As the Official Podcast of the 2009 NAB Show, the Digital Production BuZZ produced 37 live news casts, and 12 hours of live programming and interviews. These were syndicated to more than 25 websites and reached tens of thousands of listeners. All in six days.

I thought I’d share with you how we did it.

Getting Ready

Production planning for NAB began almost two months ago as our producer, Cirina Catania, event manager, Debbie Price, and myself starting work on this event. Cirina handled all content issues, Debbie coordinated the booth, and I was responsible for all tech.

We instantly agreed that NAB was too big a show for our normal format of a weekly one-hour show. Cirina came up with the idea of doing daily one-hour shows, while I wanted the flexibility to cover breaking news using a five minute newscast. We decided to do both.

Then, about a month before, one of our syndication partners – wsRADIO – asked if we could produce some custom shows exclusively for them to distribute. So, we added five additional one-hour shows to our production schedule.

It was impossible to meet this sized production schedule with our existing production staff, so about a month ago, I put out a call for volunteers to see if anyone would be interested in helping. I was stunned with the size and quality of the response. Our volunteers have been magnificent – amazing talented and dedicated folks – who have truly worked tirelessly to pull this off. (I’ll have more on them in a minute.)

In addition to staff, we also needed gear. Edit Share loaned us one of their field servers, Marantz loaned us four of their latest portable digital recorders (PMD-661) and Aphex loaned us four 230 Master Voice Processors.

Load in for the booth was last Friday. Essentially, in a day, we setup a broadcast radio station that could do two things:

1. Broadcast live news, integrating audio clip playback directly from our server with me reading voice-over copy

2. Record multichannel audio interviews (each guest on their own mike and recorded separately) in our booth for later editing and integration into our one-hour shows.

For the live news, each field reporter had a Marantz recorder, Shure SM-58 microphone, Sennheiser HD-202 headset, and a clip board to note whom they talked to and what they talked about. Each Marantz unit recorded directly to a 1 GB flash memory card.

Staffing Workflow

Each morning, Cirina (pictured above) would decide what stories we needed to cover. Then, she would assign our field reporters out into the conferences and show floor.

Our field reporters did an amazing job – interviewing over 200 people in less than five days and getting amazing coverage of the show. I am truly grateful to this incredible team of volunteers:

Roz McNulty (President of Pitch Page) – www.pitchpage.com

Philip Roy (MediaLab Maine) – www.medialabmain.com

Norman Hollyn (Author & Media Expert) – normanhollyn.com

Bob Merrill (MFocus Media)

Carol Tenney (Attorney at Law)

Sue Lawson (CHIFCPUG) – www.chicagoedit.com

Philip Hodgetts – (Intelligent Assistance) – www.intelligentassistance.com

Rytas Januska

When the reporters came back with the story, they would hand the recorder to our Traffic Manager – Hana Peters, in the teal jacket above – who would copy all files to the server, rename each of them so we could track the status of each file just by checking its file name, and send it off on the editorial process.

(Hana is the newest member of my staff and is truly amazing for her ability to remain calm and focused when complete chaos is breaking out around her!)

Since we were server-based, all news files were instantly available to our audio editing team:

Rocco Zappia (Production, Post Production) – www.roccoz.com

Greg Ingber (Writer, Broadcaster, Producer) – www.gregingber.com

Both these men were great – very fast and talented; in fact, Rocco was with us the entire week. Completely focused, cheerful, talented and dedicated, we could not have done this without him.

Every audio file was auditioned, converted from WAV to AIF format, and edited for content. We used AIF files for their high quality and maximum compatibility between systems.

Once the files were edited, they were moved into a new folder for renaming by Hana, then moved to a third folder where Cirina would listen to them and decide which ones to schedule for the hourly news report. Cirina would then write the script for each newscast.

Extended Interviews

While all this was going on in the booth at the production tables, Debbie Price was coordinating studio interviews with dozens of exhibitors. The purpose of these was for our hourly shows each evening, to give companies with new products a longer opportunity to explain them to our audience.

Each interview ran between 10-15 minutes. I recorded them in multi-track format using Soundtrack Pro 2, and edited them throughout the day, and evening, and, um, night for integration into each show.

We did about twelve interviews a day for a total of about 65 interviews. We would do three to four interviews an hour, then broadcast a newscast, then back to the interviews.

News Equipment Workflow

We had, essentially, two different systems set up in the booth: one for live news and the other for pre-records.

For live news, all news clips were in Quicktime format and stored on the server. I’d open the files we needed for each newscast on my Mac laptop.

