TV Technical Operations

An introduction

Peter Ward

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780240515687
• eBook ISBN: 9781136056253
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

TV Technical Operations is an introduction for new entrants to the broadcast industry and is designed to prepare them for working in mainstream television by discussing essential techniques, technologies and work attitudes.


The author explores:
* the need to develop a professional approach
* the occupational skills needed to meet deadlines, work under pressure and within budget
* the importance of understanding the potential of broadcast equipment in program making
* the need to keep up to date with the technique and technology
* the responsibility to ensure continuity of experience and training in all craft skills that technical operators are required to work with
* the need to maintain a critical appraisal of what and who influences working practices and how these influences affect production and viewers
* an introduction to the basic skills needed to work as a multi-skilling technical operator in television
* an introduction to broadcast equipment in general production use

Peter Ward is a freelance cameraman and camerawork trainer working with international training and television consultancy. He was formerly head of cameras at Television South West.

Introduction to Video Editing

There is an old Hollywood saying which claims that ‘a good cutter cuts his own throat’, cutter meaning a film editor. What does this mean? Well, simply that the skills and craft employed by the film editor to stitch together a sequence of separate shots persuades the audience that they are watching a continuous event. They are unaware of the hundreds of subtle decisions that have been made during the course of the film. The action flows from shot to shot and appears natural and obvious. The editing skills and techniques that have achieved this are rendered invisible to the audience, and therefore the unenlightened may claim, ‘But what has the editor done? What is the editor’s contribution to the production?’ The editor has become anonymous and apparently his/her skills are redundant. As we have seen, nearly all TV craft skills employ invisible techniques.

A technical operator who is required to edit will usually be assigned to news or news feature items. This section examines the technique required for this type of programme format. Obviously the craft of editing covers a wide range of genres up to, and including the sophisticated creative decisions that are required to cut feature films. However, there is not such a wide gap between different editing techniques as first it would appear.

What is Editing?

Essentially editing is selecting and coordinating one shot with the next to construct a sequence of shots which form a coherent and logical narrative. There are a number of standard editing conventions and techniques that can be employed to achieve a flow of images that guide the viewer through a visual journey. A programme’s aim may be to provide a set of factual arguments that allows the viewer to decide on the competing points of view; it may be a dramatic entertainment utilizing editing technique to prompt the viewer to experience a series of highs and lows on the journey from conflict to resolution; or a news item’s intention may be to accurately report an event for the audience’s information or curiosity.

The manipulation of video, sound and picture, can only be achieved electronically, and an editor who aims to fully exploit the potential of television must master the basic technology of the medium. To the knowledge of technique and technology must be added the essential requirement of a supply of appropriate video and audio material. As we have seen in the section on camerawork, the cameraman, director or journalist needs to shoot with editing in mind. Unless the necessary shots are available for the item, an editor cannot cut a cohesive and structured story. A random collection of shots is not a story, and although an editor may be able to salvage a usable item from a series of ‘snapshots’, essentially editing is exactly like the well known computer equation which states that ‘garbage in’ equals ‘garbage out’.

Video Editing Terms (1)

Burnt-in time code: In order for edit decisions to be made in a limited off-line preview facility, time code is superimposed on each picture of a copy of the original for easy identification of material.

Logging: Making a list of shots of the recorded material speeds up the selection and location (e.g. which cassette) of shots. When this is compiled on a computer it can be used as a reference to control which sections of the recorded images are to be digitalized.

Edit decision list (EDL): The off-line edit decisions can be recorded on a floppy disk giving the tape source of the shot, its in and out time code or duration. In order to work across a range of equipment there are some widely adopted standards such as CMX, Sony, SMPTE, and Avid.

Conform: The set of instructions contained in the EDL can be used to directly control conforming in an on-line edit suite dubbing from source tape to master tape adding any effects or special transitions between shots as required.

Auto assemble: Editing process using an edit controller programmed with the required edit point identified by time code, which automatically runs the source tape back for the requisite run-up time and then runs both source and master VTRs to make a perfect edit transition.

Uncommitted editing: This technique can only be achieved in a true random access edit suite where the source material has been digitalized and stored on high density memory chips (integrated circuits). Hard disk video storage systems require more than one TV interval (1.6 ms or less) to reposition their read/write heads (typically 10 ms) to access any part of the disk, so replay is limited to accessing the next track, rather than any track and therefore any picture. Uncommitted editing allows any shot to be played out in any order in real time under the control of the EDL. Because the playout is not re-recorded in a fixed form, it is uncommitted and trimming any cut or re-cutting the material for a different purpose is relatively simple.

Timebase corrector (TBC): Most VTRs have a TBC to correct the timing inaccuracies of the pictures coming from tape.

Tracking: Tracking is adjusting the video heads of the VTR over the picture information recorded on tape to give the strongest signal. The position of the heads should also be in a constant relationship with the control track.

Pre-roll: The pre-roll is the time needed by a VTR to reach the operating speed to produce a stable picture. With some VTRs this can be as little as a single frame. When two or more transports are running up together, it is highly unlikely that they will all play, lock and colour frame within a few frames as they each chase and jockey to lock up correctly. For this reason, virtually all transport based editing systems provide for an adjustable pre-roll duration. This cues the machine to a predefined distance from the required in-point in order that, with a suitable cue, all synchronized devices can reliably lock in time for the required event. VTRs also have to achieve a predetermined time code off-set to each other – so lengthening the overall lock-up time.

Preview: Previewing an edit involves rehearsing the point of a transition between two shots without switching the master VTR to record to check that it is editorially and technically acceptable.

Split edit: An edit where the audio and video tracks are edited at different points.

The Technology of News Editing

Video and audio can be recorded on a number of mediums such as tape, optical, hard disk, or high density memory chips (integrated circuits). Tape has been the preferred method of acquisition because of its storage capacity and cost. An edit suite will be defined by the format of its principal VTR machines, but will often be equipped with other VTR machine formats to allow transfer of acquisition material to the main editing format, or to provide lower quality copies for off-line editing or previewing.

The other defining technology of the edit suite is if the edited tape has been recorded in analogue or digital format, (see Television engineering, pages 34–47), and the format of the finished master tape.

Video Editing

Recorded video material from the camera almost always requires rearrangement and selection before it can be transmitted. Selective copying from this material onto a new recording is the basis of the video editing craft. Selecting the required shots, finding ways to unobtrusively cut them together to make up a coherent, logical, narrative progression takes time. Using a linear editing technique (i.e. tape-to-tape transfer), and repeatedly re-recording the material exposes the signal to possible distortions and generation losses. Some digital VTR formats very much reduce these distortions. An alternative to this system is to store all the recorded shots on disc or integrated circuits to make up an edit list detailing shot order and source origin (e.g. cassette number, etc.) which can then be used to instruct VTR machines to automatically dub across the required material, or to instruct storage devices to play out shots in the prescribed edit list order.

On tape, an edit is performed by d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Working in Television
• Television Production
• Television Engineering
• Multi-Camera Camerawork
• Audio Technical Operations
• Working on Location
• Television Lighting
• Editing
• Vision Mixing
• News and Magazine Items
• Further Reading
• Glossary