WSET-TV, the ABC affiliate in Roanoke-Lynchburg, VA, is now acquiring its local news (in the field and in the studio) in HD with new cameras from JVC Professional Products Company. The station’s operations were all tape-based until this switch, which has vastly improved the news production workflow.
Affiliated with Arlington, VA-based Allbritton Communications Company, WSET-TV is one of six Allbritton stations that has standardized on JVC ProHD cameras for studio and ENG work. WSET purchased eight GY-HM790Us and eight GY-HM750U cameras. It uses JVC’s ProHD Clip Manager software for logging footage.
This summer, WSET-TV connected three GY-HM790U cameras via fiber-optic cable in the studio, avoiding the need for triax and additional cable bundles. K.C. Spiron, WSET-TV director of operations and engineering, called it “a huge quality upgrade for us in our studio. We get plenty of power to run the monitors we need, and it works well.”
In September, WSET-TV starting shooting ENG footage exclusively with its new JVC camcorders. Spiron said the shooters quickly embraced the use of non-proprietary SDHC media cards and JVC’s native file recording technology, which provides ready-to-edit footage for the station’s Adobe Premiere CS5.5 NLE workstations.
With a lightweight, shoulder-mount design, the GY-HM750U can record HD footage in 720p, 1080p and 1080i, as well as SD footage (480i). A new feature allows simultaneous recording to dual SDHC cards for instant backup or client copy.
