In Broadcast - July 2012 - 28

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 10 - JULY 2012

InVIEW
Beneﬁts Of Fibre Becoming Obvious To Television Stations
Michael Grotticelli discusses the practicality and beneﬁts of ﬁbre-optic technology
Mobile trucks for electronic newsgathering (ENG) are now selling well again and ﬁbre-optic technology sales are growing due to the increase in high-deﬁnition production. That’s according to Rex Reed, Director of Product and Business Development at ENG Mobile Systems based in Concord, California, who said that HD signals require more bandwidth to move signal further and maintain the highest quality. In business for 32 years, ENG Mobile Systems specialises in microwave and satellite news vehicles for television stations and networks. When designing mobile ENG vans for broadcasters, Reed said sales for ﬁbre-optic technology are increasing. “Now that our customers are ﬁnally, actually starting to do HD in the ﬁeld, they are starting to realise that copper is a real short-distance solution. People are now starting to realistically budget for ﬁbre. It’s a necessity now, not a nicety.” The limit for HD signals over copper is between 200 and 300 feet, although “there are a lot of variables that determine that distance,” said Reed. Over ﬁbre that distance is extended to 10,000 feet (or more than 3,000 meters) with little or no signal degradation. “In the non-top 20 markets, people are just now starting to go HD. It has been long discussed, but it’s really now just starting to happen,” Reed continued. “In recent months, as people start to get some funding for trucks again, they are starting to include ﬁbre as a necessity.” Larger television markets are more inclined to purchase fibre technology, he said. “In a small town, you often can park 200 feet from the story. In a big city, you may not
Michael Grotticelli

MultiDyne SilverBULLET

Telecast’s CopperHead 3400 at the AFL Finals

be able to. I think it’s a market-size discussion.” The broadcast business has been pretty stagnant for the last two years, but it’s actually starting to show signs of life, Reed said. “We still sell mostly bigger trucks, but with a lot less in them. They are thinned down in features to keep the price down. It’s a battle now between corporate dollars and the real world guys working in the ﬁeld. That is still not resolved. The guys in corporate want to save money and the guys in the ﬁeld want to feel safe and comfortable.” KCBS, the CBS-owned station in Los Angeles, employs Telecast Fiber System’s ﬁbre technology in ten of its trucks and plans to upgrade its entire ﬂeet of 20-plus vehicles to ﬁbre capability over time. One of the reasons is its 50,000 square mile DMA, which often requires very long cable runs. Dan Haight, Director of Engineering at KCBS, said three factors drove the use of ﬁbre. “We are looking to save a lot of weight in the news vans. The old-style cable reels with their half-inch copper cable weigh about 250 pounds or more. You put a Telecast reel of 500 feet of Tac-4 ﬁbre and you are talking maybe 30 pounds. It’s a huge weight saving.” KCBS camera operators can get closer to the news event and preserve the quality of their signals with ﬁbre, he added. They can send multiple signals back and forth including PL (power), which is important to stations like KCBS. They also like the electrical disconnect between the camera in the ﬁeld and the truck, for safety reasons.

“The ﬁbre isolates the camera from the vehicle,” Haight said. “If something went horribly wrong ¬let’s say the cameraman is plugged into the copper harness and the truck’s operator runs the mast up into high tension lines it could kill the cameraman. And, if there’s anything they plug into the ﬁeld locally, it could create a ground loop and create hum throughout everything. So ﬁbre isolates that potential in the ﬁeld.” Haight said KCBS microwave systems “are very well known, mature systems with a high degree of quality of service.” The fact that Los Angeles is so spread out mandates ﬁbre on many shoots. “We can go long distances on ﬁbre without signal degradation,” he said. “We have several 1,000 foot putups on wheels. We can link them all together. Everything here is spread out. Having the ability to go further on glass without quality degradation is important.” The station uses Telecast’s Copperhead 3050 camera-mounted systems and makes extensive use of the unit’s IFB and return video features. An included Ethernet capability is also important, Haight noted. One Box Television, a UK-based ENG equipment rental company, supplies its clients with the SilverBULLET Mini 3G HD/SDI ﬁbre optic link from MultiDyne Video & Fiber Optic Systems. With recent rentals to premier broadcast networks including the BBC, One Box Television was looking to upgrade its equipment to further incorporate the most sophisticated HD solutions on

the market into its custom-made, “One Box” broadcast rental system. As the system is used for remote productions, One Box Television selected the SilverBULLET 3G ﬁbre optic links for their ability to transport 3G signals over long distances on a single mode of ﬁbre, their ease of portability and their extremely compact size. “By combining the SilverBULLET modules with our other technology, the on-camera boxes now allow full vision control of HD cameras over 100 meters, as well as feeding time code, talkback and reverse vision,” said Richard Stevenson, Founder of One Box Television. “The product revolutionises the stability of our pictures, and has allowed much longer cable runs than were previously available to us over coax cable.” At the end of the day, it’s all about practicality. The use of ﬁbre provides many beneﬁts, including reduced setup time, improved distribution of signals, long cable runs without transmission loss and dramatically reduced weight. As signals continually require more bandwidth and equipment continues to aggregate more signals into a single transmission path, optical ﬁbre will continue to be a reliable and robust method of transmission and distribution of broadcast signals. ■

Fibre-Optic cabling

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In Broadcast - July 2012

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