WASHINGTON, D.C.—Reruns are nothing new to television, but not so much when Mother Nature typically waits a few hundred years to put on a repeat performance.

Next week’s total solar eclipse, however, is a notable exception. Many of the reporters, news photogs and newsroom personnel covering the Great American Eclipse in August 2017 are still alive and likely working the April 8 redux.

Not only will these broadcasters have the benefit of experience from the 2017 solar eclipse, but also those assigned to cover what Scientific American has dubbed “The Great American Total Solar Eclipse of 2024” will have a few tech, organizational and distribution improvements to enhance their coverage and reach viewers.

“If it exists, we will be using it,” says Lane Michaelsen, group news director at Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has 18 local TV stations in the eclipse path.

“It starts with the simplest [technology], the iPhone with a special lens and the LiveU app,” he says, and ascends up the live television technology ladder to traditional ENG cameras, microwave trucks and SNG vehicles. “Like I said, if it exists, we’re using it.”

Eclipse Basics
Next week’s total eclipse will cross the U.S. border around 12:30 p.m. CDT along the southwest edge of Texas, enveloping Eagle Pass. It will travel in a northeasterly direction across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. By about 4:35 p.m. Atlantic Daylight Time, it will exit the upper reaches of northeastern Maine, passing into Canada.

While it’s only been seven years since the last total eclipse swept across the nation—that time from the Pacific Coast of Oregon traveling southeast and ultimately crossing into the Atlantic Ocean at South Carolina—it’s a rare occurrence. As Bob Berman, astronomer editor for “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” noted in a recent online article: “For any given place on Earth, a total eclipse of the Sun appears just once every 375 years [on average].”

For example, the last time a total eclipse blanketed what is now Dallas, one of the major U.S. cities in the path of next week’s eclipse, predates the first TV broadcast of a drama in 1928 by 307 years.

The relatively short interval since the last total eclipse to cross the U.S. has given broadcasters and the public a recent taste of what to expect this time around, and it appears people’s appetite for all-things eclipse is enormous—whether that’s in person at outdoor venues like Niagara Falls or the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is selling tickets for $20, or watching on a television or digital platform.

Gray Television, for instance, will stream continuous live coverage of the total eclipse on more than 500 group station websites, connected TV and mobile apps as well as via its Local News Live (LNL) streaming news network, says Lisa Allen, vice president and general manager of the Gray Television Washington News Bureau.

The level of interest in the eclipse among the public is so large local and state governments are taking steps as well. Multiple Texas counties have issued disaster declarations for the day. Gov. Eric Holcomb of Indiana has declared a statewide disaster. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has signed an executive order instructing state agencies to make preparations to assist residents and visitors traveling to the state for the event.

Prompting these actions is concern over the sheer number of people who will be visiting these and other locations and the strain they will place on public infrastructure. For example, Indianapolis may see an influx of more than 100,000 people. Ohio is preparing for between 125,000 and 500,000 people visiting to witness the eclipse.

The crush and contribution
Not only does the crush of eclipse gazers raise the prospect of clogged thoroughfares, resource shortages and safety concerns, it also runs the risk of swamping cellular networks in some areas, which raises concerns for broadcasters relying on IP-newsgathering to contribute footage from the field.

“I told our 18 stations [in the path of the eclipse] to make sure those live trucks and satellite trucks start and work because with LiveU we rarely use them [the vehicles],” says Sinclair’s Michaelsen. “But if you are looking at Dayton, Ohio, where they’re talking about shutting down the Interstates and an invasion into the smallest towns, LiveU might not work [on overcrowded wireless networks].”

At some locations along the path of the eclipse, Sinclair has contracted with phone providers for fiber optic drops as an alternative to wireless networks for contribution from its LiveU transmitters, he adds.

The broadcasters interviewed for this article agreed that although 5G wireless networks will play an important role, it is unclear whether they will stand up to the massive cell traffic expected at well-attended venues and deliver the bandwidth required to contribute their shots.

