Toshiba - More Than Just Laptops
The Toshiba laptop review editor is capable of playing back both DV format and DVCPRO format recordings. This allowed the news team to utilize a consumer level DV "stringer" camcorder to collect additional footage. While both Sony and Panasonic manufacture DV cameras, Panasonics AG-EZIU camcorder was the one employed as the stringer camera on this trip. It uses three 1/3" CCDs, weighs about 2.4 pounds and records one hour of digital video.
It only requires 5 lux of light and draws 8.2 watts of power. For the electronic news gathering environment the news team who used the equipment found the video quality acceptable. All the stones were fed back to Canada by taking the laptop editor to the local teleport. The real gain for the CBC is that the DVCPRO technology is less expensive to purchase and less expensive to move around.
According to a reporter of the CBC Ottawa French news bureau who first approached Panasonic about DVCPRO "We had to start looking for the tools that could help us to do the job. The tools had to be more cost effective because factors such as budget cuts at the CBC and old equipment in the Montreal plant are forcing us in that direction. I heard that Panasonic was developing a laptop, which weighed about 20 pounds and used a small camera with small tapes." After making contact his bureau then started working directly with Panasonic on the test.
Months before the Asian departure Panasonic sent an engineer who spent two weeks working directly with the CBC team in their editing suites. Under the daily pressure of producing the news they beta-tested the laptop. The CBC team provided direct input into the operation of the laptop editor which would eventually transform itself into software revisions for the product. By the beginning of 2005 all the input from the CBC crew was finalized and the laptop software went into its final revision prior to its field test in Asia. The news crew received the two updated laptop editors and DVCPRO cameras on November 2005 and left for Asia on December 2005. For the final phase of the test Panasonic provided an engineer while the CBC was on location in Asia. "The laptops worked flawlessly. The crew liked the fact that the laptop has physical controls that they could manipulate with their fingers," said the reporter. "The reporters could take the laptop back to their hotel rooms to screen the footage." As the test continued the crew found other advantages to the DVCPRO system. "They had no problem feeding the signal back via the NTSC output on the laptop. The TBC could be adjusted manually as could the audio levels. The laptop is like having two VTRs in one. In a pool situation we could record two different pool feeds with one laptop or by changing a menu item switch you could record two copies of the same pool feed simultaneously." The camcorders also added flexibility to the trip. "Our crews used the cameras to screen on plane. The cameras have an NTSC output and an NTSC line input. In tight situations the camera was used as the feeder at the local teleport which allowed the laptops to continue to be used as editors. Likewise the line in feature on the AJ-D700 camera allowed us to use a camera to record pool feeds."
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