Sinclair Wish List: Content Mgt., HD Upgrades

While it’s only February, 2011 has already been a busy year for Del Parks as Sinclair Broadcast Group ramps up its capital expenditures after laying low for most of 2009 and 2010. Parks, VP of engineering and operations, oversees technical operations and improvements for the 58 stations in 35 markets that Sinclair owns or operates.

As he describes in this interview with TVNewsCheck Contributing Editor Glen Dickson, Parks is currently juggling HD news upgrades and master-control overhauls in several major markets along with the rollout of mobile DTV.

While Sinclair has already picked vendors for its HD upgrades, Parks and other Sinclair techs will hit the NAB Show in April looking for content management solutions to help organize what he calls the “Digital Tower of Babel” that results from the myriad file formats that float across the group’s news and sales operations.

Parks is also interested in exploring digital fingerprinting technology and ways that broadcasters can deliver content directly to the new generation of Internet-connected TVs.

This interview is the fourth in TVNewsCheck’s Capex 2011 series with top station group technologists to find out what they’re planning for 2011, how they will be spending their capital dollars and what they will be shopping for at the NAB Show in April. Click here to see the others.

An edited transcript:

A couple years back, Sinclair put a halt on doing HD news upgrades because of the downturn in the economy. What is your capital budget looking like this year and what do you have on tap?

Well, it’s up, and that’s why I’ve been so busy. In HD news, we restarted the process and in fact are making plans right now to do three markets in 2011, and probably do the remainder in 2012. We’ve already done Columbus [Ohio], Baltimore, Pensacola [Fla] and Asheville, N.C. Those are already HD news and they already are HD master controls. We had done those before the financial meltdown in late 2008 and 2009.

And what new markets are you looking at?

We’re looking at San Antonio, Nashville and Portland [Maine], maybe.

What’s involved in an HD news upgrade, both at the studio and in field equipment?

It’s a complete forklift overhaul of your infrastructure, because anything standard definition doesn’t work for high definition. So if you have an old router, old switchers, they have to go. There’s no use for them. So it really is a very expensive proposition. In addition, we’re about eight or nine years long in the tooth on our Avid editing systems, and they were all standard definition. And so we are also in the process of a forklift upgrade on our editing systems to HD editing capability. They’ll be News Cutters and Instinct [an editing tool in the iNews newsroom computer system] from Avid. I think Avid has done a great job. They were a little late getting to the party, but when you look at what they have accomplished and where they’re heading as a company — in terms of moving away from proprietary hardware, moving to software-based solutions, content integration, media management for news — it’s really impressive.

When you’re doing HD news upgrades, are you looking to use more automation in your newscasts?

Yes. We’ve settled on our vendor. It’s Ross Video and Overdrive. [Grass Valley] Ignite is a great product, and I don’t think one is better than the other, but Overdrive in the end fit our model a little better.

We are already pretty darn efficient in the news production area, and so this will maybe increase efficiency somewhat, but not dramatically. What we really look for this automated production to do is improve our presentation. In so many markets, your presentation is dependent on the director, and how they block the show. You know, did they work a double shift? Are they tired? In this case, the elements of automation allow us to use the power of the switcher in a predictive model, that will allow us to improve the presentation of our news.

What are you doing in terms of field acquisition?

We were very early adopters of Panasonic DVCPRO and we used some P2 standard definition, but we never really made the jump to standard-definition P2. We kind of kept our powder dry, so to speak, waiting for HD P2. So now as a company, we’re in the process of trading out our 12-, 13-, 14-year-old DVCPRO equipment for the Panasonic [AG-HPX] 370 cameras [with Fujinon lenses].

I think the performance of the 370s will mirror that of the DVCPRO, of the two-third-inch chip. It’s a one-third inch [chip], and, intellectually, everyone understands that a smaller surface for imaging is not as sensitive as a larger surface. However, the advances in the circuitry, in signal-to-noise ratio and gain, have just been phenomenal. I mean, it’s evidenced really by the fact that you can buy a $200 consumer camera with quarter-inch chips in it, and it makes pretty good HD pictures.

Are you doing any sort of non-traditional newsgathering, such as multimedia-journalist-type stuff with smaller cameras or different transmission techniques than a traditional live truck?

We absolutely are. In that mix of field cameras is a healthy sprinkling of the [Panasonic AG-HPX] 170 camera, which is a smaller camera that we’re equipping our multimedia journalists with. But what’s interesting is the dynamic of a multimedia journalist. Typically, at least for Sinclair, what we see is a reporter who can also shoot and edit. Not like a photographer who can report or write, but really a reporter.

Young people coming out of school today — and I tip my hat to the colleges because they really are teaching the right things — they’re coming out of college understanding that they are content gatherers. And that means writing and reporting, or shooting and reporting, or using non-traditional methods of getting stories back like FTP. In our case, we use Streambox [IP streaming], which works out really well for us.

