LENEXA, Kan. & DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla.—The National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC) has announced a new agreement with Advanced Media Technologies (AMT), which will provide NCTC members access to AMT's portfolio of solutions, including hardware partners such as DZS, CommScope and Plume.

AMT offers immediate shipment of hardware from a variety of manufacturers and will be specifically providing discounts for Wi-Fi 5 enabled devices that can provide up to 1 gig speeds for customers. Many Wi-Fi products will offer triband capability, self-installation options and the ability to function as a Plume WorkPass Gateway. All of which offer value-added experiences for NCTC members and their customers, the NCTC reported. 

"For over a decade, AMT has been a partner to NCTC and our members; we are now entering into a more strategic phase of our relationship, which is poised to bring our members even greater technology options, service offerings and cost savings," said Lou Borrelli, CEO NCTC.

For more information, visit: https://nctconline.org.

SAN DIEGO—KNSD-TV and KUAN-LD, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Telemundo stations in San Diego, have deployed a self-contained mobile TV studio in a new broadcast truck outfitted to enable the stations to have a backup in the event their main broadcast studios ever need to be evacuated—something that was a real possibility during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The vehicle, built by Accelerated Media Technologies (AMT) of Auburn, Mass., enables the stations to work fully independently in the field, processing, editing and distributing live raw video without even needing to rely on a skeleton crew or technology located in their studios.

A key component of the new vehicle is a full complement of technology from Dejero, including the M6E6 network aggregation tool, PathWay E encoder and WayPoint 104 receiver. Together, they give the truck the connectivity to operate autonomously from the studios if required.

“We are thrilled with our new truck and are particularly impressed with the power and flexibility of the Dejero equipment, in particular the GateWay network aggregation device,” said Mike Fouch, manager of technology at NBCUniversal Media, KNSD-TV.

Before taking delivery of the truck, the broadcaster would have needed an encoder/transmitter to access cell networks, ENG or SNG and receive a signal, but the Dejero GateWay provides the vehicle with connectivity to access the stations’ studios, if desired, via private networks, the public internet and the cloud, he explained.

“So now, the field team can be autonomous and rely less on those back at the station to manage content,” said Fouch.

Likening the vehicle to a Swiss Army Knife, the broadcaster wanted a vehicle capable of switching a newscast if the studios were inaccessible and of receiving multiple channels of cellular video data.

To overcome the challenge of getting significant bandwidth to the truck to receive assets from the field and relay them via cellular or satellite without taking on another high bandwidth service plan, the station turned to Dejero’s Smart Blending Technology, which aggregates wired and wireless IP connections from various sources simultaneously to create a virtual network of networks. The result is more reliable connection paths, expanded coverage area and greater bandwidth.

Testing the solution in an area with spotty cellular coverage, Tom Jennings, president of AMT, was confident Dejero’s Smart Blending Technology could satisfy the broadcaster’s requirement.

“Having tested the system personally in the rural hills of Montana where cell frequencies can barely be counted on to make a normal phone call, I experienced data rates upwards of 30 Mb/s constantly and without linking to a satellite,” he said.

“Overall, Smart Blending Technology has helped transform the once behemoth DSNG truck into a highly maneuverable, cost-effective platform that requires less formal training to operate. It has expanded the reach and quality of news trucks on the road,” said Jennings.

The Dejero Gateway continuously measures the availability of bandwidth on each connection in real time and dynamically distributes IP packets across the connections. Doing so makes it possible to achieve up to 100Mb/s upload and 250Mb/s download, Dejero said.

The new truck uses the Dejero Gateway-aggregated bandwidth for reliable connectivity to access the internet, cloud applications like Latakoo for ENG video and AWS WorkSpaces to access the station and private networks from locations where crews from both stations are working, the company said.