Gray Television, which has at least 23 stations in the eclipse path, also is warning its local newsrooms about the possibility that wireless networks could be overwhelmed. “IP transmitters will be the primary contribution technology,” says James Finch, Gray Television vice president of news services, adding that in some locations satellite transmission will provide redundancy.

That will be particularly important in two locations where the station group has no stations but is sending crews. “Outside the Gray footprint, there are a couple of places that we’ll be going,” says Finch. “We’re planning to be in Indianapolis, and we plan to be at Niagara Falls because we know that there are some big events in those locations.”

E.W. Scripps Company stations will use land connections to ensure contribution from its TVU Networks backpack IP transmitters succeed from heavily attended eclipse-viewing locations when possible, says Matt Simon, deputy managing editor at Scripps.

“They’re talking about up to 1 million people traveling to Texas for the eclipse, and 100,000 going to Fredericksburg [Texas],” he says. “We are looking at a bar-brewery there that has a viewing party and would allow us to [have] hardline transmission so we are not relying on cell cards.”

The broadcaster also will turn to Starlink satellite connectivity for its TVU Networks IP transmitters to bypass potentially swamped wireless networks. “Starlink wasn’t a thing in 2017 during the last total eclipse. Now it is,” says Simon.

Over the past year, Scripps has deployed Starlink transmitters across the station group and successfully used them to contribute reports from Ukraine. “It’s proven reliable, even when in motion from a vehicle,” Simon says.

News-Press & Gazette has two stations in the path of the eclipse, KVIA in El Paso, Texas, and KMIZ in Columbia, Mo., says Michael Fabac, NPG vice president of content and station promotion.  

“Five NPG markets were in the path of totality in 2017, so our coverage plans were much more extensive then,” says Fabac.

“In 2017, we incorporated ENG live trucks in addition to LiveU backpacks, but [we] will be entirely dependent on the wireless technology this time around.”

Coverage, control and distribution
As two of the largest station groups in the country, it should be no surprise that Sinclair and Gray Television have multiple stations along the path of the eclipse, starting in Texas and concluding in Maine.

Both also plan to leverage their extensive digital presence in addition to their on-air channels to deliver in-depth coverage of the eclipse. 

“One of the things mentioned to us from 2017 is the audience found it difficult to find somebody who was just tracking the actual eclipse without people talking over it or without other live shots,” says Michaelsen. 

“This time we’re using technology that should allow us, depending on cloud cover, to track just the eclipse—so no voiceovers, no context and perspective. Just here it is.” Sinclair will live stream that coverage on the websites of its more than 190 stations around the country, not just its news-producing stations, and on YouTube. 

The station group will provide a second feed, produced out of Sinclair’s WJLA in Washington, D.C., via The National Weather Desk platform. Many of the group’s 200 meteorologists will participate in the coverage from different sites around the country.

For instance, a group from San Antonio, Texas, will be with NASA scientists at “a yet-to-be-named” location where powerful telescopes will be used to capture the eclipse, and another will be outside Dayton, Ohio, joining the tens of thousands of people expected on hand to get their reaction, he says.

Two Sinclair meteorologists will anchor the feed and interview in-studio guests and live field guests. “The idea is that we’ll always have the eclipse on the screen, but then we’ll be adding context and perspective and show how it’s affecting people across the country,” says Michaelsen.

Gray Television will operate from two control rooms—one responsible for the two-and-half-hour fully produced Local News Live special on the eclipse and the other to produce a distributed feed of raw footage from cameras of stations from around the group, says David Donaldson, broadcast operations at the Gray Television Washington News Bureau.

“This feed is for use as live pictures, bump-ins and outs for use in a newscast,” he says. “We will be building this guaranteed feed with cameras curated from stations within the Gray footprint, including field cameras with shots of the eclipse as well as fixed skycams pointed at the sun during the event,” says Donaldson.

Building the feed at the station’s Washington, D.C., bureau relieves local Gray Television stations from the burden of “determining where to get a beauty shot,” he says.

Perhaps the biggest difference in technology between the 2017 and this year’s eclipse for Gray is the existence of its Local News Live streaming news network. “For the first time, Gray is able to showcase local markets and their eclipse coverage on one platform,” says Gray Television’s Allen.

