±«Óătv

My tech hero

• Rory Cellan-Jones
• 11 Jan 07, 09:42 PM

I'm leaving Las Vegas in a few hours but I can't go without doing one thing. No, I've settled my bar bill and paid my gambling debts thank you, but I must name my technology hero of the week.

His name is Steve Adrain and you won't have heard of him - but let me explain how he's opened my eyes to new ways of working.

Back in 1985 I went on my first foreign assignment for the ±«Óătv. As an impossibly young news producer (I was about 14) I was sent to organise coverage of the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's state visit to Paris - like me, Gorby was on his first big business trip.

I was working with the distinguished correspondent Tim Sebastian, who'd just been ejected from Moscow on trumped-up spying charges. In those far-off days before 24 hour news, we were only expected to serve two main television news bulletins a day.

With us we had the following team: a cameraman, a sound recordist, a lighting man, a video tape editor, and an engineer to feed the cut stories back to London from a Parisian television station. Oh, and I nervously handed over a huge bunch of notes to a taxi driver who I hired to ferry us around for the week.

At CES in 2007, one man did all those jobs - Steve Adrain. Steve has spent 20 years working his way up the ±«Óătv food chain - and acquiring new roles along the way as the technology changes. Of course, there was a whole ±«Óătv team in Las Vegas - producing coverage for radio, ±«Óătv World, Breakfast, Click, and the ±«Óătv website and blog - but in terms of the ±«Óătv's domestic television news bulletins, it was just the two of us.

When we checked in at Gatwick, Steve had five large flight cases with him - but then he was doing the work of at least five people. So here's what was in those cases:

A Sony DV Cam camera shooting on tape - but with a firestore hard disk attached.
A top of the range tripod.
A lighting kit with three lamps.
A sound kit including two radio mikes.
A Dell laptop loaded with the Avid Express editing programme.

And here's how our week went:

Saturday
Arrive in Las Vegas mid afternoon - about midnight UK time - and Steve heads for the Convention Centre to set up his equipment.

A quick test of the 1.5 Mbps T1 line we are to use for feeding shows it's lightning fast. A 30 second video file gets to London in two minutes. I've been very worried about this new way of feeding - much cheaper than a satellite feed so I’m mightily relieved.


Sunday

Disaster. Our first piece - a quick preview for the evening news bulletin - misses its slot. For a television news correspondent this is a cardinal sin - like a bishop falling over drunk, or a pilot landing at the wrong airport.

The time difference means we have to get our piece shot, cut and fed to London by 1135. Lulled into a false sense of security by our test the night before, we start sending by FTP at 1110 - but this morning the line is much, much slower - and the piece arrives during the bulletin, just a minute too late to be broadcast.

Monday

Chastened by our experience we feed our pieces an hour before the Six and Ten O Clock News programmes. No hitches this time - but London is nervous. They want more live broadcasts - but are not convinced that the T1 line is stable and secure enough for that. The decision is made to hire in a satellite truck.
In the afternoon Steve and I head to the airport to catch a flight to San Francisco and Macworld. There, we will have no option but to feed from our hotel's wifi connection. Oh dear.


Tuesday

Luckily we have the assistance of a great local producer, Kari Browne, but the timing is frightening. Steve Jobs' keynote is expected to end by 1030 local time - 1830 in London.

We then have to shoot the rest of the piece, head back to our hotel, edit it and start sending by 1300 to be safe.

But Jobs over-runs and the keynote finishes around 1115. As we leg it back to our hotel, London is on the phone demanding that I do a piece to camera with the shiny new iPhone in my hand.

I sit and record commentary for a holding piece - then leave Steve and rush back to the Moscone Centre.

The only iPhone is in the hands of Apple’s Phil Schiller - he kindly lets me hold it in my sweaty palm for a moment while Ian Hardy of Click records my piece to camera.

I sprint back to the hotel, Steve stitches it on to the front of my report - and we start sending by FTP (file transfer protocol) at 1315, much later than we'd planned.

Wonder of wonders the internet connection at this slightly shabby establishment is well up to San Francisco standards and the piece arrives in around 10 minutes. Trebles all round.

After that , the rest of the week back in Vegas seems an anti-climax. Steve is in full control of his equipment - and can spend much of the time battering me with his own very knowledgeable insights on technology - "that Apple set-top box is useless - 40GB hard drive ? Don't make me laugh! Touchscreen Hewlett Packard? Waste of time."

But Steve has earned the right to witter on. He has taken me on a journey into the future of television technology –- and I've emerged virtually unscathed.