9 Hours On The Front Line Of The DTV Transition

Will you remember where you were on February 19, 2009?  I will - although the final event was watered-down and has yet to actually happen, that is the day that analog TV broadcasting was to cease in the United States.  In an attempt to lessen the impact on Wisconsinites, Wisconsin Public Television (my day-job) set up a phone bank for viewers of all stations - commercial AND public - to call for tips, advice and information on what just happened.  While nationwide only about a third of TV stations have now turned off their analog signals, in Wisconsin the shutoff is almost total, and that left a lot of people - generally elderly, and many rural - with snow where Oprah used to be.  So they called us, and in a 3-day period we fielded over 1500 calls. 

I spent 9 hours one day on the phones, and talked to about 75 viewers all told.  Some people’s questions were easy to fix - rescanning for channels, or explaining what the yellow/red/white cable should be plugged into - but some were heartbreaking.  There is a lot of wide open space in the northern part of Wisconsin, and unless people have really high-gain antennas with rotators on 50+ foot towers, many aren’t going to recieve any signal at all.  The city of Wisconsin Rapids sits 50 miles south of Wausau, and while people were able to get acceptable (although snowy) analog signals, in digital they are blind thanks to the “cliff effect” - in essence, while an analog signal will fade away to snow over distance, digital will disappear completely if you don’t recieve 50.1% of the bits being transmitted.  Wisconsin Rapids is, literally, “off the cliff.”  And people are not happy about this.  Several of my colleagues reported people in tears, and while that might sound trite to you, think again - a lot of these people are elderly and isolated and use the TV as entertainment, information and yes, even as a companion.  To tell these folks that their TV went away because a cell-phone company wants more 3G spectrum is just sickening to me.

Even more sickening than that is the attitude I see on so many Weblogs, with people (presumably young, male and geeky) spouting off that anyone who isn’t aware or ready for the analog cutoff doesn’t deserve TV at all!  These heartless bastards seem to forget that there are many people out there that either can’t afford cable or satellite TV, or in many cases just can’t get it (cable penetration in rural areas is notoriously low.) 

But, what’s done is done.  The new analog cutoff date - June 12 - will be here before we know it.  I strongly suggest that all of us look around our friends, families and others and ask if anyone is not ready for the end of analog TV.  If they aren’t, help get them ready.  Consider it your good deed for the century.  And maybe the heartless bastards can get out there and help as well.  Maybe it could help them grow some semblance of a heart.

More Storage Goodness From Vantec!

Way back when in October 2008, I gushed about the Vantec external eSATA/USB2 drive dock.  Well, if one bay in the dock is good, I suppose two bays are, well, super good.  This link goes to the ThinkGeek listing for the dual-bay Vantec, and as much as I love the stuff ThinkGeek sells, I’m sure this jewel is available in all sorts of places.  Check it out.  And when you do buy one, be sure to hook it up through the eSATA port - for 3Gb/sec transfer - instead of the measly USB2 port and it’s pathetic 480Mb/sec.  (Imagine that last line in the voice of Star Wars’ Emperor Palpatine.

)

Excuses for safe storage of projects are disappearing daily.  That’s a nice trend I hope will continue.

So Analog TV Has Gone Away…

Today is February 18, 2009, the day after roughly half of the US analog TV transmitters were shut off for the last time.  While I didn’t see any of it happen with my own two eyes, all of the Madison stations that pulled the plug (The Fox affiliate and Wisconsin Public TV are staying on in analog for now) did it with some fanfare, with the ABC affiliate even showing one of their engineers actually pushing the “off” button for real.  Others played the National Anthem, showed fireworks, and some went to the Indian Head test pattern that was the staple of broadcasting for many years.  Of course, today’s generation can look on this with bemusement, because these days it is a rare event for a TV station to ever go off the air.  (Search Youtube with “analog shutoff” and you’ll see almost a hundred submissions - I assume many more will be posted in the coming days.)

So anyway, this morning I see an email from a colleague with a link to an FCC tool that compares the theoretical coverage maps of stations before and after the analog shutdown. It is located here.  Fair warning - I couldn’t get the app to work in Firefox, but once I went to the Internet Explorer rendering engine all was fine.  It is fascinating, instructive information, and when used in conjunction with the Consumer Electronics Association’s Antennaweb.org could be quite predictive of what viewers might - or might not - see in the post-analog age. 

Muzak Files For Bankruptcy

I’m sure none of us root for people to lose their jobs, but in this case, I’m conflicted:

Muzak has filed for bankruptcy.

FTA:

Closely held Muzak supplies more than 2 million songs and music to retailers to help set the mood in their stores, in hopes of influencing shoppers to become buyers. Muzak was founded in the 1930s by U.S. Army General George Squier, who adapted military messaging technology to pipe music into elevators to drown out the noise they produced, according to its Web site.

Today, Muzak delivers music from more than 80 genres via satellite or by producing custom mixes. Customers have included McDonald’s Corp., Ann Taylor Stores Corp. and AT&T Inc., Muzak said on its Web site.

Of course, bankruptcy - at least Chapter 11 - doesn’t necessarily mean the silencing of the Muzak.  However, I could live without the elevator version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that scars my psyche to this day.  Gives me chills.  Not good ones, either.

Who’s Watching Hulu?

Interesting news from the Wall Street Journal, via the NAB Newsbrief:

Confounding experts that predicted floods of young adults would abandon TV for websites like Hulu.com, it appears that…  (FTA)

When the company launched (Hulu) last March, the largest age group visiting the site were those Internet visitors over 55 years old, accounting for 47% of all site visits, while traditionally younger early adopters accounted for only 17% of traffic.

