-Year Degree Graduates (10+2+4) / Master’s Degree in any Discipline

• CAT / MAT / GATE / PGCET / State Level National Entrance Test Score Important Dates for Cycle 1 Admission:

Application Deadline : March 31, 2010

Offer Decision : April 15, 2010

Acceptance Decision : May 1, 2010

Course Start Date : September 1, 2010

For application forms and more details contact us at: International School of Information Management University of Mysore, Manasagangotri Mysore – 570 006 Tel: +91-821-2514699; +91-821-2411417 Mobile: Lohith - 9886772356 Fax: +91-821-2519209 Application forms can also be downloaded from http://www.isim.ac.in/html/MTechapplicationform.htm

Are there any GrassValley DNP system admins?

drtic.cz — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:32:28 GMT

HI,

I'm looking for people, which has have any experiences with DNP system from Grass Valley based on Aurora Edits and K2 systems.. WE have new installation with many bugs. Some of them we figured out, but I think it's necessary to put our heads together to resolve the remaining..

DALET 5.1e

xtream08 — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:56:52 GMT

Hi All just thought i would join this forum to see if we can get a decent number of Dalet users on here to give support and advice on Dalet software!...

i have one question to start the ball Rolling... is there an easy way to Mass import audio in to dalet?

Ben

Chicken Little Blog posting

cris.perdue — Sun, 03 May 2009 23:22:22 GMT

Hi,

In Dick's "The Sky is Falling" blog post, I enjoyed the graphic of the rooster, and would

be interested in using it on a strictly internal Web site for my company. Can you OK

this kind of use of the graphic?

Thanks,

Cris Perdue, Software Engineer

Google, Inc.

Preparing Adverts for Radio / TV Broadcast

Marky_dsz — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:12:44 GMT

I'm currently working on a project for a Radio Advert.

Basically I have an Unprocessed voice-over and a mastered piece of music to make up the Advert from.

I'm quite interested from other professionals who have experience in this field their experiences on preparing adverts for radio.

I've done a fair bit of reading on how music is processed on radio, and from hearing a lot of my own productions on their air I know radio processing can have a dramatic effect (to say the least).

I recently read quite an interesting article, where a few tests had been done and the 'Loud' master ended up sounding far worse than the others on radio (which I can quite believe!).

I have a DAW Setup and the compressor I quite like using for my general production is Sonalksis sv315, but quite interest to hear if their is a 'standard go to' plug-in a lot of engineers use on Voice Overs who work in this field?

For Processing the voice over im currently about here, (but open for suggestions):

1. ratio of about 2:1 - 4:1

2. No More than 4 - 5 Dbs of reduction.

3. Trim off low frequency's under 60

4. Adding a touch of high end where needed.

I use Ozone for when I self master.... so Now here's the question, once the you a good mix level between the Voice Over and Mastered Backing Music. Would you gently run it through a mastering package like Ozone to increase the over all volume. This will obviously please the clients as louder seems to be better for them, but should I be supplying radio with the version which has a generally good overall volume but hasn't been run through Ozone and let radio do the processing?

Just intersted how over people present their stuff to get best results on air. I know there's a few plug-in like XAP where you can get a similar effect but I think real life experience seems to be the only way of understanding effects of radio.

Also if the same Ad is used for TV, interested in how people would approach this?

Be great to hear peoples feedback on this, as one of those areas few people seem to know much about!

Cheers!

Looking for a processor/seamless switch/scaler including SDI for LED Screen

resorsky — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 06:51:20 GMT

Hello, I'm looking for a good processor or seamless switch with scaling function and fully adjustable output resolution. May be AnalogWay, TVone, Extron, Kramer. Price 3000$ to 7000$. What's your opinion about this product.

Children on Planes

sdkerman — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:07:52 GMT

BRAVO, Mr. Dick.

