Coming Up: Digital Pictures At 11   

Video will go the same way as film as newsrooms turn to new computer technology.

Television news is on the verge of a technological revolution that will change how news is gathered and produced. It's called digital recording, whereby video is stored on a disk rather than videotape or film and is processed by a computer.

In the near future, reporters will sit at their desktop terminals and edit the video portion of their stories at the same time they write their scripts. They'll also be able to mix in their audio narration and visual effects and set up their graphics, such as a map or a name identification, while also utilizing a wire story for background information. And they'll be able to do it all as they see the elements in separate windows on their computer screens.

"This might have been difficult to imagine a few years ago," says Ken Tiven, a vice president at CNN, which has been experimenting with digital editing. "But it doesn't stop with the desktop computer. As digital develops, it will change how newsrooms and stations operate. Video data will be stored on a file server and accessible to everyone. An entire newscast could be on a computer operated by one technician.

"Maybe there won't be a technician but only the anchorman or woman, sitting in a small room in front of a robotic camera, pushing all the buttons that activate the computer," he adds. "It will be a TV studio out of a box. This may sound a little mind-boggling, but much of the equipment and technology now exists."

It's already possible to edit video from a computer disk rather than using standard videotape equipment. This type of computer-based editing is widely used in the production of commercials and special programs, but it is time consuming. It is beginning to generate serious interest in TV newsrooms.

WINK, a station in Fort Myers, Florida, is one of the first in the country to use desktop computers to edit and play back digital news video on a daily basis.

"We have two editing stations where we transfer our videotape to digital," explains Mel Martin, WINK's station manager and news director. "The system is tied into our art department, which can make a graphic for the reporter and integrate it into the package. When the story is finished it's sent to the producer for playback from another computer.

"Other terminals are linked to the system, including our bureaus in Charlotte and Collier counties. They can write their scripts in the system, see preproduction graphics from the art department and even view video from our archives."

Martin says people are often surprised to learn the computer hardware is standard equipment anyone can buy. It's the software developed in collaboration with a small company in Germany that makes it all work.

Other companies are developing software for computer-based digital editing, and several manufacturers are producing advanced digital disk hardware, such as editing and playback units.

But a major obstacle is that videotape remains the basic method for recording pictures. Video cameras that record images on removable disks are being developed, but they're not expected to be ready for newsgathering for at least one to three years. As a result, news video must be transferred from videotape to a computer hard disk – as WINK does – before it can be edited.

That presents another problem, since there is only a limited amount of space now available on a computer disk to store video data. As the technology evolves, more data will be able to be compressed onto the disk. Eventually, compression also will allow immense amounts of data to be sent quickly over land lines and satellites.

"Compression is the key," says Stevan Vigneaux, senior product marketer for Avid Technology, the leading company manufacturing and developing digital equipment. "As [technology] improves, so will the speed, flexibility, reliability, quality and creative freedom.

"Think about what you'll be able to do in a newsroom. [Computer] disks will eliminate winding and rewinding through tapes and because the editing is faster, you can try different variations, using different video and audio cuts, to see which one works best. Every story will be instantly available for playback by the producer who can change the story or an entire newscast even while on the air with just a little click of the mouse."

CNN's Tiven believes the digital technology will also be "the undoing of television news as we know it" because it will be the basis for interactive video, where viewers can choose when and what they watch.

"That will be a tremendous challenge for conventional broadcasting and cable newspeople," Tiven says. "Those of us who were trained to deliver our newscast to an audience at 6 a.m. or 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. may discover our audience has already left, preferring its own choices at their convenience.

"But this should all be good news for tv journalists. After all, someone has to find, gather and organize the material. You can't digitize empty space." l