Hearst Television Brings in JVC Camcorders for Next Generation Newsroom Project
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Hearst Television is standardizing on JVC GY-HM100 ProHD camcorders for its Next Generation Newsroom Project, a new initiative that expands local news coverage at its 29 television stations.
After a successful pilot project in three stations last year, the Next Generation Newsroom Project was launched in 2010 with deployments at WPBF in West Palm Beach, FL (DMA No. 38), and KETV in Omaha, NE (DMA No. 76). Six additional Hearst stations are now using the GY-HM100 camcorder as part of the Next Generation Newsroom: KMBC in Kansas City, MO (DMA No. 32), WLWT in Cincinnati, OH (DMA No. 33), WISN in Milwaukee, WI (DMA No. 35), WGAL in Lancaster (DMA No. 39), KOCO in Oklahoma City, OK (DMA No. 45), and KCCI in Des Moines, IA (DMA No. 72).
According to Joe Addalia, director of technology projects, WMUR in Manchester, NH, which also serves the Boston market (DMA No. 7), and WESH in Orlando, FL (DMA No. 19), will deploy new GY-HM100s within the month. Hearst plans to purchase GY-HM100 camcorders for at least six more stations in 2010.
The Next Generation Newsroom Project represents a paradigm shift in news coverage for the station group. Rather than hold news for regularly scheduled newscasts, these news teams provide live streaming video to the Web, as well as edited packages for broadcast. The teams do not replace traditional news crews, but instead augment station coverage.
“What we’re pushing is to get more content…faster and direct from the field,” says Addalia. “Our goal is to increase our reach and win at local news. We’re always live.”
News teams have a portable kit built around a GY-HM100 ProHD camcorder paired with a Dell laptop loaded with Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 NLE software. For news packages from the field, the GY-HM100 records native .MOV files, which can now be used natively with Adobe Premiere Pro for editing – no ingest required. Addalia said the news packages are recorded and edited in HD, then downconverted to SD for FTP transport back to the station for the local news broadcast.
