January 18, 2005
AP simplifies field news coverage, production capabilities with new SNAPfeed 3.0
The Associated Press has made it even easier for broadcasters using ENPS, AP's news production system, to send video back to the newsroom from a standard laptop computer with the latest version of SNAPfeed.
Provided as part of ENPS, the enhanced user interface of SNAPfeed 3.0 guides journalists through a straightforward, non-technical, four step process to encode and transmit their video. Utilizing the power of the Windows Media 9 codec and a wide variety of transmission options such as DSL, cable, cellular, satellite phone and dial-up, SNAPfeed enables routine, quality field transmissions.
"For people in the field, we've reduced complex decisions to one question: 'What's your deadline?'," said Mike Palmer, Director of Broadcast Digital Distribution Systems and Strategy for AP. "With just a few mouse clicks, your video is encoded and transmitted back to your newsroom."
SNAPfeed was built by people with editorial experience for use by journalists in the field, under time pressure. That means SNAPfeed is reliable and simple for non-technical journalists to operate.
Seamless flow of video from the field to production equipment is a feature many stations ask for. SNAPfeed works closely with Agility encoding and transcoding software from Anystream to accomplish this. Working with SNAPfeed, Agility can automatically and quickly convert incoming files to production server specific formats and then transfer the video directly into servers such as Leitch and Grass Valley without user intervention or headache.
"We are pleased to work with AP ENPS on SNAPfeed, a ground-breaking product that will substantially speed news production," said Fady Lamaa, Anystream vice president of marketing. "Our collaboration will enable SNAPfeed clients to enjoy this new capability within a streamlined, automated tapeless workflow."
Producers waiting for incoming video receive constant status updates in an ENPS rundown or assignment area. Once received, the file can be accessed via any ENPS workstation as part of the newsroom workflow.
Jim Church, News Director, Operations, for WJLA-TV and NewsChannel 8 in Arlington, Va., saw the benefits of SNAPfeed early on. "SNAPfeed provides a robust, easy to use interface that allows our video journalists to quickly deliver media from field laptop computer editors. It not only facilitates transmission but allows you to monitor the time it will take to complete a feed. We see it being the way to go for crews who need to go to a location, shoot then edit a story for playback at a later time. It will allow transmission to occur anywhere a high-speed internet connection is available. When you only need taped stories fed back, it will eliminate the need to book trucks or transmission."
Another new feature in SNAPfeed 3.0 is administrator defined resolutions and aspect ratios, giving broadcasters greater control over how their video looks and avoiding any possible oversights by freelancers and stringers.