Introducing the 20th Century Community Centre
(Page 2 of 3)
November/December 1971
The Mother Earth News editors
Finally, regarding the content of your program. The cable company will naturally want to ensure that it doesn't in any way violate the slander and libel regulations established by the Broadcast Act.
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The technical aspects
Now you're ready to come into the studio. It's quite different from a standard broadcast studio. There will likely be curtains at one end, lights at the side, two cameras that are about half the size of broadcast television cameras at the other end, a switcher console that allows the director to see both camera shots and pick one and some video tape machines (VTR's).
Now because most cable companies are always understaffed your group should realize that they may be expected to operate some of the equipment themselves.
But that really isn't a problem. In fact, it only takes about an hour to learn how to operate a camera. And with experience your shots will get better and better. The microphones are even easier to operate. You'll be using either stand-up mikes or boom mikes. Lighting gets a bit complicated, but usually it's just a matter of aiming properly. The switcher-console is a very complicated piece of equipment and it's here that the cable company can help you by giving you a professional operator. Yet usually you're more than welcome to have one of your group working with the director so that you'll have a full participation in your programme. If your programme is going to be edited then two VTR's are required. One feeds the other, but only on signal from the editor. As you can imagine, it's a very time-consuming operation, but again, a member of your group can often sit in on the editing to see that your show comes out the way you want it to. However, many cable companies prefer to do most of their work in the studio in order to avoid spending too much time editing.
As far as mobile coverage goes, you'll probably find that most cables companies are, at this stage anyway, mostly studio oriented. However, this will change as equipment gets better and the programming departments get more manpower.
The hardware
As far as your cameras go, there's no problem about what kind you use. They're all compatible. But unfortunately, that's not the case with VTR's. In general, you'll find that most cable operators use one of three brands: IVC, Sony or Ampex. Now the problem arises when you want to playback from one system to another. It simply can't be done.
However, you can "dub" from one type of VTR to another but there will be a loss of quality. So whenever possible you should use the master (first copy) for playback in order to get the best results. But up until now we've discussed only 1" machines where the video tape is one inch in width. The most exciting recent development, however, has been the 1/2" machine and in time it's going to revolutionize cable programming. You see, the 1/2" machine is portable enough that it will allow programme producersto get out of the studios and into the community. The only real drawback is that the picture quality is not as good as it would be on a 1" machine although it is expected that this will change shortly. And once again you have the same problem that you have on the 1" machine—no two brands are compatible. In fact, even old 1/2" machines are not compatible to newer ones made by the same manufacturer. Yet when you consider the great mobility and increased effectiveness that the 1 /2" machine can give you, its limitations are really not serious.