As one who traveled extensively in "the good old days", and rode on a B-747 when it was first flying, I can assure you children on planes were just as prone to screaming but 1. parents used to take responsibility for their little darlings and 2 there were fewer of them on the aircraft.

On my very infrequent flights these days, and even though I opt for the front cabin when I can, one still encounters screeching, screaming brats who also have a propensity for kicking the seat in front of them - usually mine!.

While I suspect you will receive some "hate mail" as a result of your October editorial but please sign me up for the kids on the wing or in the hold club.

Steve Kerman

Tektronix TV Division - Retired

Finding Engineering Problems

KJJ Engineering — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:25:50 GMT

We are a group of Ben Davis High School seniors that have endeavored into a new engineering course. We are currently working on a year long problem-solving project in which we find, design, and build a solution. We are currently in the brainstorming stage, but we cannot find a legitamate problem. Any problems that we could possibly find solutions to or any other brainstorming ideas would be greatly apprectiated.

OCAP I.16 based EPG realization

digital soft — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:01:47 GMT

Hello,

I have a working prototype of OCAP I.16 based EPG realization and wondering if it is possible to offer it for commercial use by cable providers or anyone else.

If it is required it could be further developed to meet customers demands but it has already implemented some DVR and Channel Tunning functionality.

What do you think guys?

What is the easiest backup utility

Michael_boss — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:32:50 GMT

What is the easiest backup utility for backing up your computer to an external hard drive? I've tried Norton Ghost, but it seems to compact the files using its own proprietary file system which I can't get into.

Which games are good for it

Michael_boss — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:58:07 GMT

Hi,

I just bought a fresh pc after my old one died on me and I was wondering if a few of the games that have come out in the last 2 yrs would work on it. I like stuff like Grand Theft Auto and Battlefield games. Dell Inspiron 531 Processor: AMD Athlon 64 5600+ X2 Double core DDR-2 SD RAM 3 gig Hard drive 500 gig Sata DVD+/-RW 16X 19 in 1 card reader Video Card: ATI HD 2600 XT 256 megs Vista Family Premium

iPhone 3.0 vs. Palm: which one would you want to get?

misgreen — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:35:09 GMT

iPhone or Palm Pre?
Sprint, Palm Pre’s exclusive carrier announced that Palm Pre would be launched on June 6. Then this summer that’s the question many would-be-smart phone purchasers just might ask themselves. Both have their pros and cons. The iPhone has a huge profile and market presence, but the Pre has the old-school Palm faithful who have been waiting a long time for their Next Big Thing. The iPhone has massive channels and even Sprint admits they won’t be advertising the Palm Pre much due to low initial supply. But those most likely to want the Palm Pre already know it’s coming, where to get, and may well be reading this while already standing in line.
But what about the consumer on the edge? The consumer who has an older iPhone or Palm, or the one who’s about to move up from a feature phone for the first time. What about the dreaded “undecided”? This article is for them. Now let’s get it on.

Display

IPhone: beautiful, large (3.5 inch diagonal), high-resolution (480x320 screen) multi-touch display.
Palm Pre: Beautiful, large (3.1 inch diagonal), high-resolution (480x320 screen). The screen is not as large as the iPhone (0.4 inch smaller) but this is balanced against other hardware features such as the removable battery and sliding keyboard further below.
Advantage: Tie

Keyboard
Palm Pre has a physical, hardware-based QWERTY keyboard while the iPhone has a virtual, software-based keyboard that can be QWERTY (or anything else).
For those who need to feel those keys, the Palm Pre is the obvious choice. However, the Pre’s keyboard is reportedly somewhere between a Treo Pro and a Palm Centro: softer, more gummy keys with a narrow width overall. It might not be to everyone’s liking. That said, at least the Pre has one, and it’s a slider to boot, which means if you don’t need it, you can just tuck it away back under the screen where it came from.
The iPhone, can draw any kind of keyboard it wants. So if you need to type occasionally (or often) in Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, or most any language, you can easily switch between those exact keyboards. You can also automatically be presented with web-optimized, or video, audio — any task at all — specific keyboards.
The iPhone is an excellent touch screen phone, no doubt. But for heavy texters and e-mail addicts, the lack of a physical keyboard can be annoying. Now Palm Pre combined a touch screen and keyboard, pleasing both touch screen and keyboard fans. So Palm Pre wins.
Advantage: Palm Pre

