Telecast will cross technical frontiers

Web posted November 8, 1998

By Kent Kimes
Staff Writer

By Wednesday, First Baptist Church of Augusta will look like the site of a college football telecast, minus the rabid fans.

There will be cameras, cables, production personnel and trucks packed with the latest in broadcasting equipment as PBS prepares to tape opera diva Jessye Norman's performance for a holiday special.

``Potentially, there could be three trucks parked outside the church,'' said Jennifer Hunt Dempsey, research and scheduling coordinator for Georgia Public Television.

The event, at 7 p.m. Friday, marks GPTV's first production of a performance in high-definition television, a type of digital TV, touted as the next wave in broadcasting.

``It is a landmark production,'' said Kent Steele, director of GPTV. ``It is Ms. Norman's first televised concert from her hometown, the first high-definition television production for GPTV and the first time the Augusta Opera will be performing for a national audience.''

The effort requires a huge production team, a joint effort involving Brandenberg Productions, GPTV, PBS and Japan's public television NHK.

``It's going to be a pile of people on the crew,'' Mr. Steele said, adding that it takes a lot of people to pull off broadcasts of this magnitude.

For lovers of performing arts, high-definition television is supposed to be the ultimate in concert viewing, short of actually being there. The high-definition format offers CD-quality sound and a picture with twice the sharpness and clarity of traditional television.

But Augustans will have to wait to see what the hype is all about, even if they have already acquired one of the new digital television sets, which cost between $5,000 and $10,000.

Mr. Steele said GPTV's Augusta affiliate, WCES-TV (Channel 20), which will air Ms. Norman's special on Dec. 21, does not have digital capability. So the program will initially be shown locally in letter-box format, with blocks at the top and bottom of the screen.

But Ms. Norman agreed to a licensing deal that will allow the program to be shown by public television on an unlimited basis for six years. During that time, the digital television revolution should go into in full swing, Mr. Steele said.

``It's kind of like color (TV), it will be here before you know it,'' he said.

Just in case something goes wrong during Friday's concert, the TV crews will also tape Ms. Norman's dress rehearsal Wednesday at First Baptist.

The dress rehearsal is closed to the public, said Arlene Schler, marketing director for the Augusta Opera.

Kent Kimes covers arts and entertainment for The Augusta Chronicle.He can be reached at (706) 823-3626 or kkimes@augustachronicle.com.