CBS-affiliate WTHI-TV in Terre Haute, Indiana, and FOX-affiliate WFTX-TV in Fort Myers, Florida, both owned by Wabash Valley Broadcasting, acquire, edit and feed broadcast news with JVC's DIGITAL-S. After considering all of the digital formats, they chose JVC's robust 4:2:2 DIGITAL-S to achieve a quality advantage over their competitors.

Wabash Valley Broadcasting, owners of network-affiliated television stations in Terre Haute, Florida, invested over $1 million in JVC's DIGITAL-S studio editing and field recording equipment to enable its stations to acquire, edit and feed local news in 4:2:2 component digital.

Wabash Valley Broadcasting, which owns CBS-affiliate WTHI-TV in Terre Haute, Indiana, and FOX-affiliate WFTX-TV in Fort Myers, Florida, purchased four BR-D85 editing recorders with pre-read, twenty-nine BR-D80 editing recorders, twenty BR-D51 players with S-VHS playback capabilities, nine ENG-2940 packages (BR-D40 DIGITAL-S dockable field recorders paired with JVC's 3-CCD KY-D29 digital signal processing camera), seven BR-D40 dockable field recorders, forty-nine serial digital I/O cards, and fourteen RMG-820 edit controllers.

Wabash was looking for a format that would help them to make the leap into digital recording and would allow the group's stations to edit without loss of quality. They were also concerned with flexibility and making a seamless step into the digital age. DIGITAL-S met all of those requirements.

According to Jim Borgioli, Vice President of Engineering for Wabash Valley Broadcasting, standards for broadcast quality are increasing, and that shifting paradigm has had an influence on the format news stations are purchasing. "We investigated every digital format in the market before choosing DIGITAL-S," noted Borgioli. "In fact, a few years ago at one of our stations, WNDY-TV in Indianapolis, we installed Digital Betacam. We could have certainly gone that route again at WTHI and WFTX, but the quality and value of DIGITAL-S made the decision for us."

At WFTX-TV in FOrt Myers, DIGITAL-S is replacing S-VHS equipment. One of the reasons Wabash selected DIGITAL-S was their experience with JVC's SHS equipment, which lasted twice as long as anticipated.

WTHI-TV switched to DIGITAL-S from 3/4-inch machines. Borgioli said, "We waited way too long to replace this format, but the timing has worked out great for us. In the past, the natural progression would have been to Betacam SP but DIGITAL-S is a far superior format with greater long-term potential."

Borgioli cited three major reasons for the decision to purchase DIGITAL-S – its superior picture quality and chroma resolution, the economical price and faith in the JVC brand name.

DIGITAL-S is a studio-quality 4:2:2 component digital format that provides a quality difference you can actually see. Unlike the modified DV formats which record in 4:1:1, DIGITAL-S records twice the chrominance information, yielding more vibrant and sharper color reproduction.

"We considered other formats including Betacam SX and DVCPRO, but neither processed the chroma signal as well as DIGITAL-S," said Borgioli. "While the price for DVCPRO was comparable, it didn't work as hard as the JVC DIGITAL-S product. 4:2:2 signal processing really makes a huge quality differecne."

In addition, DIGITAL-S gives Wabash a distinct quality advantage over the compitition. Notes Borgioli, "In both of these markets, we are competing against stations that use, primarily, Batacam SP. With DIGITAL-S, we will have a clear quality advantage which should please both our viewers and our advertisers."

As for price, Borgioli is unequivocal. "The pricing is unbeatable! We looked at all the digital options, from 4:2:2 to 4:2:0 to 4:1:1. I even looked at Digital Betacam, which is the technical equivalent of DIGITAL-S, but the price was out of this world. Bottom line, there is no better value than DIGITAL-S."

Moreover, Borgioli remains committed to the JVC brand name. JVC's position as a technical leader is growing stronger with each new product it introduces, and DIGITAL-S is fast becoming an important format in studio editing and field recording. Adoption rates for DIGITAL-S are increasing rapidly, and JVC is carving out a significant market share across the country in a wide variety of applications, from major market television stations to local production facilities.

"As a digital recording format, DIGITAL-S is absolutely the best bang for the buck out there today," concluded Borgioli. "I know JVC and I am impressed with the company's track record for building strong, reliable equipment. In my previous experiences with JVC video dubbing equipment, JVC always offered a better, sturdier product than its competition. I am confident our DIGITAL-S equipment will follow in that tradition."