by , 7:00 AM EST, January 19th, 2001
It seems that these rumors of CNN sending reporters to the field with only a PowerBook and a DV camcorder are true. Last week one reporter wrote of his experience using a G3 PowerBook, loaded with Final Cut Pro. Apparently it was a positive enough experience to lead to CNN issuing a memo this week that informed employees that small news teams were going to be armed with PowerBooks and DV camcorders.
According to a January 6th CNN article:
Who says you can't do big-studio video editing on a little laptop? We set out to do just that using a specially configured Apple Powerbook G3 laptop that's the first to offer high-quality portable editing.
At $2,200, the 500 MHz G3 has a very fast hard drive and 20 [GB] of space to hold more than 45 minutes of high-quality digital video. It connects directly to a digital camera via a single slender cable called a Firewire. The Firewire allows you to transfer video at much faster rates, and because the process is digital, there's no drop-off in quality.
According to the recent memo, as part of a large scale restructuring of CNN's news service, small PowerBook equipped teams will be able to be quickly dispatched, allowing CNN to cover even more events than they do now. Sending full news teams, with traditional equipment, can at times be cost and time prohibitive, and the Mac equipped teams should be able to easily overcome those obstacles.
You can read the full story at the CNN Web site. Thanks to Observer Roger Harris for reminding us about the CNN piece.
This is going to have some excellent repercussions for Apple. CNN carries a lot of weight in the news business, and no greater testimony can be made for Apple as a powerhouse DV editing solution than this real-world use by CNN. Heads are going to turn.
Stay tuned as we have likely not heard the last of PowerBook toting CNN reporters.