The vehicle also uses the Dejero CellSat connectivity service to blend cellular connectivity from multiple network providers with Ku-band satellite IP connectivity from Intelsat when necessary, the Dejero PathWay E adaptive bitrate encoder and the Dejero WayPoint 104 receiver to reconstruct video transported via multiple Dejero transmitters.

More information is available on the Dejero website.

SEATTLE—The death of the ENG van market has been predicted, by this writer and others, for at least 10 years. The thinking has been that portable bonded cellular liveshot equipment would make live trucks unnecessary.

A look around the marketplace shows several news truck builders busy as ever, though most of their vehicles are not the behemoths of the past.

STILL NEED A WORKSPACE

“The death of ENG vans hasn’t happened,” said Tom Jennings, president of Accelerated Media Technologies (AMT) in Auburn, Mass. “The ENG vans have evolved from what they were a few years ago. They’ve gotten smaller, and lighter, and they’re primarily SUV based.”

A live truck does more than just carry equipment, according to Stephen Williamson, director of sales at Frontline Communications in Clearwater, Fla. “You still need a workspace. If you’re on a story all day, you need a workspace out of the weather. There’s still quite a demand for live trucks.”

Jennings said microwave-equipped news trucks are on the decline. “Even as the IP microwave systems have started to proliferate, television stations and networks are looking at microwave and the high cost of infrastructure, high cost of maintaining that infrastructure,” he said. “Although cellular bonding costs are high, they’re not as high as maintaining an entire infrastructure of microwave.”

One of AMT’s recent news vans was built for Savannah, Ga.’s ABC affiliate, WJCL-TV. “The truck is a small format, K150 van that’s minimal,” said Jennings. “It’s got racks that are MVP Power System, and it’s got a TVU cellular bonding system in it. And that’s the entire truck. There are maybe five pieces of equipment in it, in the entire truck.”

Bonded cellular connectivity doesn’t work everywhere so KA and KU satellite systems, with small dishes can fill in those gaps.

Another new AMT truck with both cellular and satellite connectivity was built on a Ford Explorer for KECI in one of America’s smallest television markets, Billings, Mont.

“Montana is one of those areas where there is no infrastructure and there is very limited microwave,” said Jennings. “There’s almost no cellular, probably less than 50 percent of the state. So this truck combined a cellular bonding system with a KA band satellite dish and electronics. When they had the wildfires this past summer, this truck could go places that no other station in the market could go, and they’re getting unbelievable coverage up there and unbelievable connectivity.”

CALL IN THE MONSTER

As the recent hurricanes and resultant flooding have illustrated, sometimes it takes more than a standard live truck to do the job. Call in the Monster Truck.

Frontline built just that for Houston’s KTRK on an F250 crew cab pickup truck, including a three-inch lift kit and a customer modular body on the bed.

“We wanted the truck bed to serve as a mount for the IP over KU antenna system,” said Williamson. “It also serves as a storage area for a full length, 500-pound capacity slide out tray. That provides great storage for cable reels, cameras and grip gear that they need to use. We also installed a roof rack to hold the, support the bonded cell antennas and the LED lighting for exterior illumination.” A Dejero EnGo system provides cellular connectivity.

There are two cameras in the front passenger seat: one aimed out the front of the truck, and one aimed at the passenger seat, according to Jeff Steel, engineering manager for Frontline. “That allows the news crew to do reports while the truck is being driven,” he said. “There’s a handheld controller in the front seat that allows them to switch between the two cameras. So that they know which camera is on-air, there are two monitors also in the front seat.”

Steel pointed to a lesson learned by some of those covering the Las Vegas mass shooting, when truck-mounted cellular live gear was not easily removed from news trucks. “That story went very mobile and some of the trucks were locked in a parking lot. They had a need to get out of there but weren’t able to do that.” The EnGo system on KTRK’s truck can be quickly removed and deployed on the back of a portable video camera for run-and-gun coverage.

ENG vehicles can also be engineered to be more than liveshot platforms. More and more stations are adding state of the art weather equipment like WHIO-TV in Dayton Ohio, which recently launched its Storm Tracker 7.

