OT - Broadcast Scheduling Software

Jim H wrote on 2/12/2006, 10:55 AM
I've recently become a board member of our local Public Access TV station. The organization has been run by group of volunteers that are nearly all very senior citizens and the equipment and methods they use reflects this. They broadcast their shows from a bank of 16 VHS tape decks that are controlled with little IR sensors that are stuck to the front of the decks and mimic the remote controls. I think they set up 8 hours of programming at a time and the process is very complicated and not all that realiable. The only guy that even knows how to do it is over 80 years old - props to him, but I believe we are one banana peal away from some serious down time.

What's scary is that they have a reasonable budget and spend most of it keeping tape decks working at $350 per repair. I've been volunteered to head up a technology refresh committee. My thought is there must be a software package out there that would allow us to load all of our programming on a few hard drives and simply drag and drop video files onto a weekly time line, including little public service announcements and the obligatory scroll across the bottom with community events and the like.

I see the entire station being compressed into a couple of nice PC workstations/servers. Then we can put volunteers to work digitizing all of their programming into WMV files and teach a few how to run the software - even remotely from home.

Does anyone have any contact information on this type of software?
The only thing that I've been able to find that looks like what I'm thinking about is Showmaker by a company called Specialy Video Products (a D.co company):
http://www.d-co.com/showmaker_scheduling_software.html

Thanks!

Comments

plasmavideo wrote on 2/12/2006, 1:46 PM
Jim,

How much different material do you typically use in a week, that is, I'm trying to get a feel for what size and type of storage you require.

A possible viable alternative might be a type of server with a software front end that would let you build playlists. Grass Valley Group has recently offered several devices like that. I'll do a quick perusal tomorrow in some of my Broadcast Supply catalogs at work and see if something leaps out at me.

Tom
TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/12/2006, 2:14 PM
at my old TV station we used WinLightning to record all our shows... that sounds like what you have there. We ran everything by hand though.

Anyway... the WB network has their affiliates download the programs on to PC's & play's back from their. That seemed to work pretty well. I setup some Adtec Digital Duet's (http://www.adtecinc.com/) to run the TV stations WNYI & KWWF before they got sold. That worked most of the time. That can be controlled via local computer or via modem.

But, you will STILL need someone to man the post (FCC reg's). I'd recomend getting some Panasonic DVCPro VCR's & getting your VHS stuff on those. Going 100% computer is great but, computer break down you're 100% off the air. Nothing beats a good controll room man (or woman).

Also, try contacting other PBS affiliates. WNED (www.wned.org) is my local one & they've got a REALLY state of the art place there. Nice.

I'd recomend getting digital VCR's & copying the VHS's to digital tape. For a small station WITH a staff it's not really that economical to put everything on computer. You'd have to train everyone how to use it, maintain the computer, make sure people clear off old programs upload new ones, get everyone using GOOD filenames & keeping a log of what's on/off (which is hard)...

I mean if all you wanted was a program to run a playlist WinAmp would doo. If someone's there & they run the cnotrol room they can do all the other stuff. $350 on one broken VCR (which is crazy... you could buy new ones for that!) would pay $6.50 for a control room guy... someone who wants a small easy job.
Former user wrote on 2/12/2006, 3:35 PM
Sounds like Newtek's Video Toaster might work for you...

Video Toaster

Just be sure and get it configured for DV capture (native VT files are HUGE). Also the VT can control RS232 / RS422 devices, so you wouldn't have to store everything digitally if you didn't want to.
Jim H wrote on 2/12/2006, 6:33 PM
Tom, We run about 15 programs a day from 9AM to midnight with some repeats in there.

I don't think a Toaster is the answer. I'm OK with getting anolog video into DV format via your typical embedded PCI capture cards. And I'm OK with setting up networked PCs. I thought about just setting up playlists in aome media player like winamp, but that wouldn't get you a crawl at the bottom (though I suppose you could genlock something over the feed?) or the flixibility to set up programs in advance.

Has anyone heard of the Showmaker software I referenced above? I also came across some other program that talked about being able to use networked computers so that if one went down, the second one would pick up the programming. Showmaker even talks about remote capabilities.

I'm not sure how cluttered the video files could get, but it can't be any worse that racks of video tapes. And as far as teaching volouteers how to work the system, that depends on the quality of the GUI I guess. These people are not dumbies after all they're running the show now and I'm clueless as to how they keep it together.