Network
In the US — which is the only country with initial availability — Sprint has exclusive rights to the Palm Pre, much as AT&T has a lock on the iPhone. When you choose mobile phone, also make a choice between the carriers. There are two factors to consider:
1. AT&T is a GSM network, which means you can theoretically pop out your SIM card and put it in another mobile phone. It is great in emergencies, and if you travel and don’t want to deal with roaming charges. Sprint is CDMA, so any phone switches involves a call to your carrier at the very least.
2. Sprint doesn’t currently allow simultaneous voice and data. This means if you’re talking on the Palm Pre, you can’t use the web or email, and vice versa. If you’re using an iPhone on AT&T’s EDGE service, you’ll have the same problem, but if you’re on 3G, there are no worries at all. For the Palm Pre, you’d have to switch to Wi-Fi to do that.
Again, for me, using voice and data at the same time has become a must. Looking up information while out and about on a call is a frequent occurrence. If you’re not accustomed to it, you may not miss it, but once you are, it’s hard to go back.
Advantage: iPhone

Applications
Installing new applications on the iPhone is a complete joy. It’s ultra simple and quick – an absolutely superb experience than virtually nobody has matched today. With 15,000+ apps now available there is something here for everybody and although there is a lot of rubbish there are also many superb applications.
Palm has already confirmed that it will create a full App Catalog – one that will presumably have the same functionality and ease-of-use as Apple’s App Store. Though maybe there will not (initially at least) be as many apps available for the iPhone as for the Palm Pre.
Advantage: Tie

Multimedia
For Palm Pre, it offers a 3-megapixel camera. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to snap any photos, but early reports say that the quality is pretty good. Disappointingly, the camera won't have video recording capabilities at this time, but those could be added in the future. In terms of music and movie, it is reported that the music sounds very beautiful, also the movie looks perfect with the 320*480 pixels screen. However Palm Pre can only play MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 videos and MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV audio files. What if you have large music or video collections you want to carry around with you on your mobile? I have got third part software to do this admire job: use Nidesoft DVD to Palm Converter to convert DVD collections into Palm Pre and Nidesoft Video Converter to convert video or music collections into Palm Pre.
As far as iPhone, there’s no doubt that iPhone is wonderful music mobile phone. Listening to music, viewing photos and watching movies/videos is just “something else” on the iPhone. IPhone can play MPEG-4 videos with resolution of 640 *480, up to 160 Kbps. Also it supports audio formats including AAC (16 to 320 kbps), MP3 (16 to 320 kbps), and WAV. With its beautiful 3.5-inch wide screen display and Multi-Touch controls, iPhone is an amazing iPod. Watch movies and TV shows in wide screen, iPhone brings you a video experience unlike any other portable device.

Advantage: Tie

Conclusion
So there you have it. Two companies that both pride themselves on their high-skill products. One who’s Newton spawned an industry that the other is Pilot defined and dominated, went on to converge with the Treo only to fall behind and get eclipsed by the iPhone, and is now poised to come back with the Pre. Apple is going on to the third version of their smart phone line while Palm is introducing the first version of their third act.
If it seems like the only real deciding factors are where you live and work, what you want to do, and how you prefer to do it, well — yeah. That’s it.
Bottom line, the competition between iPhone and Pre is good for Apple and Palm — it keeps them on their toes and on top of their games — and it’s better for us. We’re lucky to live in a time and place where we have such increasingly awesome mobile options to choose between.
Come this summer, we’ll have a few more choices as well. Which one will be yours?

