On ParkerVision
[UPDATE 2/20/05 12:27 PM]: I have now made this follow-up entry where I clarify a lot about ParkerVision and PVTV.
[UPDATE 2/19/05 6:13 AM]: You should know that a) I have not studied newscasts produced under ParkerVision and b) I have never used ParkerVision myself; all the following opinion is based on rumor and word of mouth.
Sounds like I need to say a few words on ParkerVision. In my entry about Game One of the 2004 World Series I referred to the fact that Emerson College now features ParkerVision in one of their brand new studios in the new building they built in Boston's Theatre District, behind the (Cutler) Majestic Theatre. More on that later.
Someone found the entry and commented, pointing me to a blog called PV Notes.
What is ParkerVision? You got a hint in the old Albert Finney and Susan Dey movie, "Looker." You may have heard of robotic studio cameras, whereby one person sitting at a console can control three, four or more cameras instead of one person controlling each one of them -- adjusting the "ped" or how high the camera is, tilting up and down, panning left to right, zooming in and out and adjusting focus. Imagine now that EVERY SINGLE THING required to put on a newscast or television show was automated if it could be. That's ParkerVision.
The director, or producer, operates the cameras, character generator, audio board, music cartridges/sound cues, videotapes (or video storage server), video source switcher, special video effects generator, graphic storage, and ENG (electronic news gathering) receive (where an engineer tunes in microwave shots from live trucks, and satellite shots), all with the push of a button. Push the button, the next thing happens -- like a GPI (general purpose interface). The only thing that is not automated is the human element: the anchors/talent, and putting on their mics and telling them where to sit or stand, or the actual newsgatherers -- producers and writers and reporters. (Thanks to Ananova of course that may be automated too one day in about 3006.)
WTNH/WCTX of New Haven has ParkerVision, because 'TNH is the number three (or four? if you count WTIC-TV I suppose) station in the Hartford/New Haven market, and the company is looking to cut its losses. [UPDATE:] I mean, that's my assumption. It's pretty common knowledge in the industry that WTNH has been considered more of a New Haven station than a Connecticut station in the recent past.
A director friend of mine who works freelance in New York City thinks the idea of ParkerVision is appalling. And so should he.
Here is my varied feeling on ParkerVision.
1. The geek in me can't get over the toy aspect of it. Watch! With one button I make the cameras do this, I make this happen here, I do that, and this, and that and everything! Wow! Cool!
That novelty doesn't last long. Especially where you work where I work.
2. Okay, that's fun and everything but what happens when you have breaking news?
Supposedly the producer is supposed to have a pre-set "script" for the computer to follow, just as he or she might have for the anchor to toss to ad-libbing or a live reporter, that includes camera shots, graphics, animation, Chyron supers, music carts, whatever. It just has to be dragged into the computer rundown.
3. Okay. I suppose we could go with that. But what happens when one of these elements goes down?
When I was at a different station -- one that had robotic mechanisms on its regular cameras, so that human operators could also use them like regular "manual" studio cameras for, say, a live show where you have to go with the flow -- sometimes the "robo"s went haywire. At least once the camera spontaneously panned off the anchor it was supposed to be looking at -- while the camera was on the air. Another time, a camera started moving toward the anchor desk of its own accord with its head tilted down like a bull. If the male anchor, who saw this, hadn't leapt out of his seat and rushed over and punched the emergency stop button on the pedestal, the camera and teleprompter would have slammed right into the desk.
Besides just robots going nuts -- what happens when your still store, or your switcher, or your skycam controller, or your chyron controller, or the Chyron Duet itself, which are all controlled by Windows computers, dies? Humans can ad-lib around it and change camera shots and such things in milliseconds. With ParkerVision, however, the computer's "script" would have to be re-encoded manually -- line by line -- which might require rolling a break so the producer could get the computer's act together.
And knowing the way humans are overworked in television these days, what happens when the producer has encoded something incorrectly?
The answer to all of this is: [UPDATE:] a poor on-air product.Or, as some might say, IT LOOKS LIKE SH*T CRAP ON THE AIR!
And corporate's answer to THAT is threefold:
a) Smack the overworked worker for doing bad work even though we set him or her up to fail. Or don't smack him/her.
b) Get another worker who works for cheaper and won't bitch when we give him or her too much work.
c) The poor on-air product? Oh, THAT'S THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS!
Think about it. For a fraction of the cost you can get a newscast on the air. That means you can sell commercials for it.
Naturally, unions hate it. Per newscast or newsblock, you can get rid of up to ten technicians. And automation doesn't ask for benefits, 401(k)s or time off.
(It does break down, but it doesn't have a family with mouths to feed, so get rid of the blasted thing.)
Now a word about the use of ParkerVision in a college setting. The very IDEA of using ParkerVision in a teaching setting is awful. Especially for Broadcast Journalism students. Before, every single little blonde BJ'er who wanted to be the next Katie Couric or Mary Hart would have to learn how to shoot her own stuff, operate the studio cameras, punch a show on the switcher, feed videotape machines, and floor direct. Now, she doesn't. This is a disservice to the student; she will not learn how difficult EVERYONE ELSE'S jobs are (or easy they are) and will not learn a respect for the people who do them -- that is, not before entering the real world, and that's only if she EVER learns a respect for the other positions.
I also say it will be more DIFFICULT for a student to get a lot of the theory of producing a show if a lot of the teaching and learning has to center around programming this intricate, confusing computer and making it work.
Once that little blonde BJ'er graduates, and has only worked on ParkerVision, what happens when she gets to a market that's still producing on typewriters? (I'm sure somebody must still be doing that somewhere.) It'll be so much more difficult to get up and running. And that student with limited experience will be a seriously lower caliber student than the college's students of yesteryear.
When I took Film I in college -- though I was not a film major -- it was a pain in the neck for me to learn how to bench edit. But "you've got to learn how to crawl before you can walk." Once I had bench-edited something, I had some very basic concepts already that helped me once I got to a Steenbeck flatbed editor. And what I learned on a Steenbeck would help if I had gone on and learned Avid intimately. (Of course I'd already worked on Media 100 on video projects and had other video editing experience, so I was at an advantage from the start, but still.) The same applies for learning broadcast television.
Labels: Originally published
... Scribbled by Bill T ... 2/19/2005 04:27:00 AM ... 
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