Leaning the script against my computer monitor, I’d start reading using a BeyerDynamic DT-190 headset microphone into the Aphex 230 Master Voice Recorder (I’m trying to see if I can carry on of these things around, just to improve the sound of ordinary conversation..)

From there it would go to a Mackie VLZ-1402 audio mixer, then into an Edirol UA-25 portable mixer for conversion to digital using its on-board limiter to keep our levels safe. It then traveled over a 15 foot USB cable to our streaming server, where it would be streamed, recorded, and posted to the variety of syndication sites that were carrying our news.

The last stop on our team was our streaming engineer Gregory Clark (VP Technology of Intelligent Assistance) – www.intelligentassistance.com. Working with Greg was like swatting flies with an elephant gun — I don’t think there’s a web-based technical problem that he can’t solve.

Interview Equipment Workflow

For our interviews, we used a set of three BeyerDynamic headset mics, each feeding into its own Aphex box. From there, the output went into a Presonus FireBox for digitization and was recorded on my laptop using Apple Soundtrack Pro 2. I would store the files locally for editing and up to the server for safety.

After deciding which interviews would be in each show, I’d record all necessary opens and closes, then assemble the entire program in my hotel room each night.

After some initial problems during the first weekend, all the equipment worked great. By Tuesday we found a working rhythm where everything was flowing seamlessly and files were moving extremely quickly from interview to air.

Summary

We knew going in that this would be an enormous project. The key is spending the time to plan, getting the right people, and setting up a consistent workflow. Oh, and getting it all working perfectly from a standing-start to full operation in less than two days.

One last note, I was blown away by the quality of the people on this team. Each one is a talented professional. And, each one is free-lance. If you are looking for some help, these folks are a great place to start.

I am enormously grateful to everyone on our team for making this possible.

To see what we accomplished, visit: www.nabshowbuzz.com

Larry Jordan
Executive Producer / Host
www.digitalproductionbuzz.com

At 9:00 AM this morning, the 2009 NAB Show opened the doors to its trade show, the crowds rushed in, and the Digital Production BuZZ went to work.

After two days tuning our systems, we were in full operation today – gathering almost 100 short news interviews, and fifteen in-depth reports.

Here, for instance, you see me, in the red shirt, interviewing Pete Schlatter, director of marketing for G-Technologies. Our award-winning producer, Cirina Catania, is standing behind the assignment desk in the back. Hidden behind the audio gear are several audio editing workstations, streaming station, and interview scheduling desk (yay, Debbie Price!).

It is fun watching people walk up to the booth and stand listening to the interviews. While we don’t have the ground-thumping power of subwoofers run amok – as seems to be the case periodically in the Content Theater, it is always great to have an audience reacting to the comments of the guest.

Tomorrow, we have interviews scheduled from about 9:00 am till 3:00 pm — feel free to stop by, sit down, and listen in. (Our audio speakers aren’t quite as big as a theater, but they do sound great!)

Here’s the list of guests that appear on tonight’s show:

Richard Florida, Noted author and NAB Keynote speaker

Bruce Nazarian, President of IDMA

Mitch Jacobson, Director, editor, and multicam expert

David Taylor, President, Cineform

Allan Jaeniecke, President, Imagineer

Shari Barnett, Marketing Director, Applications, Mediaroom

Dan Lutter, Director of Sales, Net Insight

You can hear the entire show here.

You can see a complete list of everything we are doing at NAB here.

Also, as a reminder, now that we are reporting live from NAB, please consider adding our player to your website. You can get all the details here.

Best of all, we set a new speed record for getting everything done. I won’t know what to do with a full night’s sleep…

Larry

Today we discovered just how big a show the 2009 NAB Show really is…

Yup – it’s huge.

We had reporters covering as much as we could and we still felt that we could have used another 40-50 people.

Still, we got a great series of interviews with Chris Brown, executive VP of the NAB Show talking about how everything all goes together and Jessica Sheridan, manager of interactive marketing for the NAB Show, discussing how they we able to successfully use social networking to get the word out about the upcoming event. Along with the other guests listed below.

But, for us, the highlight of the day, was seeing our producer – Cirina Catania – win an Inky Award for her work for the Digital Production Buzz. Cirina has been tireless in tracking down guests and building the incredible team we have here at NAB.

The award was richly deserved and we congratulate her on winning it. (It was, also, one the few times I’ve seen her speechless…)

Here’s our guest list for our NAB Day 2 Special Report:

Chris Brown, Executive Vice President of the NAB Show

Jessica Sheridan, Manager, Interactive Marketing, NAB Show

Robert Sharp, President and Owner, DigiEffects

Fred Fourcher, CEO, BitCentral

Steve Katz, vice president of sales, JMR Electronics

And two of our field reporters – Sue Lawson and Roz McNulty – with their thoughts on NAB so far.

