When you're building a major new cable network from scratch, you're faced with a multitude of decisions that have far-reaching and lasting impact. When FOX Television, a News Corporation company, recently launched their all new 24-hour cable network FOX NEWS Channel, one of the most momentous decisions they faced was the choice of which recording and editing format to purchase. Their selection: Digital-S from JVC.

"After evaluation of all the digital format alternatives, we selected Digital-S as our primary studio format because it provides uncompromising performance. The picture quality is outstanding, and therefore, the cost/performance ratio is exceptional, "said Andrew G. Setos, executive vice president of the News Technology Group at News Corporation.

Richard Friedel, vice president if operations and engineering for FOX NEWS agrees, "Digital-S operates at 50 megabits per second (mbps), which is an optimal data transmission rate for our purposes, " noted Friedel. "Additionally, since Digital-S offers 4:2:2 digital signal processing, we are able to do the kinds of layering effects and keying that our producers demand. This increases their flexibility, and enhances their creativity."

Another consideration in making the selection of a digital studio format is concatenation. In basic terms, concatenation problems create visible artifacts that occur as a digital signal is compressed and re-compressed using different compression systems. Concatenation problems are exacerbated when greater compression ratios are utilized. With Digital-S the compression ratio of 3.3:1, which is considered mild, helps to minimize these problems.

"Everyone here at JVC is thrilled that FOX has chosen Digital-S as their house format in one of the industry's first all-digital studios, " said Scott Watson, national sales manager of JVC PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTS COMPANY. The FOX NEWS Channel's decision reinforces our belief that Digital-S answers the industry's need for a high quality general purpose digital format, robust enough to stand up to the rigors of broadcast studio use."

The FOX NEWS Channel, a 24-hour all news cable network, debuted on October 7, 1996 from their all-new studio on 6th Avenue at 48th Street in Manhattan. JVC also delivered Digital-S products to FOX's Washington, DC studios.