Brad Fortner of the Rogers Communications Centre at Toronto’s Ryerson Polytechnic University is promotions advisor for the Toronto Section of SMPTE.

David Hunter, VP of operations for CTV, kicked off SMPTE Toronto’s 1998/99 season with an open house at CTV’s News 1 headline news service.

Of special interest to the 100 members who attended the meeting was the implementation of file-server technology along with the associated production methodology that is employed there.

In the case of News 1, Tektronix Profile file servers are central to the operation, and Hunter started the evening with a presentation on the engineering criterion that was employed in the design of the service.

News 1, housed inside the main CTV news department located in northeast Toronto, was an add-on to the existing analog CTV plant, and operates as an adjunct service to CTV’s regular news service and programs.

‘It had to interface with our existing news infrastructure that included our NewStar automation system, our satellite and fiber links, the CTV/Canada AM control room, the VTR feed and playroom, the tape-to-tape edit suites and the non-linear editing stations,’ explained Hunter, adding:

‘We also had to incorporate maximum [file-server] redundancy in the system, create an automatic closed-captioning system and design it to operate with the minimal amount of staff.’

In his presentation, Hunter outlined the details of News 1’s unique studio that allows the news anchor station to swing around in a circle within one-eighth of an inch to provide a setting that employs different backdrops (a Canadian theme is employed in the various backgrounds attached to the circular wall).

The News 1 control room and service is unique in the way it employs file servers, a term used loosely in television, said Hunter. ‘Videodisc recorder is the appropriate term,’ he commented.

In the case of News 1, all stories gathered in the field are transferred to a videodisc for on-air playback. The News 1 control room is used to record the anchorperson’s introduction to a story and to go live to air if required.

Once an introduction is recorded, it is trimmed by an operator and then added to the playlist with the accompanying story.

Redundancy is built into the newsroom system by employing three Profiles in the design. ‘We use one videodisc recorder as our working unit onto which we record our initial elements,’ Hunter explained. ‘Once they are completed, we move them to our master `on-air’ server, it has a backup unit. In the case where one server goes down or requires maintenance, any unit can be reconfigured to provide the functionality of the missing server.’

Hunter is particularly proud of the closed-captioning system employed at News 1. The text, which is generated by the newsroom automation system, is triggered by the file server in an automated fashion based on the file server’s slug and story name.

The automation streams the text to a line 21 encoder and bases its spacing on the time of the story. Because the text stream is triggered by the metadata associated with the story, the correct text appears no matter how the story lineup changes.

As the video signal leaves News 1 to go to air, a ‘Ticker’ overlay is added to the signal with updated stock and sports information. This information is furnished by an external service provider. After the signal leaves the plant it’s sent directly to the satellite for distribution.

To add additional redundancy in case of a disaster, an additional file server is employed offsite that continually records News 1’s output, providing a half-hour delay. In the event of total station failure, this file server will ‘kick in’ and continually replay the station’s last half-hour until service can be restored.

Hunter concluded his presentation by providing some insight into operating a station of this nature. He noted that for the technical staff, keyboarding skills are crucial.

‘We’ve noted that keyboard speed has become important and it was something that we did not expect,’ said Hunter. ‘Our technical people require computer literacy as a key skill in their job.

‘Another thing we learned,’ he said, ‘was that running the station to time is more of a challenge than expected. News 1 is an unending stream of 15-minute newscasts that must run to time. It’s a stream that can be updated but cannot be stopped. It works well until you go live.’

Hunter’s point about going live was dramatically demonstrated during the tour of News 1’s control room and studio.

While the Toronto section was in the middle of the tour, Mark McGwire hit his historic 62nd home run to beat Roger Maris’ single season home run record. It was a record that had stood for 37 years and merited a live segment.

As the celebration unfolded in St. Louis, a similar drama occurred in the News 1 studio. In order to insert the McGwire story live, the segment had to match the playback time and air space of the next story going to air.

After clearing the studio of the visiting SMPTE engineers and positioning the news anchor, the director had to delay going to air by a minute and 20 seconds as the file server completed playing the current story. Once live, the segment had to be exactly two minutes long to match the playback time of the story that was originally intended for that spot.

Even though going live is not a routine operation for the News 1 team, they executed it perfectly by seamlessly integrating the live hit into the file server program stream – without missing a beat for the viewer at home.