Radio and television broadcast have been the primary source of information and entertainment for most people living in this world, and for the past several years, radio and television broadcast have attracted, informed, and entertained people. The radio broadcast in the past had been the immediate source of news; on the other hand, the television had been specially compelling due to its visual imagery.
Over the years, the popularity of television has grown significantly, especially, when the solid-state transistors and colored TV screens were first introduced. Likewise, the advent of TV broadcasting has greatly improved outside live broadcasting, and with this remote or outside broadcasting, TV stations can now cover any newsworthy event outside of the TV or radio stations. This is the reason we could view events such as those of the national or international sporting events, beauty pageants, political rallies, calamities, and other domestic news events.
Existing Technology
In the past, TV stations usually mobilized an ENG (electronic news gathering) team to the specific venue before the start of the scheduled event. This ENG team was tasked to reconnoiter the venue and pick the best spots for camera locations. The news gathering team likewise had to set-up the necessary video and audio equipment along with their accompanying tons of wires and cables. Depending on the scope of the event, a mobile production control room (PCR) truck (also known as production truck) or the smaller OB or outside broadcasting van was usually dispatched to the location to manage the live broadcast on site. The PCR trucks were larger and comprehensively equipped with video production, audio mixing, video tape recording, and camera control units for post-production tasks.
Alongside the PCR or production truck was the satellite truck that transmitted video signals to the TV station for editing and broadcasting. There are two types of satellite trucks and these trucks were classified according to the radio band used in transmission. The C-band satellite truck or TES (Transportable Earth Station) transmitted in the 4-8 Gigahertz range of the electromagnetic spectrum where the signals would be unaffected by “rain fade” radio phenomenon. The other type was the Ku-band satellite truck that used a smaller dish antenna that transmitted at 12-18 GHz.
Emerging Technologies
At present, new and emerging technologies in the field of communications are flooding the market. Cheap live streaming video equipment (both hardware and software) are very much abundant that even the mainstream people can now procure, acquire, broadcast using this innovative equipment. Via the use of the internet, everybody nowadays can readily video stream or live broadcast to any social media site.
The recent introduction of wireless video streaming and transmission equipment has revolutionized the outdoor use of video equipment. Untethered video camera with portable video transmission units are now fast becoming popular with film-producing industry and ENG units. These portable video transmission units give the cameraman the freedom of movement that could never be achieved using the older video camera with extensive cablings.
Despite the huge cost associated with the maintenance of older video equipment and with the use of geostationary satellite broadcast transmission, some TV stations go on relying on older existing broadcasting technologies, afraid that the new technologies might experience glitches and become unreliable. However, the majority of TV networks and film productions nowadays are enthused by the benefits of these emerging technologies and are slowly incorporating newer wireless equipment into their broadcasting systems.
Product Manager @ LiveU, a video streaming software provider. Visit us at: www.liveu.tv
