Chyron Supports Journalistic Excellence for Today’s Educators and Students
“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.”
– Henry Grunwald
The late Henry Grunwald, quoted above, is perhaps best known for his long tenure at Time Magazine, where, ultimately, he retired as Editor-In-Chief. Although a leading figure in the world of print journalism, the sentiment expressed could speak equally to the urgency and importance of broadcast journalism. Indeed, many great minds have noted that good journalism is a key component of a vibrant democracy.
So, teaching the next generation of journalists to diligently seek the truth and present it in a compelling manner is important work indeed. So important, in fact, that surely it merits creating a technology ecosystem that supports gathering, illustrating and sharing the stories that journalists tell. With the right tools at their disposal, today’s broadcast students – whether they aim to be journalists, on air talent, or work behind the scenes will be well prepared to work professionally, whether in the studio, in the newsroom or in the control room.
While Chyron offers products and services that can support bringing many types of live content to viewers, we have a strong legacy of partnering with news journalism. You may have even noticed that “chyron” is often used as the generic reference for any “lower third” or “name super” regardless of the actual technology provider. Digitally creating text to play on air over live video is a technology that was developed by Chyron in the mid-1960s. Today, we offer a full production platform, along with a suite of other tools for end-to-end live workflows.
At the Core: Broadcast Graphics, Clips and Switching
From our humble beginnings developing and manufacturing CGs, or character generators, we have developed the world’s most widely used graphics systems. Extending and accelerating the tradition of innovation at Chyron, our flagship product, PRIME, has evolved into a full-featured, easy to use platform that supports not only graphics, but much more. The PRIME Live Platform is scalable and customizable to the needs of your organization.
The comprehensive suite of available applications covers a broad range of broadcast needs. For a basic workflow of graphics creation, incorporating clips into your story telling and playout of graphics and clips over video from one or more camera feeds, the PRIME Live Platform has everything you need.
State-of-the-art graphics may be created in the PRIME CG Designer interface. Developing journalists need to bring their stories to life with name supers, over-the-shoulder illustrations, full screens, or any other type of supporting graphic. With PRIME, students can create 2D and 3D text and objects, keyframed animations, and logic to specify how graphics display depending on content. They can even implement robust data integration to automatically populate text fields from a data source. PRIME even handles Photoshop and After Effects imports with ease.
TIP! If your university has art or design students who use these popular tools, you could consider recruiting them to work with your student broadcasts.
To learn more about Prime After Effects Import, click here.
To learn how to use all of the design tools offered in PRIME, including Photoshop Import, you or your students can register for our free online academy here.
TIP! If you want your students to use our free online academy, but you would like to see their progress yourself, become a Learning Manager in the Chyron Academy by contacting marketinginfo@chyronhego.com.
Clip server functionality, including ingest, record, trim, loop and more, as well as playlists and intuitive playout, is also available on the PRIME Live Platform. Students can learn this intuitive interface quickly and easily and you will be pleased with the extra level of interest clips can add to any broadcast.
The biggest news though, with the most recent release of PRIME, is that this platform now supports broadcast-grade, fully software-based production switching. This means that students can learn the core of control room operations, including controlling cameras, selecting what content plays out to audiences, and what graphics play with the live video content. The PRIME Switcher, residing on the PRIME LIve Platform may be used for on air production or OTT (over-the-top, online) production.
[READ: Meet the PRIME Live Platform’s New Production Switcher]
Honing Newsroom Skills
The PRIME Live Platform’s CG Designer interface can also create graphics that are templatized, suitable for MOS (media object server protocol) enabled workflows that tightly integrate graphics with the NRCS (newsroom computer system). In the modern world of news production, it is increasingly rare for journalists to order new graphics daily from the CG designer/operator. With templatized graphics from PRIME, along with Chyron Camio, the tool for integrating PRIME with any NRCS, journalists can work from their NRCS client interface, call up a browser with PRIME-built templates, and fulfill certain fields with the text or images that they choose. Additionally, Chyron offers a unique, powerful order management and creation tool to design maps, charts, stock quotes and composite images that may be used to fulfill PRIME templates.
In the Post – Production Edit Suite
In addition to live-to-air, your young journalists may be creating documentary style packages. They may even be building their editing skills on NLEs (non-linear editors) such as Avid, Adobe or others. PRIME graphics templates, via a CAMIO workflow, may be made available directly in the third-party editing interface, ensuring a consistent look and feel between live and recorded segments.
Beyond Broadcast Basics
Beyond becoming great journalists, along with effective use of core broadcast technologies how can your students do even more?
There are other powerful applications supported by the PRIME Live Platform. One of the best things about the platform is that it is scalable and flexible, along with flexible subscription payment options. Here is some more of what you can do with PRIME:
- Augmented Reality: Create lifelike, 3D objects that appear to be right in your studio.
- Touchscreen Displays: Let your young “anchors” tell their story, their way, calling up their own graphics on large screens for their viewers to see.
- Video Walls and Display processing: Once you have staff or students who have mastered the basics of PRIME, it’s easy to bring your studio to life, driving large engaging displays.
What is Downstream? Branding and ROI!
The PRIME Live Platform also supports the type of on air branding typically found downstream of the control room, in the traffic department. Like any television station, you can include data integration to playout crawls with any kind of info: headlines, sports scores, school closings, weather warnings, stock and futures prices, and automated promos. You may even consider seeking alumni or local businesses to sponsor this content. With some revenue generation potential, could your department do even more?
The Future of Professional Broadcast
At Chyron, we are deeply committed to the idea that good journalism is vital to our future, to everyone’s future. We innovate relentlessly to create the technology that supports news journalism and makes it as accessible as possible. We invest heavily in research and development so your students are assured that the technologies they learn about today will serve them well in the future, being well supported but always adapting and innovating.