This forum is great

akosimachineman — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:53:30 GMT

hey guys you can post your feedback about this forum here, your comments reaction etc.

Do you know about Broadcast Bachelor & Ph.D?

Mostafa.Ghari — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:51:40 GMT

In the name of God

Hello Guys, I'm new here.

i'm looking for valid Broadcast Engineerig universities around the world.

does anyone know about universities and collegues about Broadcast Eng. in Bachelor & Ph.d level?

could u suggest me some universties?

Before all, Tanx :)

New HD Camera Resource

alewis — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:37:16 GMT

Hey everyone! Kudos to BE for jumping on the forum bandwagon, I think this is a great idea and hope it will be a place where we can share ideas and news.

That being said, I thought that this site might be of interest to yall - it's a resource that helps you match the right HD lens to your spefic camera and application. The link is www.HDCameraLensGuide.com. Enjoy!

~Alan

Media player

Michael_boss — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 05:31:17 GMT

how do i find out what version of media player do i have ? 10,9.8,7 ?? Win xp-pro OS.

Any help much appreciated

Michael_boss — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:58:52 GMT

My sound has been cutting in and out(intermittent). I also get a continual background hiss, in the external speakers and earphones. I have onboard Realtek AC97 sound. Does someone know how to cure/fix this? Any help much appreciated.

Free Download Engineering ebooks

apdeguito2009 — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 07:11:01 GMT

I found lots of free download engineering ebooks HERE....

Dalet 5.1e Music Rotation

bradeley — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:06:16 GMT

Hi All, My friend use Dalet 4.3 Music Rotation very well. Anyone use Dalet 5.1e very well? It seems only select top 10 or top 20 titles in each category.

Bradeley Fan

Chile adopts Japanese ISDB-T for broadcast

paulthurston — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:27:44 GMT

September 14, 2009, 10:15 AM, Santiago, Chile.

Chile adopts Japanese ISDB-T for broadcast

In Spanish: http://tinyurl.com/pqk5du

Pixelization on remote broadcast/commerical cutaways

amdamgraham — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:21:49 GMT

As a test for a video encoding device, I am taking a news feed off of a Dish Network satellite dish decoder, RCA out to my video encoder.
Everything looks fine except occasionally when the news switches over to a remote reporter in the field.
Watching on TV, the picture looks fine.
Watching the product of the encoder - it goes pixelized and degrades as though a snowstorm just blew over my dish.
How could there be any signal difference at all between the studio and the remote reporter after those signals have been combined, uplinked, downconverted and translated to RCA (Video, Left ,Right)?
Shouldn't the signal be completely homogeneous by the point it comes out of a Consumer Grade Dish Network decoder? I can't figure out what my encoder is struggling with that my TV would not.

Adder: I just viewed the effect again, only with a cut-away to a commercial. The effect does not carry through transitions, it clears immediately at the next commerical or other on screen change..