I've no experience in broadcast TV so I'm planning to visit a couple of the more sophisticated stations in the area (central NY). Don't want to reinvent the wheel here.

PS: I wish this forum had a spell checker.
richard-courtney wrote on 2/12/2006, 7:13 PM
I can't go into details but we have had very good reliability with
Enseo products. Having them on servers has advantages and
disadvantages. First obvoiusly someone must convert all media
coming into the statiion. But, these cards / software can insert
channel logo overlays.

Enseo.com can point you to software and turnkey suppliers.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/12/2006, 7:40 PM
central NY? What's the call letters of the stations? WNYI is located in Ithica & I'm south of Buffalo (then again, central NY is pretty much anywhere between rochester & albany to some!).

When you want to do things other then just showing shows (ie crawls) that starts to get complex. There's hardware/software out there that can do it (I've seen it) but i'm serious when I say that it's not worth it for a small opperation. If you've got everything on a PC it doesn't take long to instert a crawl via Vegas. Heck, one time I had to re-edit a crawl for a show that was an hour long that was on the air in two hours. Made it by the skin of my teeth. :D

Bob Greaves wrote on 2/12/2006, 8:13 PM
The now dead BeOS platform had several commercieally useful queue programs for radio and TV. But the OS is dead. No one seriously develops for it anymore to my knowledge.

But there was at one time a queue program where you could add files to the queue and set them to start at specific times or to auto play the next item or to wait for a keypress, etc. It ieven allowed for a live feed pre-emption.

It was possible to totally automate a radio or video system.
plasmavideo wrote on 2/13/2006, 4:29 AM
Jim,

With that limited number of programs I think you might be better off with some type of intelligent video playback device. It's basically a stand-alone recorder/player with limited automation and playlist capabilities. One of the benefits of going this route would be that it's an all inclusive, small box, rather than a whole bank of troublesome VCRs and generally no Windows computer problems to deal with. The ones I've seen at trade shows give you a screen where you can build playlists via drag and drop or set up timed playback from a menu.

I have no idea of your budget, and these types of devices can run the spectrum, but very nice lower cost devices are on the market.

Here, we use an automation system from Crispin with Omneon servers, but that is vastly more complex and expensive than you need. That is a system of networked PCs with dubbing, record scheduling, playlist control, database management, traffic department integration and recon and master control playout. Very slick, but designed for a full blown 24 hour commercial station operation.

Here's a link to the to the Grass Valley broadcast division. Look at their iDDR and iVDR sections to get a feel for what I'm talking about.

http://www.thomsongrassvalley.com/products_broadcast/

I can put you in touch with someone in my area who deals in this type of equipment (and a lot more) and would be glad to give you some advice, but I'd like to do it "offline" so I'm not doing commercials here on the forum.

Since you are in NY, you might try someone at Markertek or B&H and see if they offer any solutions.

Tom


EDIT PS: Another (maybe dumb) idea - I have a t home a Panasonic consumer harddisk recorder that holds hours and hours of video at high quality. I can go in and build a playlist using it's navagator function and very easily playout a string of programs. I wonder, given the nature of what you are doing if something like this would be all you need? You would have to dub in the programs to the hard drive, but you might get several of them and could one up while the other is on the air. The price is right, $500 or so each, and might accomplish what you want.

BTW: are you actually over the air or is this a cable channel?

Jim H wrote on 2/13/2006, 7:54 PM
We broadcast over Time Warner Cable in Baldwinsville, NY. PAC-B Channel 98. Website http://www.pacbtv.org/
tumbleweed wrote on 2/13/2006, 8:47 PM
..I also work at a public access channel, & have for years..

check out Leightronix products at http://www.leightronix.com/

..the initial cost is more, but will save you some money, & lots of headaches later on... also, their systems are rock solid..

The MPEG2 playback has been near flawless for us.

Coursedesign wrote on 2/13/2006, 10:38 PM
I think the station should fund a trip to NAB for you.

There you can find amazing stuff that few people know about.

:O)

Bob Greaves wrote on 2/14/2006, 3:55 AM
Cool, I've been through Baldwinsville many many times when growing up. My family traveled the ErieCanal as a way of getting our boat to a variety of places.

TIme Warner in Binghamton is still prefering to receive VHS tapes for Public Access. I wish we could submit mpeg2 or DVD's.
Cooldraft wrote on 2/15/2006, 7:17 PM
You might try Prophet Systems this software is used at the radio stations here. Reportedly, Disney uses it. They have a video version.