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As broadcast newsrooms ease themselves into diskbased news production, stations are looking for newsroom automation software that will make the best use of the new nonlinear technology.
After a big shift in the past few years from "dumb terminal" systems to networked PCs running Windows-based or similar operating systems, several newsroom software suppliers are pursuing the market's next "holy grail"-the journalist workstation that features both script composition and video editing at the same seat.
The two suppliers who seem to be the farthest along that road are NewStar and Avid, both of which have new newsroom computer systems that link to servers for video editing capability.
Their approaches are different. NewStar, which was acquired last month by Tektronix, sells the EditStar option with its NewStar for Windows system to provide cuts-only editing for readyto-air clips, using the Tektronix Profile for video storage. The EditStar stations are a companion product to the regular NewStar seats.
Avid, on the other hand, has included some low-resolution editing capability in every AvidNews station, but only for creating edit decision lists (EDLs). The company uses an AvidNews station and its NewsCutter nonlinear editor hand-inhand, storing material simultaneously on a low-resolution server for AvidNews and in high-resolution for the NewsCutter, which then can be used to create a polished on-air edit.
Neither company has exactly taken the U.S. market...