Broadcast Technology & Strategy for a Recession

ndtvworldwide — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:19:35 GMT

Circa 1973, the Pink Floyd classic ‘Money’ seemed to assume a universal state of being cash rich, however in 2009 the current economic climate dictates the need for us to sing a different tune. As with all situations, there are numerous positives to be derived from the downturn as well and here are a few pointers to help get the ball rolling. Technology Selection These are converged times where the boundaries between broadcast, consumer technology and IT are increasingly blurred. High speed, low-latency internet and telecom networks are giving rise to attractive new paradigms for technology selection even in these troubled economic times. Consider live contribution links where a typical newscaster would do very well to deploy CCTV IP Cams from vendors like Sony, Panasonic etc that currently provide VGA resolutions and total remote control, in most cases eliminating the high recurring cost of deploying full ENG crews. If you have access to reliable 3G networks, then for newsgathering evaluate Web 2.0 options like kyte.com or its broadcast equivalent - Viz Reporter, working off 5Megapixel cellphones enabling you to contribute VGA resolution video or even go live to air from your cellphone. Look to deploy open source alternatives to commonly used software e.g replacing 50 MS Office licenses with Sun’s Open Office would save you upwards of $10k, try Gimp instead of Photoshop, Blender3D for 3DsMax, Audacity for simple apps like recording VO’s and basic audio editing. Look beyond the typical ‘Rolls Royce class of broadcast equipment’ like Avid, Quantel, VizRT, Thomson etc and evaluate lower cost alternatives that extensively use off-the-shelf h/w & s/w like VSN, Playbox, Editshare, Wasp3D etc that help you reduce capex as well as annual maintenance opex. At NDTV Worldwide tech (www.ndtvworldwide.com), we now deploy ‘Yoda’ which is a full multi-cam live production system in a laptop that allows us to switch and produce 3 cam setups using just a laptop saving us at least $20,000 in capex for a similar setup and about $3000 per shoot in opex. In all fairness you get what you pay for, however even with reduced functionality you’d be surprised the alternative might just deliver exactly what you need at a fraction of the cost. Get in touch with your ‘consumer side’- at the risk of offending the purists, for trade shows do consider CES and maybe give NAB/IBC a skip, simply because today consumer tech is really really hot, for e.g compared to a typical news format like DV25 the consumer tapeless Canon HF11 working at 24Mbs does a really decent job of AVCHD at a fraction of the cost. One of the cheapest ‘encoders’ you could find has to be the Slingbox for around $250 which we at NDTV Worlwide (www.ndtvworldwide.com) use extensively for monitoring our clients news channels over public internet – it simply encodes baseband HD and you watch the stream over the web wherever you are in the world! For your contribution links consider switching to MPEG-4 wherever possible, as a general rule of thumb you would pay 15-20% less for bandwidth if you did so. Efficiencies/Waste reduction Good times tend to mask inefficiencies in the system and a recession is a great time to revisit your broadcast chain, map out your process end to end, identify non-productive activities and make things faster, leaner and more efficient. Classic examples of waste are de-centralized facility management, multiple copies of media being made, poor media management leading to demands for more storage, unnecessary media ingest, re-entry of metadata, multiple approval steps etc. Performance metrics like average time taken per edit, raw footage per min of on-air time, percentage of new stories that get dropped from a running order, percentage of agency feeds actually used on-air etc are good indicators of how efficient a newsroom is or the level of waste there is in the system. As part of the consultancy services we offer to our clients (http://www.ndtvworldwide.com/Services_Consulting.aspx) we measure and use these metrics with LEAN and 6 Sigma techniques to help broadcasters achieve cost savings. Other typical examples of trimming could be strategic outsourcing, reducing the number of news bureaus, OB Vans, bandwidth of telco links between multiple sites, implementing digital archives to reduce tape library staffing and superfluous workflows, VOIP for phone calls etc. For managers The captain of a ship caught in a storm would naturally want his best hands on deck, so people management is crucial here. The opportunity here is twofold – · With a lot of firms retrenching employees you can actually hire some great talent for a song and secondly, · To create a bunch of top performers because by now you’re probably under pressure to cut staff levels thus giving you a chance to easily identify and ease out the non-performers A fresh, tightly knit and competent team will smoothen the ride and possibly even make a success story out of it. As a manager ensure that your broadcast tech spend should ideally be divided into essential and desirable, for e.g careful analysis could reveal that the playout server purchase you initially projected as an essential spend could, with a few spares or stepped up preventive maintenance or a new codec pack, be converted into a desirable purchase, deferred or even cancelled, saving thousands of dollars. Consider carefully the financial impact of adding redundancy to a system. Its nice to want a 100% redundant system with no SPOF, however my own experience (http://www.ndtvworldwide.com/ManagementTeam.aspx) with fully redundant setups tells me that in a lot of cases the extra cost and complexity are probably just not worth it no matter what the sales guy tells you – fall back on experience, exercise your judgement carefully and convert this into a pure business decision – you’d be surprised at some of the answers you get. For employees Your primary objective is to make yourself recession-proof. Blasphemous though it may sound, arm yourself with a very clear and basic understanding of finance, economics and trends within your industry – it will help you think and act strategically besides helping add something to the ‘nuts and bolts guy’ tag we technology guys sometimes carry. Ensure that you add value to your organisation and ask yourself if you’re ‘just doing what I’m told’ – people that think out of the box, provide solutions and thought leadership will always be considered valuable. It is critical to educate yourself further, increase the depth or the breadth of your knowledge and skills but do it now. Should the hammer fall, the least skilled would be the first to go. For e.g a programmer working on VizRT graphics at a broadcaster would be quite valuable if he also gained knowledge of baseband systems like the vision mixer, digital glue etc, the ‘video guy’ would greatly benefit by a Linux/Cisco or SQL certification, similarly the creative graphic artist should learn some programming. Besides allowing management to leverage each individual’s skills better, which in turn means you add more value, it also forces you to generate an additional career path upwards. Tough environments tend to naturally induce resourcefulness and ingenuity amongst the inhabitants, so bring out this natural resilience within your people. Economic conditions are cyclical in nature and it’s but a matter of time before this downturn will give way to a boom, however till such time as we’re in it, we have to take the best stride to minimize its impact.