You can hear the entire show here.

Also, as a reminder, now that we are reporting live from NAB, please consider adding our player to your website. You can get all the details here.

Time for a quick nap. Our day starts tomorrow at 8 AM and the doors open at 9 AM. It will be a wild ride.

Larry

Well, even though it looked like I was a few cables short of a complete production studio yesterday, I managed to get everything connected. And the booth looks great — even though the rest of the show floor is covered in packing cases.

We now have a fully-functioning news production studio at NAB: we are podcasting our news briefs live, while still able to record multi-channel split feeds for all studio interviews to simplify editing.

Every morning, our team of reporters, lead by show producer Cirina Catania, gets together to plan coverage and figure out what we want to present for each newscast and show special.

A special thanks to the folks at EditShare, we are using their Field Network Server to create a ten-seat production network for ingest, file management, editing and live-to-air playback. An interesting story with the EditShare — they loaned us one of their Field Network Servers and we were having connectivity problems with it. We discovered we had attached a bad switch. I replaced the switch and files are just sailing around the network. Also, in diagnosing the problem, we also discovered that one of the hard drives inside the unit had died. However, since an EditShare unit is fully redundant, we didn’t lose any data. (Note to self: Always use a RAID 5 to make sure data stays safe in live situations.)

Marantz loaned us four of their latest PMD-661 digital audio recorders for our field reporters use. I am very impressed with how easy they are to use and how readable the LCD screen is. They make our recordings sound great, without requiring a lot of operating expertise on the part of our reporters.

Another great toy that I’m delighted to work with is the Aphex 230 Master Voice Processors — we, um, have four of them. Sigh… These are just sweet – that make our voices sound great, without worrying about over-modulation. I’m also using their multi-channel output to create a split-feed for each mic: one to the mixer for live feeds and the other to a Presonus Firebox to digitize for our interview recordings.

If you have a chance, stop by our booth – Central Hall C-1062 – and I’ll show you how we are using all the gear.

However, there’s no sense having all this equipment if we don’t create some programs with it. So, today, we launched our new hourly NAB News Briefs — we posted four today and will ramp up to hopefully double that tomorrow.

You can hear them here: www.nabshowbuzz.com.

Also, we’ve created a one-hour NAB Special Report – the first of seven reports that we will run every night of NAB. Our guest list for this first show includes:

1. Chris Brown, Executive Vice President of the NAB Show
2. Vance Van Petten, Executive Director of the Producers Guild
3. Boris Yamnitsky, CEO at Boris FX
4. Marco Bario, VP, Theatrical Post-Production at Technicolor Creative Services
5. Marvin Ceasar, CEO of Aphex Systems
6. Will Richmond, President, Broadband Directions
7. Ron Clifton, CEO, International Datacasting

You can hear the entire show here.

Also, as a reminder, now that we are reporting live from NAB, please consider adding our player to your website. You can get all the details here.

It’s been a great, but tiring day. Tomorrow, we’ll be doing even more live interviews in our booth. Stop by, take a seat, and listen in.

Until then, I’m taking a nap.

Larry

The 2009 NAB Show asked the Digital Production BuZZ to be the Official Podcast of the 2009 NAB Show.  And, after a LONG night of driving, we arrived!

Led by producer Cirina Catania, we’ve brought a staff of 15 to cover NAB — keynotes, conferences, and exhibits.  Our booth is in the Central Hall, near the Content Theater (C-1062). And, near the beginning of setup, here’s what it looked like.

Our audio coverage starts tomorrow (Saturday) at noon with hourly NAB News Briefs. (Assuming, that is, that I can figure out where all the different cables need to connect.)

We have a team of seven reporters, fanning out to all the keynotes, conferences, press conferences, and show booths to cover all the breaking news at the show. Then, every hour, we summarize the best of it in a news brief.

Even more, tomorrow evening, starting at 7:00 PM PST, we post the first of SEVEN hours of special show interviews and news. Our goal is to get the news behind the press release and talk to the people who are changing our industry.

To get all the updates from NAB, bookmark this page: www.nabshowbuzz.com.

Post Our NAB News Briefs on your Website — FREE!
Even better, help us get the word out! You can post all the latest news from the BuZZ on your website. Go here to get the simple, FREE, player. It automatically updates every time we create a news report. Best of all, once you’d added the player, everything else is automatic.

These five minute audio feeds are created new each hour and are filled with the latest news and interviews right from the show floor.

Its late and tomorrow starts early. I’ll have more reports from NAB — along with some highlights from the interviews and photos of our finished booth — tomorrow.

