New Technology Delivers Instant Reports
A new word has shown up on network newscasts this year: videophone.
By Larry Larsen
Several years ago, I listened as Mike Wendland described the future of journalism. Journalists, he said, would be deployed either by themselves or in a group of two or three to a location where, using the latest technology, they would report, shoot stills for print, and video for broadcast. At the time, it sounded more like the U.S. Army’s Land Warrior program than journalism. This journalistic “Army of One” is getting closer to becoming a reality.
Videophones date back to the late ’60s, though only recently have they had the digital horsepower to be a viable alternative to standard broadcasting. While there are several manufacturers in the videophone market– Toko, Scotty TeleTransport Corp., Livewire Electronic Components– the darling of the media has to be the Talking Head 1 by 7E Communications.
The Talking Head 1 was developed by 7E Communications in the U.K. in conjunction with Motion Media, CNN, and the BBC. It is a full duplex video system fitted within a hardshell waterproof case. Within this case is a telephone handset and sparse control panel with half a dozen analog knobs and a 6.4-inch TFT screen. Reporters simply plug a camera into this device and dial the ISDN number they wish to connect to. Once connected, real time chat can be established with on-air reporters transmitting at 112kbps.
The power source for the unit is flexible enough to allow 90-264 VAC, 12V DC, and even a BP-90A camera battery. The 12VDC system was used via cigarette lighter jack in a car to power the TH-1 used to cover the Hainan Island spy plane incident in April 2001.
While other networks watched CNN’s live feed of Hainan Island, the future of the videophone as a journalism tool was being established. Out of the roughly 100 TH-1s in service today, nearly half of them were sold within 24 hours of the first Hainan shots. The original TH-1, after being confiscated and returned by the Chinese, now resides at the Newseum in Arlington, Va.
CNN also made use of the TH-1 to cover violence in East Timor and Somalia, in Chile during the rescue of the doctor at the South Pole, and the earthquake in India.
The initial cost of the TH-1 is $7,500 for the remote unit and $6,500 for the receiver.
The videophone got its debut this spring when CNN used the technology to deliver pictures from the U.S. spy plane incident in China. All summer, networks have been acquiring and perfecting the use of videophones.
The allied response to terrorism will be the first extended test of this technology in the worst possible conditions: cold, dust, rugged terrain, and hostile government censors.
Behind the deployment of this new technology are people such as Adam Sharp, a 23-year-old techno-whiz, who is the manager of e-business and digitization for NBC News.
“Our job is to seek out ways to use technology for changing the way we gather, produce, and deliver news,” Sharp told Poynter.org. At an age that many college graduates are just launching their careers, Sharp has logged nine years with NBC. At age 14, Sharp began working as a computer support technician at WNBC in New York. “All through high school I carried a copy of the child labor laws in my pocket,” Sharp jokes.
The videophone is the kind of device that television and online journalists have dreamed of since the dawning of the age of digitization. Here’s how Sharp says it works:
“The crew records the story as it always did using tape-based TV camera gear. When it’s time to feed the tape, there are a couple of choices, depending on where the crew is. It can edit the story in the field and send the completed story back; but in Afghanistan, it usually sends the ‘raw tape’ back and the bureau assembles the story. Dust, sand, and extreme weather are the enemies of editing gear, and yesterday our correspondent in Afghanistan, Dana Lewis, reported from within a sandstorm with 5 feet of visibility.
“The crew simply plugs the camera into the videophone and plays the tape. The NBC crew dials an ISDN number in New Jersey the same way you would dial a cell phone. Instead of the call going to a cell tower, the signal bounces off a satellite. The laptop device turns the video into data. On the receiving end, a device decodes the data and turns it back into video images.
“Those at the receiving end can decide how much quality they are willing to wait for. To feed a minute of video at top quality would take between 5 and 30 minutes, depending on the quality of the connection.”
But the real value of satellite telephone is that now, TV networks can go live from anywhere, any time. Currently, live transmissions are still less than normal broadcast quality, but Sharp guesses that in three years the videophones will compress the information enough and the bandwidth of satellites will improve enough to provide perfect quality video in real time.
The networks have learned that if they keep the images simple, the live shots feed with higher resolution. There is a reason. Sharp says the system only updates the pixels in the screen that change from frame to frame. So if a correspondent is standing in the dark with a few lights in the deep background, the only thing that is changing on the screen is the reporter’s face. If the background is busy with activity, the whole screen has to refresh every frame, so the image is not as clear. All of the bandwidth is being spent updating the entire frame.
“So, complex changing moving backgrounds will be more ragged than, say, dark backgrounds with virtually nothing behind the reporter,” Sharp explains. A “talking head will look better on video phone feeds than, say sports video even if they are compressed at the same rate.”
Concerns
This new freedom to feed more effortlessly will mean governments will have a harder time controlling what journalists report.
“It means that our guy in Afghanistan, Dana Lewis can flip open an box, dial an ISDN line in New Jersey and get a feed out of Afghanistan,” Sharp said. It means journalists who once depended on Department of Defense video feed sites now are not. There is a greater danger that a journalist might show or report potentially sensitive troop positions or movements.
On the other hand, it will be harder now for governments to control outside press from filing stories as the Chinese did at Tienneman Square and Iraq did during the Gulf War.
Sharp says that, while this first generation of videophones looks a little ragged on the air, he guesses that within two or three years bandwidths will get wider. New digital compression technology should make it possible for anyone to report live from anywhere with perfect video quality.
By then, Sharp will be the ripe age of 26, and will be able to tell his friends tales of the old days, back when the Internet started and he was a teen-ager.
