Modern, Affordable TV News Workflow Transforms Small Market Station

Modern, Affordable TV News Workflow Transforms Small Market Station posted: 08/01/2018

by Claudia Kienzle

Successful Saltillo TV news workflow to be rolled out across Mexico

Just an hour's drive from Monterrey, a major industrial center in northeastern Mexico, the City of Saltillo is brimming with newsworthy events, enough to fill an entire broadcast day. That's precisely what a local TV station in Saltillo started doing in December 2016-offering eight hours a day of live news reports-branded as Telediario-tailored to the interests of Saltillo and its neighboring cities.

Telediario is filled with live field reports, network feeds, and remote interviews with people from around the world. Its on-air presentation is also rich with full-screen graphics, lower third supers, chromakeys, and other sophisticated touches that today's TV news viewers expect.

While this small market TV station doesn't have a high-end news production infrastructure, they're producing this high-volume of fast-paced live local news with a big market look and feel very cost effectively, with a small news team.

Critical to their modern workflow are three innovative, affordable, interfacing user-friendly solutions: the ENPS newsroom computer system from The AP, NewsCaster Connect software from NewsMaker Systems, and the TriCaster 8000 live integrated production system from NewTek.

The demand for live local news in Saltillo is very strong. That's why we felt compelled to deliver a lot of high-quality live local news, including breaking news, political news, sports and human-interest stories of interest to Saltillo. This NewsCaster/TriCaster combo makes it possible to produce a lot of content with a small amount of people. It's the perfect newsroom solution for our smaller TV market, said Enrique Calderon, information technology manager for Grupo Multimedios, Mexico's fourth largest TV station group, based in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

Inside the control room at Telediario

With the success of its Saltillo TV news operation, Multimedios is now considering deploying the NewsCaster/TriCaster workflow to the 10 or so other local stations it owns and operates, primarily across northern and central Mexico.

Multimedios owns and operates the Saltillo station-in the Mexican State of Coahuila, as well as XHAW-DT (Channel 12), its flagship station. As a ratings leader, XHAW reaches 85% of Monterrey's five million people.

Behind the cameras at Multimedios studio in Saltillo, Mexico

The Wonders of IP

Multimedios built a brand new TV news facility and production studio in Saltillo just for this local news initiative. According to Calderon, the project began in September 2016, and it took approximately two months to complete the systems integration and installation.

Initially, Calderon said, the workflow was set-up and tested at the Monterrey facility before being moved into place at Saltillo. The start-up phase also included extensive technical training and rehearsal of the staff, many of whom came from other TV stations.

Integrated Newsroom

Since their initial newscasts, the lineup has scaled from three to eight hours of live news per day, or roughly 56 hours per week. Given Saltillo's tight budget, this level of content creation would not have been possible if they had taken the conventional route, by installing heavy iron newsroom production equipment instead.

According to Lan Merrill, VP Sales and Marketing for NewsMaker Systems, in Los Angeles, CA, Installation and integration of NewsCaster and TriCaster within an existing facility is relatively simple due to the systems' inherent IP-based workflow.

Arlen Valeria Silva del Bosque checks video clips and LiveText CG status in NewsCaster Connect

This is the essence of the charge both NewsMaker and NewTek are leading into the brave new world of IP, Merrill said. The benefits of this IP-based design also include lower capital and operating costs, with less ongoing maintenance. Journalists can spend less time being hampered by outdated technologies, and more time crafting great stories, with major market production values.

Since NDI (Network Device Interface) and the NewsCaster/TriCaster workflows are completely IP-based, there are no legacy analog or digital audio, video or data cables in the entire workflow, including: between the newsroom computer system, the news rundown automation, and the news production playout system.

Traditional old iron systems require miles of expensive and complicated cabling to connect all of these devices in an antiquated news production system, Merrill said. The NewsCaster / TriCaster system only requires a single Ethernet cable.

NewsCaster Connect automates LiveText graphic templates

INTEGRATED NEWSROOM

Saltillo began by building on its existing license of ENPS by The Associated Press. ENPS is an industry-standard newsroom software that lets journalists track and manage all of their news stories, media assets, such as videos and maps, and the news rundown for newscasts.

We also knew from the start that we wanted to base our newsroom production workflow on TriCaster, and control the entire workflow from a single user interface, Calderon said. We then looked for a newsroom control system that would seamlessly interface with both the ENPS and TriCaster to form a unified workflow.

The NewsMaker server sits in a 1RU rack

With its support for MOS protocols, NewsCaster Connect interfaces seamlessly with ENPS, as well as TriCaster. It serves as a bridge between ENPS and the TriCaster by controlling the workflow between the two systems. For example, NewsCaster Connect can bring media assets stored on the NewsMaker server into ENPS, as well as use ENPS resources to automatically create and transfer a news rundown directly to the TriCaster, and it's immediately ready

LINK:	http://www.live-production.tv/news/products/modern-affordable-tv-news-...
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