Multimedia Minutes: Live Behind the Wheel, Taking Technology to New Heights

 

“As a One Man Band, I’m talking about reporting live on-camera from behind the wheel while moving from one breaking news event to another. It’s compelling television and webstreaming content any way you cut it.”

 

That bold statement from MMJ Scott Broom, WUSA-TV in Washington, DC, comes to life in this example.

 

According to Scott:

Here is a typical behind the wheel scenario:

1) Laptop A is connected to a dash mounted web cam pointed at me in the driver’s seat.  A microphone is also plugged into the laptop via an XLR to USB filter and adapter.

2) Laptop B is connected to a dash mounted web cam pointed out the window.  No microphone is needed here.

Connecting and Getting on the Air:

Both laptops are capable of connecting to the internet from virtually anywhere there is 3-g cellular service via internal wireless broadband cards.  This is a simple matter of opening the software and hitting the connect button.

1) Once connected, I use Skype, the popular video calling platform installed on laptop A, to call the TV station.  The video call is punched up full screen at the station on a computer that is routed through the director’s board to take as an on-air source.  I use this to report from the driver’s web cam and microphone.

2) Meanwhile, computer B is busy feeding video from the dashboard cam via another web-based platform called Livestream.  Livestream recognizes encoded video routed from the webcam through Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder software.   This can also be punched up full screen and routed to air.

3) I can now report live on-camera on computer A via skype,  while from computer B the director can take the shot from the dashboard of live road conditions from the web via Livestream whenever he or she wishes –  or all this can be presented simultaneously in a double box with graphics.

4) I take IFB from my blackberry cell phone to an ear bud.

Scott credits other MMJs at his shop for also pushing the breaking news boundaries.  Scott is also a gifted storyteller for breaking news, as you’ll see in an example posting here soon along with my comments and takeways you can use.

 

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Multimedia Journalism, Power Tools for TV Journalists, TV news training, broadcast journalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Multimedia Minutes: Live Behind the Wheel, Taking Technology to New Heights”

  1. Multimedia Minutes: The Key to Writing Better Packages | Bob Kaplitz Blog Says:

    [...] Multimedia Minutes: Live Behind the Wheel, Taking Technology to New Heights [...]

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