How a TV News Live Truck Works! #StormKING

Ever wondered how a news live truck works. Click play to find out.

SCRIPT:

Bright, bad and yellow, #StormKING brings you the most up to date information on weather and road conditions. This SUV allows reporters to go live on air while driving. It is equipped with two live cameras, one on the dash and one on the hood.

To understand why this baby is so special, we first need to describe how most news vehicles operate.

News live trucks have been around since the 80s. They use either a microwave or satellite dish to send a video signal back to the station. Your thinking microwave truck? Like microwave popcorn? Yep, just much more powerful. These trucks work by using a telescoping mast that reaches up to fifty feet high. The engineer will then point the dish towards a KING5radio tower, and send the video back to KING5.

Using the microwave dish give viewers a clear video signal of the reporters. The problem is that the vehicle can't move when the mast is raised. It's also dangerous to set up the truck in extreme weather, because essentially the mast becomes a big lighting rod.

So to safely get a live video signal while driving, the engineers at KING5 had to get creative. Now many of us are used to video chatting over Skype, unfortunately cell phones aren't fast enough to handle the high quality video that KING5 broadcasts.

That's where this device comes in. One cell phone might not be powerful enough for HD, But this little box combines four phones in one. The video is broken up into pieces, sent through the cell network and then the video is reassembled in a computer back at KING5.

Now viewers are able to see what our reporters are seeing as it's happening. So When bad weather hits this winter look for live reports on the road with #StormKING.

• Category

  • News & Politics

• License

  • Standard YouTube License