I think that may have been scrapped when Time Warner sold off all their FCC licenses. Plus now they have a sister entity with DirecTV which could handle uplinking.

I like, WJZ just got two more, but they placed them along roads/complex interchanges.

@Eat News Turns out the radar will be down for three weeks starting March 3. It’s getting an “upgrade” specifically a “Pedestal SLEP”, SLEP meaning Service Life Extension Product. It is just a fancy term for it being the pedestal being refurbished/replaced.

Earlier this month we discovered that WCAU/WWSI in Philadelphia launched their X-Band mobile radar truck Storm Ranger 10. It appears that the truck has two siblings one that looks like it will be based at KXAS/KXTX in Dallas and another one that was just delivered to KNBC/KVEA in Los Angeles. For Telemundo's stations they are dubbed Caza Tormentas WNBC's Creative Services Vimeo account has a promo up showing their fleet of three Storm Rangers : [MEDIA=vimeo]176360359[/MEDIA] It looks like the trucks will be shared among clusters of stations and based somewhere in the middle. NBC/Telemundo north east cluster has stations in four cities that are 339 miles apart I-95 in the ranging from Washington, DC to Hartford, CT. Once NBC Boston launches it will be 438 miles. NBC/Telemundo's California cluster stations that are 460 miles up the coast. Even though NBC only has one station in Dallas they have several Telemundo stations in Texas and they are in Tornado alley likely keeping it busy for a good part of the year. The distances make it easy enough for them to reach different cities within several hours. Here's a link to an Instagram account showing the radar output from the Los Angeles unit - looks like it has a pretty decent range: [MEDIA=instagram]BIdPUqjgjwZ[/MEDIA] Here's a picture showing the Los Angeles setup and unit being tested for the first time in the NBCUniversal backlot: [MEDIA=instagram]BIdEh47g9tu[/MEDIA] This appears to be a pretty heavy investment in weather technology by NBC. WCAU's general manager posted on Facebook that the trucks were a million bucks a piece. It seems to me that the trucks are based in areas where stations don't operate their own Doppler radar. With all that being said has WCAU found a use for their truck since they ran a promo almost a month ago touting its abilities? Seems to me whenever a station runs an ad for one of their new toys they use them almost everyday when they first get it.

They should be promoting it, the San Diego last status message was from March 4 at 17:55 UTC. The other stations are probably covered by KSOX (Santa Ana Mountains, CA) and KYUX (Yuma, AZ) and satellite radar (which updates about every 10 minutes). The Yuma radar looks like it barely reaches the coast. I think KNTV has there own Storm Ranger with the other west coast one based in LA (probably is a pain to drive it from LA to SF). I’m surprised NBC isn’t considering putting a permanent X Band radar up at that site (it’s parked there frequently enough). All the KNBC/KNSD radars are the same ones that are on the back of the Storm Rangers.

Exactly. I was just reinforcing a point @C Block made that it’s not the type of software that’s updated regularly like say Microsoft Office or the latest version of Adobe Creative Suite. Well I would say the AP ENPS is the original, but as far as I know most NRCS run on yearly contracts.

Very reluctant to upgrade. I remember reading an article when KXAS moved to their new facility in 2013 they were running iNews 2.0 for 10 years before moving to 4.5.

They really dont. The iPad app is a slimmed down version of ENPS and Surface laptops have the same specs or better that their regular desktops have.

I want to say the main reason why PC’s are used are because of NRCS likely originally used the,p,. The AP’s ENPS specifically requires Windows. Macs can be used if the Mac runs Windows using Parallels, Fusion, Remote Desktop, VNC, Boot Camp or Windows on Apple Hardware. Same goes with Avid’s iNews, which is being replaced by MediaComposer NewsRoom Management which may work on Macs.

I haven’t really paid attention to the NewSource produced packages but the ones from their affiliates are usually solid reporting. Also CNN may be turning right as they hired someone just from the White House as their political editor.

It’s usually sub second.

