broadcast engineering Broadcast engineering or radio engineering is the field of electrical engineering, and now to some extent computer engineering and information technology, which deals with radio and television broadcasting. Audio engineering and RF engineering a ...

, a remote broadcast (usually just called a remote or a live remote, or in news parlance, a live shot) is

broadcasting Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

done from a location away from a formal

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

radio studio A recording studio is a specialized facility for recording and mixing of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enough to record a single sin ...

and is considered an electronic field production (EFP). A remote pickup unit (RPU) is usually used to transmit the

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum *Digital audio, representation of sound ...

and/or

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

back to the broadcast station, where it joins the normal

airchain In broadcast engineering for radio or television, the airchain or transmission chain (UK) (sometimes air chain (US) or just chain (UK)) is the path or route an audio or video signal takes on its way through a radio station or television station. ...

. Other methods include

satellite truck A satellite truck or SNG truck is a mobile communications satellite ground station mounted on a truck chassis as a platform. Employed in remote television broadcasts, satellite trucks transmit video signals back to studios or production facilities ...

s, production trucks and even regular

telephone A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...

lines if necessary.

History

The first airing of a remote broadcast came in 1924, when Loew's Theater publicist and WHN (New York City) station manager Nils Granlund leased telegraph lines from Western Union to provide the first link in what became called cabaret broadcasting." By early 1925, Granlund had established remote lines between WHN and more than thirty New York City jazz nightclubs, including the Silver Slipper, The Parody Club, the Cotton Club, the Strand Roof, and Club Moritz. These big band remotes would become a staple of the old-time radio era, lasting well into the 1950s. Nils T. Granlund cited the 1925 WHN airing of Senator James J. Walker's announcement of his New York City mayoral candidacy through a remote broadcast from the New York Press Club as the first such remote link for a political forum. In Latin America on 27 October 1920, Dr Sussini made the first remote transmission in Argentina from the theatre El Coliseo in Buenos Aires. In Mexico on 27 September 1921, Adolfo Gomez Fernandez made a transmission from the Teatro Ideal, Mexico DF The very first live remote broadcast to the nation was by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1938 when Frank Willis reported on the Moose River Gold Mine disaster in Nova Scotia http://archives.cbc.ca/economy_business/natural_resources/clips/3860/ On 11 June 1955, NBC, The National Broadcasting Company, provided the 1st live remote broadcast to the nation from Niagara Falls, New York.Buffalo Evening News, Buffalo, NY, 11 June 1955

Radio

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

, remotes are often used for special events, such as concerts or sporting events, where either the entire event or advertisements for the event are broadcast on location. The cost of personnel and equipment is usually paid for by the host at each performance. However, if the event is recurring, such as a weekly broadcast from a

nightclub A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a Bar (establishment), bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighti ...

, then dedicated lines are usually installed by the local telephone company in order to save on costs. With low range radio stations, and at events with no telephone lines, several radio stations will call into the studio request line with a cell phone and microphone setup. From there, another DJ in the studio will put them on-location live on the air via the studio request line. Some stations use this method when doing live broadcasts in areas where the signal is weak. Originally,

analog audio Analog recording is a category of techniques used for the recording of analog signals. This enables later playback of the recorded analog audio. Analog audio recording began with mechanical systems such as the phonautograph and phonograph. La ...

broadcasts were sent through

telephone hybrid In analog telephony, a telephone hybrid is the component at the ends of a subscriber line of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) that converts between two-wire and four-wire forms of bidirectional audio paths. When used in broadcast faci ...

s, which, although low quality, were found to be acceptable for voice broadcasts. Later, frequency extenders were developed that used additional lines, shifting higher treble audio frequencies down on one end and back up on the other, providing a reasonable reproduction of the original

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...

. Currently, digital lines, such as

ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. ...

DSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric di ...

, are used to send compressed

digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital signal (signal processing), digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical sampling (signal processing), ...

back to the studio. In addition, modern remote pickup units have become extremely portable and can transmit single-channel monophonic FM-quality audio over regular telephone lines using built-in modems and advanced compression algorithms (

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...

, etc.). See POTS codec.

Television

In TV,

live television Live television is a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. In a secondary meaning, it may refer to streaming television where all viewers watch the same stream simultaneously, rather than watching vide ...

remotes are an almost daily part of

television news News broadcasting is the medium of broadcasting various news events and other information via television, radio, or the internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or tel ...

broadcasts in the U.S. As a part of electronic news gathering (ENG), remotes are meant to bring the

audience An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), or ...

to the scene of the action. To get to the scene quickly, a live remote may be done from a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

Live television Live television is a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. In a secondary meaning, it may refer to streaming television where all viewers watch the same stream simultaneously, rather than watching vide ...

remotes may often be used in a manner similar to radio remotes (and vice versa) as well.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Remote Broadcast Broadcast engineering

History

Radio

Television

See also

References