Wow.  Maybe the old folks aren’t entirely fossilized yet.  Of course, there is a claimed reason that Hulu is so popular with the Geritol set, as opposed to, say, YouTube:

It later became clear that what first appeared to be a data anomaly was the result of Hulu.com’s very Web 1.0 launch strategy, which used articles in the New York Times and other newspapers to attract viewers. As a result, after its release in October 2007, more than 20% of Hulu’s traffic came from newspaper Web sites. The largest age demographic for visitors to print news Web sites is older Internet users over the age of 55.

So it’s all about how you promote your site?  Hmmmm.  I do remember very clearly the day I decided the Web was going to stick - it was when I saw a Buick ad on TV in the mid-90’s that had, in tiny type on the bottom, the words “buick.com.”  If the uncoolest car brand in the world could see the value, maybe we all could, eventually.

So are we on our way to a stratified World Wide Web, where the kids own some stuff and the codgers own the rest?  It seems we might already be there (this is one of the downsides of almost unlimited choice.)  But look out, kids - I hear the fastest-growing cohort of new members on Facebook is - you guessed it - over-50’s.

Is nothing sacred anymore?

DTV Transition:  It Couldn’t Get Worse Than This!

Hoo doggies, not even I could have predicted this one!  I have been preaching doom for the digital TV transition since 2001 (Hey DV.com!!  Wanna put your archives back online?  A grateful nation would thank you…) but although a delay in the February 17, 2009 deadline was a pretty easy call, I totally missed the coup de gras:

Now stations can turn their analog transmitters off whenever they want!  Great, so the lights are going to blink off one by one, with the public fairly clueless about who will and who won’t be on the air in analog.  Of course, stations have ample incentive to stop analog broadcasting, as their transmitters are voracious energy hogs (I hear $20,000 a month in electricity isn’t unusual) and in many cases are old, creaky and unreliable.

In my market - Madison WI - the ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates have all announced their intent to cease analog broadcasting on February 17th.  The Fox affiliate hasn’t said much about their plans, and Wisconsin Public Broadcasting (my day job) will stay on in analog until a yet-to-be-determined time.  I couldn’t write a better prescription for confusion if I tried.

And it keeps getting better - the bill that delays the switch contains no new money for the Federal coupon program, which could be the only justifiable reason for a delay - to pump a little helium into the sagging balloon that is the transition.  The coupons are gone, and yet there is now a waiting list. 

Anyone out there think that this will end well?

Get Your Finger Off That Dissolve Button!

I can barely watch television anymore.  Seriously.  It seems that no one knows how to edit anymore, and the culprit in this demise is the non-linear editor.  Allow me to explain.

About 20 years ago, I went to Los Angeles to visit a friend that had landed a producing job at KNBC.  During my tour of the station, my friend towed me through the edit suites.  Above the door was a huge banner that read:

IF YOU CAN’T SAY IT WITH A CUT, MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T SAY IT AT ALL.

I thought it was funny then.  At that time - the late 1980’s - editing was strictly a linear, tape-to-tape affair, and footage was recorded to tape.  This wasn’t too big of a deal most of the time, because most edit suites were cuts-only, machine-to-machine rigs.  However, once in a while you’d run across a multi-machine A/B roll suite, with an edit computer controlling the whole shebang, including a video switcher.  This was Valhalla for a creative-minded editor, because now the whole wide world of dissolves, wipes, keys and maybe even DVE moves were available at your fingertips - except when you wanted to do an effect between two shots that were on the same tape.  That’s when the “dub reel” came into play.  (Later, some tape formats incorporated digital memory in the form of “pre-read,” but that’s another story.)  If you really HAD to have that dissolve, you would cue up the 2nd shot in the player deck, then dub it over to another tape - the “dub reel.”  The dub reel got placed in the second playback deck, the tapes were cued and prerolled, and the dissolve magically appeared (assuming there wasn’t a glitch, of which there were many.) 

As laborious as this sounds, believe me, it was actually worse than that.  So, many dissolves just didn’t happen - no one wanted to go through all that hassle over and over again.  And oddly enough, our editing and storytelling skills were sharpened by the need to think our way around changes in place and time that occurred within a story.  Because that is essentially where dissolves belong - at changes in place and time, and very few other places at all.

All that is gone today.  Every shot in an NLE can be butted up against any other, and any of a million transitions can be placed in between.  I see stories on both local and network TV that will dissolve between the wide shot and the closeup in the SAME INTERVIEW!  I see dissolves used as a kind of salve between two soundbites of the SAME PERSON, sitting in the same place, at the same focal length!  Don’t these photogs shoot any B-roll?  Do the managers think people won’t notice?  Well, I notice, and it screams in my head:

LAZY EDITOR.

But, hey.  It’s a USA Today world, right?  Good enough is good enough, right?  Sorry, but I dissent.  And I’ll fight for the day when dissolves are rare and motivated, when L-cuts and J-cuts come back into fashion, and editing rises again above the level of slamming footage together as fast as possible to get that dreck on the air.

Build A Lumberyard Lighting Kit

It’s my belief that the most under-rated skill in video production is lighting.  If you know what you are doing, even an inexpensive camera can make impressive pictures (and of course, the reverse is also true – if you don’t know what you are up to, even a great camera can look terrible.)  If you snoop around at sites like B&H Photo and Video, you’ll quickly discover that a professional lighting kit is no small expense; it is not uncommon for a single light to cost upwards of $500, and boxed kits are often over $2000.  But don’t despair!  A lot of the basic things you need to do a good job of lighting are doable with equipment can be bought for small money at your local lumberyard.  (You’ll also be taking a few side trips too.)  Let’s have a look around and see what’s available.

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