America's Most Wanted is now capturing fugitives in high-definition with JVC camcorders.

Fox’s crime-busting series America’s Most Wanted has made the move to high-definition production in a small way, recently purchasing several of JVC’s GY-HD200 cameras to shoot re-enactments in 24p. The show currently broadcasts in SD but there are plans to go HD later this year.
Show producer Chris Hamilton first saw the GY-HD200 at NAB 2007 and was impressed with the camera’s form factor and interchangeable-lens capability. He also liked the fact that he could shoot reenactments in 24p, giving the show a “hard” edge to match the real-life video sequences.

With the small-format GY-HD200 cameras, the show produces many of the re-enactments ‘ the staged scenes of actors portraying the victim or perpetrator ‘ in and around the main offices in Bethesda, MD. AMW also uses JVC’s BR-HD50U recorder/player and recently purchased FireStore’s hard disk drive to use with the GY-HD200s so that they can ingest material directly in a more file-based system. The multi-format BR-HD50U helps the crew handle the variety of video formats (from VHS to HDCAM) they receive on a daily basis from police departments across the country.

[Editor’s Note: Part of News Corp.’s Twentieth Television, America’s Most Wanted first aired on February 7, 1988. The show is tied with 48 Hours as the eighth-longest-running prime-time network show ever.]

Q: Was cost [at $7,995 each] an issue in purchasing the JVC GY-HD200 cameras?
A: Cost is always an issue. My executive-in-charge loves it when I can save him money on production equipment. That’s the reality of the business. That being said, we were impressed with how many features are built into this camera for the price.

Q: Why is 24p capture important to your productions?
A: On our show we go to great lengths to distinguish re-enactments from the reality segments. The real-world videos we get from police departments are in the 30 frames per second NTSC format. When we go to a re-enactment we want viewers to immediately understand that this is a staged scene, not the real thing, but a faithful recreation based on the facts of the real crime. The detail and “film look” that 24p gives helps viewers immediately understand that the actors are not the same people involved with the crime we’re portraying. But, emotionally, the film look helps draw the viewer in to the story.

Q: Since its beginnings, AMW has been acquiring to tape, but you just bought several Focus Enhancements FireStore hard-drive recorders. Why?
A: Well, we have to turn these shows around so fast that it’s become clear that a file-based workflow is the ideal one for us. We often have to produce an entire show, from acquisition to post [on Avid Media Composer Adrenaline systems], in a single week. We’ll shoot [show host] John Walsh’s standup [at National Geographic’s TV studios in Washington, DC – or on location if the crime dictates] on a Tuesday and deliver the show on Friday. Re-enactments can start earlier than that, but with the new FireStore recorders, we can literally say, ‘We need this tomorrow,’ or even ‘What can we do today?’

We work on Avid Media Composers now for tape, but as we prepare to make the switch to full HD production, we’ll continue to evaluate which edit systems best handle files natively and work in real time. In the HD world it’s no big deal because the FireStore records in the MXF file format. Currently we’re still working in SD and using the Avid OMFI format, but with the FireStore, it’ll be a straight ingest, which will save us time.

Q: What’s the most useful feature of the GY-HD200?
A: We love the scene files that are available for the camera. We can go out to the JVC website and download files that we like and get ones that match the specific look we’re after. We also like that we can use interchangeable lenses with the camera. The camera comes with a 16:1, but we put a 17:1 on it to give us more latitude and the shallow depth of field that we like to use on the show. That being said, we would like to have a removable media, other than tape, on the camera. Like a solid-state card.

Q: What’s the biggest misconception about HD production?
A: There’s a bunch of different flavors and compression formats related to HD out in the market, which tends to confuse people. But if you have an edit system that can handle them all, then you’ll be okay. The challenge for us is mixing our legacy SD material with the new HD footage and making it match.

The issue there is transcoding. If the edit system can’t do it on the fly, then we’ll have to transcode on the way into the edit system, which we can do via decks and upconverters so that it’s in the flavor we want before the editing process. In a perfect world we would want to get an edit system that handles the files in their native formats. There are a couple of systems that do that now without transcoding, and we’re keeping an eye on them.

Q: Is HD necessary for a show like America’s Most Wanted?
A: Is it necessary for any show? Sports, maybe. My argument is that everything looks better in HD. Will our re-enactments and our new set look better in HD? You better believe it.

For more information about America’s Most Wanted, visit www.amw.com.