NewsBoss is ON THE WIRE
for 2GB in Australia
The following article was written by Ross Gow of Broadcast Engineering News
Magazine, March 1998 edition, and is reprinted with Broadcast Engineering News’ permission.
Sydney, Australia – Sydney’s AM Station 2GB has purchased the locally-developed
NewsBoss newswire management system from Broadcast Electronics for program production at the station.
A total of 12 NewsBoss workstations have been installed, all linked to two
Pentium II 266 servers via a Windows NT network.
NewsBoss was installed at 2GB to replace an aging Basys system, once the
powerhouse behind the Macquarie News Network.
"The Basys system was very good to us," said Martin Quiggin, group chief
engineer for 2GB and sister station 2CH.
"It had been here for about 15 years and supported the Macquarie news service, so it had
worked fairly hard during its life."
With the disbanding of the Macquarie newsroom around a year ago following
the purchase of 2GB by John ingleton, the Basys system was adopted by the station to support
its programming.
Because it’s a new talk format, we used to do a lot of research for the
programs on 2GB with the Basys system," Quiggin said.
"But even with that workload we really weren’t using it to its full capacity."
The age of the system had also become a major concern.
"It was getting very old and desperately needed upgrading.
Basically it was becoming a problem to get spare parts for it, so it was obvious we would
have to do something very soon."
Despite the efforts of the engineering staff to keep the Basys operational,
the system eventually suffered a fatal crash that permanently put it out to pasture.
"We were trying to hold off putting in a new newsroom system as long as we could
because we’d spent a lot of money moving 2CH into the 2GB building.
"However, the Basys just died on us – in a big way!"
The demise of the Basys pushed a newsroom system to the top of 2GB’s
engineering priorities, and the search began to quickly find a suitable
replacement for the system.
"We had looked around at new systems so we weren’t totally unprepared," said Quiggin.
"However, we were suddenly left with absolutely nothing."
A phone call to Innes Corporation, the suppliers of
Broadcast Electronics’ NewsBoss, ensured a temporary replacement system was in place."
"I rang them up and asked if they had any workstations or small stand-alone systems
they could lend us for a week or two until we made a decision on a new system,
and they did that for us," Quiggin said.
"Although it was very nice of them, we made it quite clear at the time that we were just
considering their system as one of many options."
"We then looked around at about five systems, and eventually just came
back to NewsBoss, " Quiggin said.
"Right from the beginning I suspected that it would be the most likely choice.
Quiggin said usability was one of the major factors in deciding to go with NewsBoss.
""We found it very easy to use, I think that was quite noticeable actually," he said.
"We put some of the staff on the system with some very rough instructions and asked
them to use it for a while and make some comments.
They picked it up very quickly."
"It is true that NewsBoss is similar in approach to Basys and that
probably would have helped, but regardless it is still a very easy system to use.
It’s very logical and doesn’t get confusing with windows open all over the place.
It ran on NT as well, which was our preferred platform."
Being a locally developed product, the system also offered the advantage
of direct liaison with the programmers.
"We’ve actually had the programmer over here twice, doing slight adjustments to the system,"
Quiggin said.
"So I think we have a good chance of getting the modifications made to the software that
we would like."
The ability of the system to handle audio was also a strong selling point,
Quiggin said.
"We’re not actually using it just yet, but NewsBoss does give you audio and that was another
feature that we thought was particularly good," he said.
"The audio editor is very easy to use.
It will give us the ability to record interviews and integrate them for program preparation.
"It has other features that we’ll probably use in the future, including
a prompter which would allow a newsreader to read straight off the screen."
Quiggin said he used the flexibility of the NewsBoss system to devise
a setup that allowed a required level of redundancy.
"We’ve designed it so we’ve got a suitable amount of redundancy at this stage," he said.
"However, we can easily upgrade to a mission critical system without
making any hardware redundant."
The set up includes two servers, one being a "cold server" that remains
idle until an unexpected breakdown calls it into action.
The servers have mirrored drives in separate boxes, allowing any piece of equipment
to be back into action simply by plugging in and powering up a replacement.
"We’re looking at around five minutes downtime, which is acceptable," Quiggin said.
"If a server fails, we just plug everything into the other machine and boot it up.
If a hard drive fails or a power supply in a hard drive box fails, we just use the
other hard drive."
Of the 12 workstations, two are rack-mounted units situated in the
control room with the monitor and keyboard in the studios.
The other ten are desktop-type workstations situated in production areas of the building.
AAP’s RTV and PRW wire services interface with the system via a small
computer supplied by AAP.
This computer outputs information to the server that’s running at
the time, which is then connected to two hubs for further redundancy.
The system will eventually have two modems connected to it; one for maintenance,
the other to allow remote users to log in.
"We’ve also set it up to allow some central storage," he said.
"For example, there are a few CD-ROM drives in the server so we can put encyclopedias
and the like on there that everyone can access.
As soon as we’ve made sure everything has settled down, we’ll also put Internet access
on the network."
Although the system has only been running at full speed for a short
period at 2GB, Quiggin said it has already proven to be trouble free.
"The only problem we’ve had so far is someone forgetting their password," he said.
"That’s a good indication in my opinion of how easy it is to use."
Ross Gow, Assistant Editor
Broadcast Engineering News
61 2 9372 5212
March 1998
