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When the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation covered the "Team Canada national trade delegation through Asia in January they tested and pioneered the use of DVCPRO video technology. The purpose of the CBC's test was to utilize the equipment, with a small crew, in a situation that would put it to use on a daily basis. As well Panasonic, the supplier of the equipment, benefited by studying first hand the use of their equipment and what they learned further enhanced their new product line. The small four-person news team was equipped with two of Panasonics AJ-D700 camcorders, two AJ-LT75 laptop editors and one "stringer" camcorder. They produced material for all four of CBC's networks. "What made this trip different was the use of the laptop videotape editor" said Michel Gouin, director of TV planning at Radio-Canada. "The new laptop editor meant that the overall equipment package was lessened by hundreds of pounds. The traditional luggage complement of eight to ten pieces was decreased to three or four and significantly reduced the administration and costs involved in shipping the technology." The DVCPRO laptop editing system used on the trip was one of the first available units to be put into production. The laptop is a small one piece briefcase-size system that weighs approximately 9kg. It contains the equivalent of a two machine edit suite with two independent VTRs and it capitalizes on the miniaturized technology of the DVCPRO videotape format. DVCPRO employs a 6.35mm tape size that can record up to 123 minutes of digital component video on a highly. compact recording mechanism. The laptop also contains two high resolution, 6.5 inch flat screen colour LCDs monitors, a 99 event edit controller, speakers and audio monitoring facilities. As well as operating as an edit pair, the VTRs can also be used independently. This means while one VTR is recording a line feed the other may be playing out to a satellite link. DVCPRO did the job," Gouin explained. "For the electronic news gathering environment the news team who used the equipment found the video quality quite acceptable." All the stories were fed back to Canada by taking the laptop editor to the local teleport. "The real gain for the CBC is that the DVCPRO technology is less expensive to purchase and less expensive to move around". The laptop editor is capable of playing back both DV format and DVCPRO format recordings. This allowed the news team to utilize a consumer level DV "stringer" camcorder to collect additional footage. While both Sony and Panasonic manufacture DV cameras, Panasonics AG-EZ1U camcorder was the one employed as the stringer camera on this trip. It uses three 1/3" CCDs, weighs about 2.4 pounds and records one hour of digital video. It only requires 5 lux of light and draws 8.2 watts of power. Eight months prior to the trip it was John Carpentier, of the CBC Ottawa French news bureau who first approached Panasonic about DVCPRO. "We had to start looking for the tools that could help us to do the job. The tools had to be more cost effective because factors such as budget cuts at the CBC and old equipment in the Montreal plant are forcing us in that direction. I heard that Panasonic was developing a laptop, that weighed about 20 pounds and used a small camera with small tapes." After making contact Carpentier's bureau then started working directly with Panasonic on the test. Months before the Asian departure Panasonic sent an engineer who spent two weeks working directly with the CBC team in their editing suites. Under the daily pressure of producing the news they beta-tested the laptop. The CBC team provided direct input into the operation of the laptop editor which would eventually transform itself into software revisions for the product. By the beginning of December all the input from the CBC crew was finalized and the laptop software went into its final revision prior to its field test in Asia. The news crew received the two updated laptop editors and DVCPRO cameras on January 2nd and left for Asia on January 5th. For the final phase of the test Panasonic provided an engineer while the CBC was on location in Asia. The laptops worked flawlessly. The crew liked the fact that the laptop has physical controls that they could manipulate with their fingers," said Carpentier. "The reporters could take the laptop back to their hotel rooms to screen the footage." As the test continued the crew found other advantages to the DVCPRO system. "They had no problem feeding the signal back via the NTSC output on the laptop. The TBC could be adjusted manually as could the audio levels. The laptop is like having two VTRs in one. In a pool situation we could record two different pool feeds with one laptop or by changing a menu item switch you could record two copies of the same pool feed simultaneously." The camcorders also added flexibility to the trip. "Our crews used the cameras to screen on plane. The cameras have an NTSC output and an NTSC line input. In tight situations the camera was used as the feeder at the local teleport which allowed the laptops to continue to be used as editors. Likewise the line in feature on the AJ-D700 camera allowed us to use a camera to record pool feeds." With the lighter package the small crew found that they were actually less fatigued at the end of the day. This was reflected in the quality of the reports which had to be high as they were feeding stories to both the English and French networks along with News-magazine and Lapointe." In using the DVCPRO equipment the crew also became more flexible in what they could perform. "One cameraman both shot and edited footage," explained Carpentier. The producer always carried the stringer camera and took shots that were used in the edited stories. We could not see the difference between material produced by the stringer camera and the AJ-D700 in the final edited pieces." The CBC crew filed over 60 contributions during their stay in Asia with material on the air every day.