Archive translation. Specifications, services and availability reflect the original publication date in 2001. Verify current compatibility before production use.
Grass Valley introduced the NewsQ Pro news-playback system at IBC 2001. The product extended the company’s Digital News Production workflow, with further historical coverage available in Digital Production’s Grass Valley archive.
NewsQ Pro integrated the Profile XP media platform with Grass Valley’s NewsEdit nonlinear editor and could control as many as four Profile channels, either automatically or manually. It also supported other news-production systems, including AP ENPS, through the Media Object Server protocol.
A connected news-production workgroup
At IBC, Grass Valley also demonstrated its Digital News Production Workgroup connected to the Media Area Network real-time shared-storage system. The workgroup included FeedClip for interactive feed capture, NewsEdit for nonlinear editing and NewsQ for manual playback.
Other additions included support for several media formats, expanded audio functions and integration with ContentShare. Grass Valley said the ContentShare software platform could make third-party news applications more readily available within the workflow.
Tim Thorsteinson, then president and CEO of Grass Valley Group, said broadcasters needed systems that improved workflow while providing financial benefits. He presented NewsQ Pro and shared-storage integration as the company’s response to those requirements.
NewsQ Pro and MOS compatibility
The PC-based NewsQ Pro application managed up to four playout channels across as many as two Profile XP platforms. Its interface displayed a playlist with each item’s opening frame, title, ID and running time. Playback could be controlled by keyboard, mouse or GPI trigger. Operators could insert, move or delete playlist items without interrupting transmission.
NewsQ Pro could automatically build and update playlists from a MOS-compatible newsroom computer system. AP ENPS users could employ the NewsQ Pro Assignment List Manager plug-in to create clip placeholders, manage metadata and associate finished or unfinished clips with scripts. ENPS sent a playlist to NewsQ Pro and updated it whenever a script or rundown changed.
An additional Assignment List module connected AP ENPS with NewsEdit. From a context menu in the editor, journalists could work with clip placeholders. After finishing an edit, the editor selected the matching assignment and sent the clip. It was transferred to Profile XP, registered in the NewsQ Pro database and reported back to ENPS as complete. ENPS then updated the clip timing and exposed its metadata to newsroom users.
Grass Valley described this as an end-to-end news-production workflow with MOS interoperability. Lee Perryman, then deputy director of the Associated Press Broadcast Division and director of broadcast technology, said the integration could streamline production without sacrificing quality and extend ENPS through MOS.
NewsQ Pro also allowed a playlist to be loaded manually and provided manual control for emergencies.
Shared storage at IBC
The IBC demonstration connected the Digital News Production Workgroup to Grass Valley’s Media Area Network. This shared-storage system gave users concurrent access to editors and gateways on standard Windows NT networks as well as Profile input and output channels.
The workflow directly supported MPEG, DV and DVCPRO formats at data rates up to 50 Mb/s. Grass Valley also showed expanded audio mixing and output-channel functions, movement of audio clips between tracks, audio scrubbing and additional controls for input and level adjustment.
ContentShare integration
ContentShare used standard internet technologies including XML to associate video with text, audio and graphics. The integration was intended to expose more third-party news applications to Grass Valley customers.
Editors using a video-on-demand service or Profile XP would not need to dub material to tape before editing. Instead, content could move directly into Profile XP or the Digital News Production Workgroup. Multiple users could work with the same media, simplifying newsroom collaboration and shortening the time required to get a report on air.