“We are giving our local Gray journalists a national platform to share their unique and memorable coverage from their local communities,” she says. “LNL's greatest and most powerful asset is our local journalists who best report the news from the heart of their communities, and we (LNL) take it to the eyes of the country. This is an example of how we can unite our newsrooms and audiences during an unforgettable event.”

For those in their early careers in the newsrooms and the field reporting on the eclipse, one can only wonder what lessons they will take away from covering The Great American Total Solar Eclipse of 2024 that will help them the next time a total solar eclipse traverses the country—20 years from now on Aug. 22, 2044.

(Editor’s note: NBCUniversal Local has announced that it will present comprehensive coverage of the upcoming total solar eclipse on its NBC and Telemundo streaming news channels on April 8, beginning at 12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT. Fox Weather has laid out some of its tech plans here. Hearst Television, Nexstar Media Group and CNN were contacted for interviews. They either declined or did not respond.)

NEW YORK—NBCUniversal Local has announced that it will present comprehensive coverage of the upcoming total solar eclipse on its NBC and Telemundo streaming news channels on April 8, beginning at 12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT. 

The free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels will feature multiple hours of bilingual coverage, with reporting from Mexico to Maine, as the astronomical event crosses North America.

The live special anchoring the extended streaming coverage will be produced by Dallas-Fort Worth’s NBC 5 / KXAS and Telemundo 39 / KXTX. The program will be led by anchors Brian Curtis, Deborah Ferguson, Nancy Leal and Carlos Zapata, and chief meteorologists Nestor Flecha and Rick Mitchell from Reunion Tower in Dallas. Additional reporters and meteorologists will contribute from more than a dozen different locations in the eclipse’s path.

Program schedules vary by channel. Select NBC- and Telemundo-owned stations will deliver complementary or exclusively local coverage on their respective stations and streaming channels, including NBC Chicago News (beginning at 8 a.m. CT). 

NBCU Local’s 24/7 streaming news portfolio includes 11 NBC local news channels – which cover each of NBCU Local’s NBC-owned station markets – and four regional Telemundo channels: Noticias Telemundo California, Noticias Telemundo Florida, Noticias Telemundo Noreste and Noticias Telemundo Texas. 

NBC local news streaming channels eclipse coverage includes: 

• NBC New York News – Coverage starting at 12 p.m. ET
• NBC Los Angeles News – Coverage starting at 9 a.m. PT
• NBC Chicago News – Coverage starting at 8 a.m. CT
• NBC Philadelphia News – Coverage starting at 12 p.m. ET
• NBC Dallas News – Coverage starting at 11 a.m. CT
• NBC Washington DC News – Coverage starting at 12 p.m. ET
• NBC SF Bay Area News – Coverage starting at 9 a.m. PT
• NBC Boston News – Coverage starting at 2 p.m. ET
• NBC South Florida News – Coverage starting at 1 p.m. ET
• NBC San Diego News – Coverage starting at 9 a.m. PT
• NBC Connecticut News – Coverage starting at 12 p.m. ET
• Noticias Telemundo California – Coverage starting at 9 a.m. PT
• Noticias Telemundo Florida – Coverage starting at 2 p.m. ET
• Noticias Telemundo Noreste – Coverage starting at 12:30 p.m. ET
• Noticias Telemundo Texas – Coverage starting at 11 a.m. CT

NEW YORK—All Mobile Video (AMV) has selected TSL Products’ MPA 1 Mix Dante V and PAM-IP audio monitors for its Eclipse end-to-end IP mobile production unit.

AMV is outfitting Eclipse with 34 MPA 1 Mix Dante V audio monitors, which are designed specifically for production and support of the AES67 AoIP standard, the company said.

“The updated front panel is simple to navigate, especially in dark production environments, providing users with an intuitive control interface,” says Ian Vysick, audio design specialist at All Mobile Video. “With the MPA units, operators are not required to navigate a menu to access the sources they need.”

Eclipse also is equipped with TSL’s PAM-IP audio monitors, providing monitoring of SMPTE ST 2110 and 2022-6 audio and video sources and full edge device control.

