Audio converting file mp3

NBC News' ENG audio

Byline: DAN DALEY

Ever since Roone Arledge crossed the streams of news and entertainment over a quarter-century ago, new concepts - both technical and in content, in either domain - have tended to come from the top down. However, one organically grown new idea at NBC News points definitively at how ENG audio will be moved around an increasingly time-sensitive news landscape in the future. It also shows how even the layers of corporate bureaucracy that accompany today's highly consolidated broadcast business landscape can't stop a few determined and inspired technicians.

Satellite transmission of on-location report audio has been standard for many years in the television news business. However, its novelty has faded while its costs remain constant. Even the most modest satellite burst transmission costs at least $500. Availability at critical moments is usually a matter of timing and luck if the reporter isn't near a bureau location.

About three years ago, simultaneously at NBC News' Dateline operations, in Long Island City (an industrial area of Queens just across the East River from NBC's 30 Rock headquarters), and at the technical operations center at the network's Burbank, CA, bureau, an idea that would change that equation germinated among a few audio staff members. It was about finding a way to implement Internet and sound file technologies in ENG operations. The economic benefits were undeniable. Converting field audio into a sound file on a reporter's laptop computer, then sending it to the program producers and editors via the Internet, could easily save millions of dollars a year on satellite and remote recording costs.

In a sense, the pieces of this puzzle were already in place - various sound file formats were becoming commonplace, laptops were ubiquitous in the news business, and the Internet was seemingly accessible from anywhere for the cost of a local phone call. But so far, no one had assembled the correct pieces.

Mike Noseworthy, a senior audio engineer for NBC in Queens; Joe De Pierro, a senior editor for broadcast network operations at 30 Rock; and Jess Bushyhead, an editor at NBC News' Burbank operations center agreed that was just a matter of recognizing the potential of the technology in their operations and figuring out how to implement it.

According to Bushyhead, NBC often used an expensive satellite uplink truck in remote locations to get voice-over for stories. In one instance, Dateline hired a remote truck for $2500 to get a few lines of voice-over they needed from Maria Shriver while she was at her vacation home in Idaho. He said he knew then that they had to make a change.

Over the next two years, the three audio technicians tossed around ideas not only about what to do but how to do it. With the tacit approval of their immediate managers, Bushyhead appropriated 18 IBM Thinkpad laptops, which had by then become standard issue at NBC News. He found that Music Match's MP3 software was truly freeware, without need of a license, as well as simple and reliable to operate in the field to convert audio to MP3 files, and loaded it on the computers.

The next step was to test the concept of sending voice-overs from one location to another on the Internet. The first time the system was tested was in Tel Aviv, using an AOL account. Any problems with sound quality had more to do with the microphone pre-amps than with MP3. The first broadcast story covered using the system was Mother Teresa's funeral, with no problems reported.

The system was still not completely standardized: Laptops had varying sound file formats on them, mostly in the form of PCMCIA sound card plug-ins creating .wav files, and there was little in the way of high-end transducers and microphone pre-amps available to get the audio quality close to broadcast standards at the time.

Two years ago, Noseworthy went to the NAB show in Las Vegas in search of microphones and laptop interface. He wasn't impressed with what he found. The notion of combining a high-end pre-amp with a laptop computer simply hadn't gained any traction yet. It was a classic instance of how many technology-based industries, including broadcasting, look to the computer industry for tools but must make their needs known to find ways to get computers to adapt to them.

That happened about six months later, when Noseworthy met with Joe Prout and Jim Koomar. Noseworthy explained how he was trying to increase the quality of audio into laptops but not increase either the weight or the complexity of the process for field correspondents. A month later, the company delivered the Sound Devices' new USBPre, a microphone pre-amp with XLR, [fraction one-quarter]-inch and RCA inputs accepting either mic or line level, and a USB computer interface, as well as outputs for stereo headphones, LED gain meters and its own software driver. Just as important, the USBPre draws its power from the computer, making it completely portable. In addition, it can accommodate condenser microphones, which require 48 volts phantom power.

The package also included a Beyer M59 dynamic microphone, Sony MDR-7506 stereo headphones and appropriate cabling.

The next step was to set up a more permanent Web site to transition from the AOL e-mail-only test bed. This originated on the East Coast side. The original AOL account is still up and running as a backup in case NBC's server ever goes down.

De Pierro and his colleagues Tessa Capodice and David Ondrick at 30 Rock conceived the concept of a dedicated Web site as opposed to the e-mail-only AOL address. De Pierro had the idea to segment the Web site into what are now 10 bins, one for each NBC News location, such as New York, Los Angeles, London, Chicago, Moscow, Atlanta and so on. After a correspondent records a sound bite onto the laptop, they log on to the dedicated and password-secured Web site using any available ISP access provider and fill out a form with the name of the story, the correspondent's name, the producer and editor's names, and the approximate length of the sound clip. The MP3 sound file is then uploaded into the appropriate bureau bin. That action generates automatic e-mail to the key personnel such as the producer and editors waiting for the sound bite at that bureau.

Once the MP3 files reach their bureau destination they go to editing where they can stay in the digital domain through processing on Avid Media Composer digital workstations right up until they go out over the air. The only time it leaves the digital domain is if it needs to go to one of the Grass Valley Group tape-to-tape editing systems.

During this period, NBC became aware that something was going on. But by the time it began to reach the executive suites, the system - now officially dubbed E-Tracks - was already proving itself. Noseworthy had used it to send audio voice-overs from Afghanistan. The system fit the economic model: the microphone, USBPre, cabling, the software and the IBM Thinkpad laptops brought the whole pack in at about $2000, less than the cost of booking a remote truck. Bushyhead estimates that by eliminating the satellite uplink component alone, savings in the range of millions of dollars could occur annually. And while E-Tracks also offers qualitative benefits, such as faster and presumably more timely and accurate reporting capabilities, and sets a course that could eventually lead to integrated audio and video reports filed via the Internet, its economic advantage is much more immediately apparent. To date, approximately 1500 sound clips have been processed.

Dan Daley covers the pro audio industry and writes for Broadcast Engineering's sister magazine, Mix.