Question Time Fault at Start

TP

Techy Peep Founding member 15 January 2002 6:17pm

Quote:

noggin on 6:12 pm on Jan. 15, 2002
In the old days, before disc servers, �you needed quite a few VTRs and some skilled operators (and often an AP/Director) to co-ordinate recording, rewind and playback across multiple VTs, slaving two playback VTs together via timecode to allow a seamless switch between different recordings. �The shorter the delay the more often you had to switch between recordings - so delaying by an hour was much easier than delaying by 10 minutes...

And hope to God that TOD TC is correctly being fed into all machines

NG

noggin Founding member 15 January 2002 6:21pm

And you also had to factor in how long it was going to take for the 1' VTR to rewind to the right point to pick up for playback, I believe

JA

james2001 Founding member 15 January 2002 6:27pm

Is that how big Brother Live was done on E4 last year? I know they delayed it as it was censored past the point that was watchable.

NG

noggin Founding member 15 January 2002 6:40pm

Yep - I think Big Brother was run through a server to allow it to be delayed (so it didn't breach ITC guidelines on language, product promotion etc, and also to avoid any form of libel action etc.)

I think the output of the server was cut away from to a wideshot and sound feed from the chicken house for the duration of the problematic content. It wasn't done particularly well - but I guess there wasn't a huge amount of production going into the E4 feeds.

AN

andyrew Founding member 15 January 2002 6:47pm

I read somewhere that Sony were involved in BB (in a Sony rag probably) that used about 3 of their servers and a load of Beta SX recorders for archiving. One of the servers for the delay on E4, and according to the mag, the live prog on C4 (with a much shorter delay).

Can't remember the exact details, but it was all based around MPEG2 kit.

AN

andyrew Founding member 15 January 2002 6:58pm

Quote:

noggin on 6:12 pm on Jan. 15, 2002
Delayed feeds :

In the old days, before disc servers, �you needed quite a few VTRs and some skilled operators (and often an AP/Director) to co-ordinate recording, rewind and playback across multiple VTs, slaving two playback VTs together via timecode to allow a seamless switch between different recordings. �The shorter the delay the more often you had to switch between recordings - so delaying by an hour was much easier than delaying by 10 minutes...

Them were the days. Very hairy at times, used extensively in sport to delay feeds - for example if the Grand Prix was on and you wanted to delay the Golf.

To help sync up the tapes, the BBC built a box called a 'timecode comparitor' (which was pretty big). It had digital displays on (early LEDs) and you would plug up timecode from two machines - the one playing on-air, and the one you want to sync up. The comparitor would tell you to the frame how far out you were, and all you had to do it get '0' as the difference. When in sync you would hot cut the new machine to air. Of course another machine would be in record and you'd have to do the process over again before the now on air machine runs out.

(January 2002)