“Choosing to integrate TSL Products’ PAM-IP into the new Eclipse truck was a no-brainer,” says Vysick. “Over the years, we have built a strong relationship with the TSL team and there’s a great deal of trust between us.”

Firmware updates for TSL’s monitoring products help to future-proof AMV’s investment in the monitors, Vysick adds.

More information is available on the TSL Products website. 

MONTREAL—Grass Valley and All Mobile Video are riding together now, as AMV has selected Grass Valley’s IP workflows and infrastructure for its Eclipse outside broadcast truck.

The Eclipse truck will be loaded with Grass Valley’s LDX 100 IP camera platform, which will enable 3x high-speed UHD capture, as well as the Creative Grading platform for camera shader control. It will also have the GV Orbit dynamic system orchestrator, allowing for the configuration and changing of systems on the fly. The IP workflow is supported by an IP fabric built with Nexus 9000 Series Switchers from Cisco Systems.

The new AMV IP truck also houses Grass Valley’s K-Frame X video production engine, with Kayenne switcher control panel; Kaleido SD, HD and 4K UHD IP multiviewers; IPVU IP to HDMI monitoring gateways; Densité and IQ Modular signal processing and conversion; and the Audio Live router for live, multistream IP audio.

“IP allows us to future-proof our offering and adapt much quicker, plus we can offer clients much more operator space, more firepower and greater production capability all in one unit,” said Eric Duke, president of All Mobile Video, on the new Eclipse truck.

Eclipse is expected to support live productions, including events like the “Live from Lincoln Center” performing arts series and the Times Square Ball Drop on New Year’s Eve. Eclipse will launch this spring.

For more information, visit www.grassvalley.com.  

BOZEMAN, MONT.--It starts with a total solar eclipse. But not just any eclipse: The Great American Eclipse.

Angela Des Jardins, director of the Montana Space Grant Consortium

When Angela Des Jardins decided to produce the world’s first live streamcast from near-space, a watch-worthy event was a must. And on August 21, the universe is giving her one. The United States has seen total solar eclipses before, but this is the first time in U.S. history that one will only be visible here. As for the rest of the world? They’re welcome to watch online.

In fact, eclipse2017.nasa.gov is hosting 10 different streamcasts eclipse-day. Of the 1 billion unique hits anticipated, NASA predicts half will be for Des Jardins’ livestream. The others are views of the eclipse from the ground, from a high-resolution airplane—angles that, while cool, aren’t broadcasting firsts.

MADE WITH RASPBERRY PI
Like all producers, the next two needs were a project name and money. The name was easy: The Eclipse Ballooning Project, since the cameras shoot from high-altitude balloons. As for money, she simply asked NASA the same question she’d asked herself when the idea came: If Felix Baumgartner can jump out of a balloon from the stratosphere and broadcast that, why can’t we live-broadcast an eclipse from near-space?

The problem, though, as Des Jardins points out is that “[Red Bull] had a $10 million satellite feed truck and system.” No way was NASA going to fund $10 million for an eclipse.

But that was 2012. This is now and a lot has changed. She breaks it down: Red Bull didn’t have the “new technology we have to be able to do this inexpensively and very lightweight.” (To meet FAA requirements, equipment must be under 12 pounds per balloon.)

Each balloon will be outfitted with a $30 Raspberry Pi camera board.

“There are really three main technologies that all kind of came together at the right time to even enable this to happen,” Des Jardins continues. “One is the miniaturization of computers like Raspberry Pi.” A Raspberry Pi camera board—with cable—costs $29.95 and weighs 3.4 grams.

Add Arduinos and a 5.8 gigahertz transistor communicating with a ground antenna, and each balloon payload comes to $3,700. Participating universities, like Austin Peay State University (APSU) in Clarksville, Tenn., buy the equipment then NASA reimburses.

Which brings us to Des Jardins’ next need: A camera crew.

GPS COORDINATES
The eclipse starts in Oregon and ends in South Carolina. Des Jardins is director of the Montana Space Grant Consortium, one of 52 members of NASA Space Grant Consortium. While teams don’t have to be based at a space grant college to participate, the consortium did give Des Jardins ready access to volunteers, some of whom had recorded b-roll from balloons before.