Larry

Gabe, over at CrumplePop sent me the following note today:

We’re launching a product today that might be interesting to the Final Cut Pro audience. The product is called CrumplePop, and it’s a suite of FCP Master Templates that make it easy(er) for busy editors to drop high-quality hand-drawn elements directly into the FCP timeline.

So, I wandered over and discovered a wild collection of hand-drawn fonts and images. If you are looking for something different, take a look at this: www.crumplepop.com

I posted this a couple of days ago to the Latest News section of the Digital Production BuZZ, but this is a big enough deal that I wanted to mention it here.

When Data Robotics first announced Drobo, it was intriguing because for the first time we had a RAID with expandable storage. All other RAIDs can’t be expanded without reformatting and losing your data. But the first version of Drobo, though cute, was way too slow for any serious video work.

With the second release, Drobo stepped up to FireWire. While this version was still slow, it was usable for a variety of tapeless formats where data safety was more important than hard disk speed. This was the version I wrote a review about — which you can read here.

The styling and expandable storage were very nice, but it was still too slow for video editing. Until this week, when DroboPro was announced.

As the Drobo press release states:

DroboPro delivers a radically simplified storage experience enhanced by advanced self-monitoring and self-healing functionality that enables small and medium businesses (SMBs) to maintain uptime in the face of constant data growth — including protection against multiple concurrent drive failures and no-downtime capacity expansion.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with the Data Robotics crew during the development of this project. I kept stressing the need for more speed and with the DroboPro, they are now claiming data transfer speeds, using iSCSI, that can reach upward of 70 MB/second. This is more than enough to support most popular video formats.

Drobo has several key benefits:

• The ability to expand in size at any time without losing or reformatting your data.
• Full data protection – lose one, or even two disks, and your data is still safe
• Double the maximum capacity of the earlier Drobo
• iSCSI, FireWire, and USB interfaces
• Smart styling and a very helpful user interface, called Drobo Dashboard.

I have not yet had the opportunity to test one of these new units. So everything I know comes from my conversations with the people at Drobo. However, they will be showing the new version at NAB, and shipping shortly thereafter. If reasonable speed, data safety, low noise, and great looks are important to you, take a look at DroboPro.

My friend, Nate Adams over at Media Distributors tipped to me a new asset management system being introduced by Media Distributors at NAB.

Now, I know that the concept of a database for tracking assets can cause many people’s eyes to defocus — but let me tell you, not finding the clip you need when you need it is a HUGE deal.

Here’s a description of the system that Media Distributors sent me:

Combining the strength of enterprise-level storage and high-end image analysis, Media Distributors introduces a truly next-generation asset management system – Constellation VCM™ – for NAB 2009. You can see demos of the system at the Band Pro booth (#C-10408) during the show.

The Constellation VCM system is the first to leverage tiered storage and digital fingerprinting. This is scalable for customers that range from high-volume to small production companies. It offers full search, retrieve, and manipulation of video and project files, without touching the original video source content. It supports ingest (using Sony F23/F35, EX3, and Panasonic Varicam, DVCPRO and P2 cameras), archive, and editing – including color correction – and can automatically distribute to CD, DVD, or to digital delivery systems. The system also allows you to manage media files and metadata.

Constellation VCM recognizes a variety of video formats, software including to Apple Final Cut Pro Studio, Avid, and PilotWare. It supports XSAN, Unity, Blu-ray Disc, tape drives, and library systems and runs on the Mac OS X, Linux, and a variety of Windows systems.

You can learn more by visiting here: www.mediadistributors.com/connect/index.php.

Shur Harewood sent me a reminder this morning that April, 2009, is the tenth anniversary of the release of Final Cut Pro.

In a 2002 press release Apple wrote:

Since its introduction in April 1999, Final Cut Pro has become the most popular professional video editing software in the world with a strong following among film and video professionals.

Here’s the 2002 press release from Apple announcing that Final Cut won its first Emmy (this was the earliest release I could find on Apple’s website that mentions Final Cut):
www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/aug/20emmy.html

So, Happy Birthday to Final Cut!

Vendors are finally starting to take the archiving needs of small media professionals seriously.

Tom Tomchak has been long-time reader of my newsletters and recently did a review of some new technology that will be premiered at NAB in a couple of weeks. As I’ve mentioned before, to my mind the immediate future of inexpensive archiving is not hard disk, or optical disk, but magnetic tape.

I like what he had to say and wanted to share his thoughts with you here:

http://www.suitetake.com/2009/04/06/nab-preivew-cache-a-lto-4-archive-drive-for-video-pros/

As always, let me know your thoughts.