The MundoFox Dejero setup used at the Vatican during coverage of the election of Pope Francis
LOS ANGELES—Noticias MundoFox is one of the newest Spanish-language television networks in the United States, having launched in August 2012. It’s a joint venture between Fox International Channels and RCN from Bogota, Colombia and was established to meet the increasing demand for quality Spanish content.
Budgets are always important for startup news operations, and we were no exception. We’re committed to operating cost-effectively without compromising on the quality, immediacy, or completeness of our news coverage. And as any news professional knows, the ability to cover live, breaking news from the source is a critical differentiator— but can also be a major expense—especially if the station has to maintain costly satellite and microwave vehicles.
COST SAVINGS AND PORTABILITY
Instead of purchasing trucks, we adopted a powerful and cost-effective alternative: the Dejero Live+ 20/20 Transmitter, a stateof- the-art bonded wireless newsgathering system that our news crews can carry into the heart of the story.
The portable, rugged Live+ 20/20 encodes and transmits live or prerecorded, high-quality HD or SD video using any combination of 4G or 3G cellular networks, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and even satellite links. With this lightweight equipment and a video camera, our news teams can enter difficult-to-access areas and be ready to transmit in just a few minutes without the expense or specialized crew needed to operate a satellite or microwave truck. The Live+ 20/20 also can go places that trucks can’t.
We have deployed Live+ 20/20 Transmitters at all of our news bureaus and have installed two Dejero Live+ broadcast servers at our Los Angeles headquarters. With feeds coming into the servers from the Live+ 20/20 transmitters, it’s easy for me to access the content and route it as required for live broadcasts, or archiving for later use.
In its first year, Noticias MundoFox has deployed Dejero Live+ 20/20 Transmitters to provide live coverage of some of the world’s most high-profile events, including the resignation of Pope Benedict and the subsequent election of Pope Francis as the Catholic Church’s first Latino leader, the death of Nelson Mandela, the election of President Obama to a second term, and the election of Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto.
LIVE FROM VATICAN CITY
For the papal election, we connected our Live+ 20/20 Transmitter system to a private Ethernet drop provided by Dejero and transmitted live shots from a hotel terrace with a panoramic view of the Vatican. We broadcast our full-hour newscast from the terrace for 15 days with consistent high quality supported by the bonded transmission capabilities of the Live+ 20/20 Transmitter. Satellite linkage would have been at least $6,000 a day, but we were able to transmit broadcast- quality feeds for a tiny fraction of that cost.
The versatility of using portable satellite, bonded cellular and Ethernet connections means that our lean news departments can travel to where the news is breaking. This brings a whole new level of excitement and immediacy to our newscasts that simply isn’t possible with traditional ENG trucks.
Armando Acevedo is director of operations for Noticias MundoFox and may be contacted atarmando.acevedo@mundofox.com.
For additional information, contact Dejero at 866-808-3665 or visit www.dejero.com.