Here’s a article from TVNewsCheck entitled “NBCU Stations’ Weather Forecast: Top Notch” where they interview NBCU’s Director of Weather Operations Nate Johnson (formerly of Capitol Broadcasting Group). I previously wondered how they use their NBCU model and how it was developed. In simplified terms they take all the weather models and make a composite of it. In a bit more detail they take all the models, determine “and pull them in under one umbrella and evaluating them on a day-by-day basis to see which ones are performing well, which ones are performing poorly. Then we can weigh all of that in an automated fashion and in a manual fashion to determine what our final NBC forecasts might be for a given spot at a given time.” Typically they don’t talk about the models but “how is it going to affect your life?” but they do if it’s an event such as a hurricane. They gave an example of how weather affects your life is when there was a significant dry spell in Texas but there was a week of rain. A Telemundo chief meteorologist explained explained rather than the total rain amount but when you will have to water your plants again. They briefly touched on their advances in radar technology including their seven fixed radars and six mobile units. He mentions that radar that radar data does not “enhance” their forecasts as it’s only really useful in the immediate short term “from five minutes to an hour or two.” Nate is based in Raleigh and the models are based in the corporate networks however he does have a WSI computer to use. I paraphrased parts of the interview.

LiveU is in fact already developing a 5G backpack. But I completely agree with this.

Watching KPIX now and they moved the active text area to the bug. Just doing a lookaround it appears of the news producing stations WCBS, KCBS, WBBM, KYW, KPIX, WBZ, WFOR and KDKA all made the switch. While KTVT, WCCO, KCNC and WJZ (of course) where the bar and text area is still 4:3 safe.

They stretched the lower thirds to where the bug is? WJZ has the live bug in the existing position aligned with where the text part of the Chyron starts. They could easily put the stock board or the radar in the area where topical graphics go on the left.

You technically lease the LiveUs and TVU and what not. I believe they deal with the various cellular companies and then they monitor your stations usage. I think they use generic SIM cards. LiveU has some devices for people or events who have YouTube channels that can take a SIM card, plug in a USB modem or Ethernet. Its worth mentioning that almost all the devices provided by Dejero, LiveU and TVU allow you to connect to WiFi and Ethernet where they will bond all the sources for the best signal.

5G also has some big limitations. The signals don’t travel far, have trouble penetrating buildings, and the cell sites have to be incredibly close together. The site locations are incredibly close, I was driving down a main road here and the cell “towers” (ontop of telephone poles) were located almost every two blocks. It’s going to take a while for complete coverage like 4G and as far as I know there isn’t a finished 5G standard.

Microwave is free once you have the trucks and infrastructure. You can use it 24/7 without additional costs. It’s reliable and rarely goes down. There are some solutions where you can create your own private LTE network where you get two way data. Cellular bonding your bound to a contract of how many hours or if you rent the SIM cards yourself the gig. It does provide good quality and allows high speed Internet in the field, but if your at a large event where cell phones are being used or during a hurricane and towers or down - good luck getting a signal. Most of the trucks now are equipped with bonded cellular units as back up or two provide a second path. There are some trucks that look like conventional microwave trucks without the mast or dish that rely solely on cellular. A lot of the O&Os (which have huge contracts with the likes of Dejero or LiveU) automatically send their photogs who may be taking a truck (even if it’s equiped with a CNG unit) with a camera back or a backpack unit as backup. One station in LA (cough KTTV) deploys microwave trucks but mainly used CNG equipment and one day the control software at the station went down. The photogs had to be instructed how to properly tune in a live shot or set up a satellite signal.

One thing I noticed during a timelapse of their studio construction is that they have a jib in the air? I’m curious are there any tracking or sweeping movement shots used in their newscast? The only thing I ever really see is a shot of the monitor in the up in the grid. You can see it here around 4:35.

There’s a whole playlist with much more here.

I’ve wondered how things are handled in pooled situations especially when there’s a reporter in the air. I thought perhaps the sharee stations might of gotten embed audio but could not pass it along. And not being able to monitor a scanner isn’t that assignment desk 101?

WBAL is running spots about their 6 p.m. success in HH and demo. WJZ was reported #1 at 5 p.m. so a lot of people must be changing the channel at 6. WBAL is using the tag line “Baltimore’s News Leader” which I think WJZ used before.

I imagine there’s still a bit of news sharing. From what I’ve seen on social media several NBC O&O meteorologists or reporters are appearing to report on local weather.

From what I’ve seen Telemundo Houston, they often are #1.

WSCV continues to dominate in the demos 18-49 and 25-54 during their newscasts, regardless of language. https://www.nbcumv.com/news/telemundo-51-continues-dominate-south-florida-once-again-ranking-1-news-leader-regardless?search=1&term=WSCV In Baltimore WJZ appears to have dethroned WBAL at 5pm. That’s all I got and it was through social media so I don’t know the metrics.