Broadcast Technology & Strategy for a Recession

ndtvworldwide — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:12:08 GMT

Circa 1973, the Pink Floyd classic ‘Money’ seemed to assume a universal state of being cash rich, however in 2009 the current economic climate dictates the need for us to sing a different tune. As with all situations, there are numerous positives to be derived from the downturn as well and here are a few pointers to help get the ball rolling. Technology Selection These are converged times where the boundaries between broadcast, consumer technology and IT are increasingly blurred. High speed, low-latency internet and telecom networks are giving rise to attractive new paradigms for technology selection even in these troubled economic times. Consider live contribution links where a typical newscaster would do very well to deploy CCTV IP Cams from vendors like Sony, Panasonic etc that currently provide VGA resolutions and total remote control, in most cases eliminating the high recurring cost of deploying full ENG crews. If you have access to reliable 3G networks, then for newsgathering evaluate Web 2.0 options like kyte.com or its broadcast equivalent - Viz Reporter, working off 5Megapixel cellphones enabling you to contribute VGA resolution video or even go live to air from your cellphone. Look to deploy open source alternatives to commonly used software e.g replacing 50 MS Office licenses with Sun’s Open Office would save you upwards of $10k, try Gimp instead of Photoshop, Blender3D for 3DsMax, Audacity for simple apps like recording VO’s and basic audio editing. Look beyond the typical ‘Rolls Royce class of broadcast equipment’ like Avid, Quantel, VizRT, Thomson etc and evaluate lower cost alternatives that extensively use off-the-shelf h/w & s/w like VSN, Playbox, Editshare, Wasp3D etc that help you reduce capex as well as annual maintenance opex. At NDTV Worldwide tech (www.ndtvworldwide.com), we now deploy ‘Yoda’ which is a full multi-cam live production system in a laptop that allows us to switch and produce 3 cam setups using just a laptop saving us at least $20,000 in capex for a similar setup and about $3000 per shoot in opex. In all fairness you get what you pay for, however even with reduced functionality you’d be surprised the alternative might just deliver exactly what you need at a fraction of the cost. Get in touch with your ‘consumer side’- at the risk of offending the purists, for trade shows do consider CES and maybe give NAB/IBC a skip, simply because today consumer tech is really really hot, for e.g compared to a typical news format like DV25 the consumer tapeless Canon HF11 working at 24Mbs does a really decent job of AVCHD at a fraction of the cost. One of the cheapest ‘encoders’ you could find has to be the Slingbox for around $250 which we at NDTV Worlwide (www.ndtvworldwide.com) use extensively for monitoring our clients news channels over public internet – it simply encodes baseband HD and you watch the stream over the web wherever you are in the world! For your contribution links consider switching to MPEG-4 wherever possible, as a general rule of thumb you would pay 15-20% less for bandwidth if you did so. Efficiencies/Waste reduction Good times tend to mask inefficiencies in the system and a recession is a great time to revisit your broadcast chain, map out your process end to end, identify non-productive activities and make things faster, leaner and more efficient. Classic examples of waste are de-centralized facility management, multiple copies of media being made, poor media management leading to demands for more storage, unnecessary media ingest, re-entry of metadata, multiple approval steps etc. Performance metrics like average time taken per edit, raw footage per min of on-air time, percentage of new stories that get dropped from a running order, percentage of agency feeds actually used on-air etc are good