The weather gear includes a weather station to read current conditions, live Doppler Radar access for storm tracking in the field, access to multiple forecast data models and weather display graphics. It feathers six cameras for a 360-degree view of live, real time, driving conditions, and connectivity from a satellite dish and LiveU. For an eye in the sky, the vehicle provides a drone launch pad.

“Our Storm Center 7 meteorologists have their own live Doppler Radar allowing them to give information minutes faster than others, said Cox Media Group Ohio Market Vice President Rob Rohr said. “With the launch of our new Storm Tracker 7, we can be in the field forecasting and tracking the weather to get even more information about how to keep you and your family prepared and out of harm’s way.”

Not all those who used to build live news trucks for TV station are still in the business. Fred Gerling, president of Gerling and Associates in Sunbury Ohio, said that building remote broadcast trucks for the television business laid the foundation for its current business of building vehicles for local marketing, mobile medical, and mobile command.

“The reason we’ve been so successful there is because we cut our teeth and learned how to do this industry on television trucks,” he said. “Believe me, that is the most difficult clientele that there is to take care of.”

TV news vehicles don’t necessarily end up on the scrap metal pile.

“There does seem to be a place for microwave and uplinks in certain applications, outside the news business,” said Mark Chapman, owner of used equipment dealer Allied Broadcast Group. “There are needs where the satellite frequencies and the microwave frequencies serve and work better, be it in certain weather situations, or in certain geographies, or if there is not a good cell service to tap into. We’ve got people from out of the country who call us about some of these vehicles. We have a client in the Caribbean who bought two uplink trucks from us last year.”

LAS VEGAS—Accelerated Media Technologies has rolled up to the Las Vegas Convention Center with its line of Ford and Nissan high top conversion ENG/DSNG vans. The company has also announced an agreement with SAF for studio-to-transmitter technology.

The Ford and Nissan model vans were designed with roof capacities of more than 2,000 pounds while also increasing the interior work weight. The vehicles do still remain under 10 feet. These trucks offer full OEM certification.

Meanwhile, AMT has tapped SAF Tehnika’s point-to-point microwave radios as the studio-to-transmitter backhaul unit for the ENGensis LTE ENG system. The SAF technology has the ability to transmit the bi-directional signals that are produced by the ENGensis without interruption. This is enables full remote control of IP devices in the field from a centralized studio.

AMT will have the new trucks and transmitter system on display at its booths, C3636 and OE1309, during the 2017 NAB Show.

AUBURN, MASS.—Accelerated Media Technologies will make its presence known during the 2017 NAB Show with demonstrations of its new ENGensis technology and representation from its Director of Sales Steve DeFala during a planned session.

DeFala will take part in “The Evolution of ENG: Beyond One-Way Legacy Microwave to Bi-Directional IP-Newsgathering.” Moderated by Michael Englehaupt, vice president and CTO of Graham Media Group, the session will feature four speakers tackling specific approaches in using IP transmission technologies, of which DeFala is one. The session will take place on April 24 from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the North Hall Meeting Room 258 at the Sands Convention Center.

At the AMT booth, the company will show its ENGensis bi-directional 2/7 GHz BAS band system. The product handles remote connectivity of bi-directional video and IP data between broadcast trucks and television stations, with the ability to cover ranges over 45 miles with panel antennas. The company will also feature its MultiPlus Vehicle Power system, which employs a 12-28V Mil-Spec high amp alternator, two-four 12V Mil Spec AGM or Lithium batteries, a Premium critical Inverter/Charger and real time LCD control/monitoring system for displaying power load and capacity data. Features of the system include output power of 3.0-8.0kW, integration with OEM Power System seamlessly with no warranty issues or CEL light, full UPS backup and power conditioning and real-time LCD monitoring.

AMT will be located at booth C3636 during the 2017 NAB Show.