Project of Transitioning TV Production from 'Tape' to File-Based System

In today's world, acquiring information is an important part of every individual's daily life. Television plays a major role in this, as a medium that enables us to present daily events at home and around the world through audio and visual means. This method was unsuitable for this type of programme, so the development of technology in this field continued – from cameras that recorded image and sound on magnetic tape in analogue form, to today's computer-supported system for processing video recordings.

Problem

In today's world, acquiring information is an important part of every individual's daily life. Television plays a major role in this, as a medium that enables us to present daily events at home and around the world through audio and visual means. And it is precisely the news programme that has the largest share of viewership.

Therefore, it is important for creators of news content to be able to deliver it to viewers as quickly and with as high quality as possible. Due to technological development, this is possible and realistic in today's world. The history of television production is linked to the Olympic Games, but over time it expanded to delivering diverse content.

The development of production technology for the needs of news programmes, which accounts for the largest share of viewership, was tied to film production.

Solution and Method

This method was unsuitable for this type of programme, so the development of technology in this field continued – from cameras that recorded image and sound on magnetic tape in analogue form, to today's computer-supported system for processing video recordings. Increasingly powerful computer systems enable us to process production content with higher quality and greater speed. The author of this diploma thesis analysed two methods of production, namely the classical method of production and the production of television programmes in file-based form.

He presented the methods of recording, editing, broadcasting and archiving of the mentioned methods. An important part is also system maintenance. He made a comparison of both systems and proved that the production of television programmes in file-based form has more advantages compared to the classical method and is therefore also a more suitable method for programme production in the future.

Today's modern society depends on fast, detailed and reliable information. The paths to this information are very different and in certain cases not very simple and not always accessible. For this purpose, various media have developed, whose basic activity is the distribution of information.

Among the most widespread, alongside printed media, radio and the internet, is also television. In the content structure of every major television house, the news programme represents the most important part of own programme production. The news programme occupies only a small part of programme time, but requires a large part of production capacities.

The great need for production capacities arises due to the condensed manner of presenting information. With the condensed manner of presenting information, it is necessary to produce a large quantity of short and content-refined pieces of information. To the production of a large quantity of short news items we must add another complicating circumstance, which is represented by time.

This factor plays a major role in news content, as alongside the information itself, the speed of conveying the information is important. The faster we deliver the information, the greater the interest and thus also its value. The fastest way of distributing news programmes is live transmission from the location of the event.

With this method, we convey information without processing and delay. In this way, we can convey a small quantity of different pieces of information. The second option is offered by recording a large quantity of events, processing and refining the recordings and their distribution in condensed form.

We gain diversity of information, but lose a certain amount of time. The quality of recordings and processing of recordings in news content is not the most important factor, but nevertheless most television houses strive to offer ever better technical quality of recordings or at least maintain quality. With the help of technical possibilities, we can shorten the time of production and distribution of news content.

The production process of news programmes is represented by the following elements: In the classical method of production, the quality of recordings decreases with each stage of processing. The quality of recordings decreases due to re-recording of recordings, which serves for editing and refining recordings. The main weakness of the classical method of production is the limited possibility of using recordings.

Each recording can only be used by one user at a time. The consequence of such a method of work is loss of time in the production of different news content. In the production of news content with the help of technology based on computer technology, we can bypass a certain part of the shortcomings of the classical method.

The file-based method of production enables us lossless reproduction and multi-user production of news content. Computer files can be copied and transferred losslessly between individual production stations. The file-based method of production also offers us the possibility of exploiting additional methods of distributing television content with the help of other media.

We can use the internet as a method of distribution. Content that we produce with the help of computer technology can be transformed with a few steps. Money, therefore costs and earnings, are a principal part of the entire business with information.

The costs of producing news programmes also include the purchase and maintenance of technical equipment and consumable materials that we need for production. The difference in the purchase cost of a field camera that stores recordings on magnetic tape and a camera that stores recordings in file-based form is minimal. However, the maintenance costs for a camera that stores recordings in file-based form are significantly lower.

For editing units, the purchase cost for one editing unit of a classical system is lower than the purchase cost of an editing system with central disk storage. However, the price of the latter decreases with the quantity of added editing units. To editing units we must add viewing stations, which means a large cost in the classical method of production that is carried out with magnetic tape.

The viewing room in a file-based system is equipped only with a computer workstation that enables viewing of a large variety of formats. Distribution systems based on playback from magnetic tape are less intensive in the area of purchase costs. However, large labour costs arise when using them.

When using such a system, we do not have many possibilities for automation. If we compare the positive and negative characteristics of both systems, the choice of system depends on the required capacities and method of production. Computer-supported processing of recordings is always a better decision, as we can preserve the technical quality of recordings.

To this advantage we can add the cost advantage, in the case that we do not use shared disk storage.

• Field recording,
• viewing,
• editing,
• final processing,
• distribution,
• archiving.