Time Warner Cable Turns to Dalet for Collaborative News Production

January 13, 2010

Source: Dalet Digital Media Systems

Dalet creates file-based, multi-site workflow for News 14 Carolina; fosters collaborative news production across multiple newsrooms

Dalet Digital Media Systems announced that News 14 Carolina, Time Warner Cable's 24-hour local news channel in North Carolina, has implemented Dalet Enterprise Edition to facilitate a unified news production and broadcast workflow between their Raleigh, Charlotte, and Greensboro newsrooms.

Dalet Enterprise Edition integrates the newsrooms' content gathering, production, and distribution operations by providing a single digital platform and interface for logging and searching materials, editing packages, and managing broadcasts.

The streamlined production workflow connects journalists, editors, and producers from various locations under one technology umbrella, greatly improving communication between all newsrooms and the Raleigh production hub. It also centralizes playout management and distribution within the Raleigh facility, optimizing broadcast opportunities and resources.

"We started researching replacement systems for our existing Omnibus, ENPS, and Pinnacle systems in January, 2008," said Alan Mason, Vice President and General Manager, News 14 Carolina. "Working on a separate, but parallel track, our friends at NY1 News did the same. We both arrived at the same conclusion: Dalet is the company that can best meet the unique needs of our 24-hour news channels."

Like their Time Warner Cable sister station, NY1 News in New York City, News 14 Carolina's primary format is the 24-hour news wheel. Journalists shoot and use Dalet to edit their video content locally. Dalet automatically sends final packages via WAN from Charlotte and Greensboro to Raleigh. Stories are queued in a Dalet playlist wheel for distribution over Time Warner Cable channels.

Dalet also distributes individual stories to www.news14.com. To accommodate the large geographic area, News 14 Carolina has four distinct 24/7 news wheels, slating stories for statewide or regional broadcast.

"News 14 Carolina has an atypical workflow and Dalet's flexible architecture was able to adapt to it exactly. The integrated production, newsroom and playout capabilities are consolidated onto one platform, enhancing collaboration from journalist to control room," remarked Benjamin Desbois, General Manager, Dalet Digital Media Systems. "Dalet's single software solution also eliminates a number of costs associated with maintaining multiple systems, providing a tremendous savings for News 14 Carolina."

Superior to traditional newsroom systems using MOS protocol, Dalet's natively integrated news automation control and rundown management features improve reliability and provide advanced play to air functionalities, including management of late-breaking news events and playout while transferring.

The tapeless workflow at News 14 Carolina includes Dalet's comprehensive logging tools, flexible metadata forms, and fast search and browse engine. Also included are a full-featured Dalet newsroom system with editorial tools for planning, rundowns, wires, and scripts, and desktop video editor Dalet MediaCutter.

"Dalet brings a major video production upgrade to News 14 Carolina. Every journalist can sit at their desk and edit a 15 second teaser or full package," said Mason. "We can do things that we couldn't before… such as adding a video clip or a sound bite into the nightly sports show rundown using Dalet on the anchor laptop DURING the show. The flexibility with this system is enormous!"

Dalet production tools are integrated within the underlying MAM framework combining traditional newsroom features with video production. The editorial workflow engine provides global management of user permissions, scheduling, conversions and distribution while automating the complexities of inter-newsroom production and distribution.

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