Pappas Telecasting’s KREN-TV 27 and co-located sister station KAZR-TV 46 in Reno, NV, are relying on Canon’s XL H1 HD cameras for studio and field acquisition as part of their new shared digital studios and workflow used to deliver high definition.
KREN is a CW affiliate, and KAZR carries Azteca America programming. Both stations went live from the new facility in early September. (To read about the new studio, see: “Pappas Reno stations rely on XL H1 HD cameras for studio, field use.”)
The Canon XL H1s are proving to be an important component of news operations as field cameras. In the field, KREN and KAZR record footage acquired with the XL H1s to a Focus Enhancements FireStore FS-C portable direct-to-edit recorder, which mounts directly to the back of the cameras and connects using a single FireWire cable.
This nonlinear recording device comes standard with either a 60GB hard drive for up to 4.5 hours of 1080i HD recording time or a 100GB hard drive for more than 7 hours of recording time.
For the new studios, Pappas engineers custom-built computers with dual processors to handle the HDV format. The FireStore FS-C transfers the video files captured on the XL H1s at six times normal speed. That means footage can be dumped into the edit system quickly so the camera can be sent back into the field to acquire more footage. All desktops at the new facility connect via Cat 6 cabling, which lets reporters edit from a shared-storage environment.
The technology implemented at KREN and KAZR will serve as a beta test site for Pappas Telecasting’s other stations. Already, the company has acquired seven XL H1s for KMPH in Fresno, CA.