indicators of how efficient a newsroom is or the level of waste there is in the system. As part of the consultancy services we offer to our clients (http://www.ndtvworldwide.com/Services_Consulting.aspx) we measure and use these metrics with LEAN and 6 Sigma techniques to help broadcasters achieve cost savings. Other typical examples of trimming could be strategic outsourcing, reducing the number of news bureaus, OB Vans, bandwidth of telco links between multiple sites, implementing digital archives to reduce tape library staffing and superfluous workflows, VOIP for phone calls etc. For managers The captain of a ship caught in a storm would naturally want his best hands on deck, so people management is crucial here. The opportunity here is twofold – • With a lot of firms retrenching employees you can actually hire some great talent for a song and secondly, • To create a bunch of top performers because by now you’re probably under pressure to cut staff levels thus giving you a chance to easily identify and ease out the non-performers A fresh, tightly knit and competent team will smoothen the ride and possibly even make a success story out of it. As a manager ensure that your broadcast tech spend should ideally be divided into essential and desirable, for e.g careful analysis could reveal that the playout server purchase you initially projected as an essential spend could, with a few spares or stepped up preventive maintenance or a new codec pack, be converted into a desirable purchase, deferred or even cancelled, saving thousands of dollars. Consider carefully the financial impact of adding redundancy to a system. Its nice to want a 100% redundant system with no SPOF, however my own experience (http://www.ndtvworldwide.com/ManagementTeam.aspx) with fully redundant setups tells me that in a lot of cases the extra cost and complexity are probably just not worth it no matter what the sales guy tells you – fall back on experience, exercise your judgement carefully and convert this into a pure business decision – you’d be surprised at some of the answers you get. For employees Your primary objective is to make yourself recession-proof. Blasphemous though it may sound, arm yourself with a very clear and basic understanding of finance, economics and trends within your industry – it will help you think and act strategically besides helping add something to the ‘nuts and bolts guy’ tag we technology guys sometimes carry. Ensure that you add value to your organisation and ask yourself if you’re ‘just doing what I’m told’ – people that think out of the box, provide solutions and thought leadership will always be considered valuable. It is critical to educate yourself further, increase the depth or the breadth of your knowledge and skills but do it now. Should the hammer fall, the least skilled would be the first to go. For e.g a programmer working on VizRT graphics at a broadcaster would be quite valuable if he also gained knowledge of baseband systems like the vision mixer, digital glue etc, the ‘video guy’ would greatly benefit by a Linux/Cisco or SQL certification, similarly the creative graphic artist should learn some programming. Besides allowing management to leverage each individual’s skills better, which in turn means you add more value, it also forces you to generate an additional career path upwards. Tough environments tend to naturally induce resourcefulness and ingenuity amongst the inhabitants, so bring out this natural resilience within your people. Economic conditions are cyclical in nature and it’s but a matter of time before this downturn will give way to a boom, however till such time as we’re in it, we have to take the best stride to minimize its impact.

problem in my speakers

Michael_boss — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 09:32:26 GMT

Hi friends,

I have got problem in my speakers.The sound is not coming in the speakers.Should I buy a new one?