Electronic news gathering (ENG) or electronic journalism (EJ) is usage of electronic video and audio technologies by reporters to gather and present news instead of using film cameras. The term was coined during the rise of videotape technology in the 1970s. ENG can involve anything from a single reporter with a single professional video camera, to an entire television crew taking a truck on location. Beginnings Shortcomings of film The term ENG was created as television news departments moved from film-based news gathering to electronic field production technology in the 1970s. Since film requires chemical processing before it can be viewed and edited, it generally took at least an hour from the time the film arrived back at the television station or network news department until it was ready to be broadcast. Film editing was done by hand on what was known as "color reversal" film, usually Kodak Ektachrome, meaning there were no negatives. Color reversal film had replaced black-and-white film as television itself evolved from black-and-white to color broadcasting. Filmo cameras were most commonly used for silent filming, while Auricon cameras were used for filming with synchronized sound. Since editing required cutting the film into segments and then splicing them together, a common problem was film breaking during the newscast. News stories were often transferred to bulky 2-inch videotape for distribution and playback, which made the content cumbersome to access. Film remained important in daily news operations until the late 1960s, when news outlets adopted portable professional video cameras, portable recorders, wireless microphones and joined those with various microwave- and satellite truck-linked delivery systems. By the mid-1980s, film had all but disappeared from use in television journalism. Transition to ENG As one cameraman of the era tells it, This portability greatly contributed to the rise of electronic news gathering as it made portable news more easily accessible than ever before. Early portable video systems recorded at a lower quality than broadcast studio cameras, which made them less desirable than non portable video systems. When the Portapak video camera was introduced in 1967, it was a new method of video recording, forever shifting ENG. By the time videotape technology advanced, the capability for microwave transmission was well established (and used in the 1960s by the BBC's ill-fated Mobile Film Processing Unit). But the convenience of videotape finally allowed crews to more easily use microwave links to quickly send their footage