A trial balloon was deployed a year before the eclipse.

“We’ve done balloon flights for years,” APSU’s Dr. Justin Oelgoetz says. Last year, students launched a GoPro to grab footage for analyzing water quality. “[For] some things, the GoPro is easier and more appropriate,” he said. GoPros are sturdier, but “if you need to tie a picture to a particular GPS coordinate or if you need it taken through a particular filter, then you really want to do the Raspberry Pi because the Raspberry Pi can read the GPS; it can put that in the metadata for the pictures or in a supplementary file which relates the position to the time.”

Connecting position and time is integral for live-broadcast of a moving target, and points out the next need: A director. Because of the moon’s speed, the eclipse’s totality at greatest duration is just 2 minutes and 40.2 seconds. In broadcasting, two minutes can be a long time. But the balloons—expected to be more than 30 in total—aren’t evenly spaced geographically. Some parts of the path only have one. In Illinois and Kentucky—where the points of greatest duration and greatest eclipse are—15 balloons will launch within a tighter area. So some cameras may capture the best angle for seconds.

Celestial mechanics predict the exact path the eclipse will take, so it’s tempting to run down exact timecodes for switching from one camera to the next. But when you send cameras 100,000 feet in the air, plans change. “Sometimes you hit a violent crosswind,” Oelgoetz says, “so things can get wild for a few minutes.” That’s why APSU puts its camera inside the balloon payload instead of outside. Oelgoetz says NASA’s kits are also secured by “pieces of that foam board they put in house walls as insulation.” Still though, his team’s not taking any chances: “We’ve got duct tape on it.”

DIRECTED BY AN ALGORITHM
Even when the camera makes it up—and stays up—safely, Oelgoetz says something else can go wrong: “Ice. We get ice around the edges of the image sometimes. It depends on the weather [and] mounting.”

So, not that easy to direct after all.

That’s why there is no director. Instead, Des Jardins chose an algorithm. “The main web page will have a map of the U.S. and one main feed that it’s focused on. But you’ll see on the side of the screen little thumbnails of all the video feeds.”

This map shows the eclipse path across the North American continent.

Here we find the only problem Des Jardins has yet to resolve: How does the algorithm choose which camera goes live when? According to Des Jardins, “[T]hat’s based on where the totality is happening at the time... but it’ll also do a quick check of what the quality of the feed is and so it’ll pick who’s in totality or coming up to totality and has a good quality feed.” She then adds a person will supervise control room-style.

Ask Will Jaimeson, though, and you get a different answer. He’s CMO at Stream, the project’s online video platform (OVP). Stream hadn’t planned on a person checking the algorithm’s work; and quality doesn’t weigh into the math. “It’s going to be automatically showing what should be the most viewed or the best content at the time based on view counts as well as identifying exactly where the eclipse is actually over totality,” he said. In other words, Stream’s algorithm crowdsources the stream, “default[ing] to the ones with the highest view counts.”

Of course, Stream will say quality is in the eye of the beholder, as viewers hopefully won’t select poor shots. But this minor discrepancy does show that regardless of whether your production’s in near-space or here on earth, the problem hardest to solve is the same: communication. And Des Jardins has until August 21 to figure that one out.

TERNATE, INDONESIA—Panasonic is offering a view of a total eclipse half way around the world. The company has announced that it will provide a live stream of the total eclipse expected from Ternate, Indonesia using only solar power from its Power Supply Container.

Power Supply Container

A standalone photovoltaic power package, the Power Supply Container creates energy during the day with 12 HIT solar panels with a conversion efficiency of 3kW. The energy is stored in 24 lead-acid batteries. To provide the power to cover the eclipse, 3kW of energy will be relayed from the batteries to a Panasonic Lumix GH4 camera that will be attached to a telescope.

Solar energy will also provide power to other equipment being used for the event, including portable computers, editing material and Internet connection technology.

The live stream will begin at 3 p.m. EST on Tuesday, March 8.