Shifting gears to master control, any projects there in terms of upgrades or operational improvements?

Absolutely. That’s another huge area we’re putting resources into this year. In 2011, we have 13 markets where we are building HD master controls, for a total of 20 television stations [counting duopolies and LMAs].

And have you identified some key vendors for that, or are you still shopping at NAB?

We’ve identified our vendors and our systems integrator, which is TI [Broadcast Solutions Group], out of Atlanta. And we are in the process of ordering equipment as we speak. Miranda is a big part of the infrastructure. We’re using the NVision router and their XVP series of cross converters. What those folks at Miranda have done inside the cards is absolutely amazing. The features packed inside these XVP cards, such as audio leveling … it really is mind blowing. As a result, our entire master control operation will fit into three racks. And that is a huge savings in systems integration, and it is also a big savings in terms of space, power and ease of operation and maintenance.

We’re also using the Kaleido multiviewer from Miranda and the PresStation master control switcher. We think it’s a pretty smart little package. In addition to that, the iControl [monitoring system] allows us to monitor pretty much every piece of this, both locally and also remotely. Right now, we don’t plan to do any remote monitoring, but that could be a Phase Two or Phase Three for us.

You have done hubbing for some of your stations. Any plans to do more of that?

Not right now. Again, we are directing our resources into building out these master controls. And the master controls, as we build them out, are capable of being monitored — which is really hubbing — in the future. They can be very easily monitored. And then the content management layer that would be needed for hubbing, we could overlay that at any time.

Sinclair has been pushing mobile digital TV for a long time and was instrumental in developing the new standard. Where do you stand in terms of commercial rollout of mobile DTV broadcasts this year? What markets are up and running or soon to be?

We participated in the Washington trials, which the OMVC [Open Mobile Video Coalition] sponsored, and I do believe we learned and got a lot of information out of that. And since the very, early days of mobile, our two UHF television stations in Las Vegas have supported this mobile initiative for the various trade shows — CES and the NAB. Now we’re getting ready to roll out our regular stations. Columbus should be on the air in two to three weeks, and we have several others that we’re going to roll out this year and continue that process.

Where does Sinclair stand in terms of delivering the DTV signal for these new mobile receivers? I know you’ve maximized power in a bunch of markets with UHF assignments. Since the transition ended, have you switched assignments or boosted power in any markets?

Yes, yes and yes. Yes to as much of that as possible. Harvey [Arnold, Sinclair corporate director of engineering] has done a great job and continues to do a great job maximizing our signals. Now that analog is off the air and we can maximize in certain areas, in some cases we can double our power. In some cases we’ve gone up by 25% or 30%. But it’s really important to us. And two projects we did in 2009-2010 were really important. We vacated our VHF DTV channel and moved to a UHF channel in both Columbus and Madison, Wis.

In fact, Sinclair has only one VHF, and it’s a high V. That’s WLOS in Asheville-Greenville. But even there, Harvey’s done a lot of work. He has changed the antenna, increased the power and basically rebuilt our transmission facility there, because we cannot get a UHF assignment there. And in Columbus, Ohio, we put a CP [circularly polarized] antenna in. Harvey and the OMVC folks are now getting ready to do testing for mobile for CP versus standard [linear] polarization.

Another one of the things we did do in 2010 was we replaced all of our encoders at our stations with dual Harmonic encoders and muxes. That’s not a very sexy thing to do, but what that buys us is bit-efficiency.

Freeing up a little space for mobile DTV, I imagine.

Mobile, and we also have these dot-2 channels and we are being paid for the dot-2 channels. We’re not making lots and lots of money, but the bits now have value. And as those bits have demonstrable value, the expending of those bits becomes more critical to our operation. So one of the projects in my long-term sights is working with Harmonic on dynamic bit allocation. That’s important for us. How you allocate those bits in stat-muxing, and how can we push that envelope? ATSC is still MPEG-2. And as good as it is, it’s not as good as MPEG-4. So, in any event, we’re looking at that, and we think there is some advantage to be had there.

Since you have identified vendors for a lot of your current projects, what are you looking for at NAB and how will you tackle the show?

We’re looking for some new technologies and maybe smaller vendors. One happens to be fingerprinting technology. There are a few companies out there with fingerprinting technology that allows you to recognize content without disturbing the production quality of it.

So you can track content down the line?

Yes, in both audio and video. The other piece of technology that is very promising is one that allows us to do a handshake with Internet-connected televisions. Jack Perry [former CEO of DecisionMark] has got a new company called Syncbak, and the technology allows a handshake with Internet-connected TVs. And this is one of those industry things, where I don’t know that any one television station will get an advantage, but I think our industry will get an advantage by embracing this type of technology. And so I’m really excited about that, and we want to look at that a little further.

Read the other stories in our Capex 2011 series here.