tarzan
Well-known member
I'm a photographer at a station that recently went to a tapeless playback system for our newcasts, and we're trying to work out a good policy/system for archiving the materials onto tape, and making sure the tape numbers and timecodes are entered into the iNews archives.
With the old system, at most stations I've worked at, we would edit onto an archive tape (hence editing and archiving were all done in the same step), and the editor would write down the tape# and timecode for each story next to it's slug on his copy of the rundown. At the end of the newscast, he/she would hand that copy of the rundown to the producer of that show, who would then enter that info into the computer system.
Now that we initially just transfer our edited Avid sequences to a tapeless playback server (ISIS), I and my fellow photogs and editors trying to work out the best, most efficient system for getting all this archiving work done. Today our editor was out, so I and another photog had to edit the show, so afterwards, I experimented with this process. I got together all the edited sequences we had aired on the newscasts into one bin. Then I created a master sequence. One by one, I drag each sequence into the preview monitor and then hit the edit button to add it to the master sequence, making sure to move each over to create a second or two of black in between each video. Then I take the master sequence and insert edit it onto a blacked archive tape -the whole sequence of sequences, all at once. This is usually a 13 to 15 minute dub. As it's dubbing, I take note of the timecodes as each sequence starts, and write them next to the slug on the rundown. Then after the dub is finished, I take the rundown to a computer in the newsroom (we don't have iNews in the Avid bays themselves) and enter those tape #'s and time codes into each script for todays newscast.
Well, I can be sure that today's stuff got archived, but as I said before, I was experimenting with how long it would take. I'm sure that a lot of it was that I've never done that before, so I took a long time. In my case, I started the above described process at about 5:40pm, and didn't get done till about 6:35pm. -Almost an hour. The most tedious part of the process was putting the sequence together and dubbing to tape. My shift is supposed to end at 5:45pm, so I certainly would not want to do this every day. It would also be inconvenient for the editor, because he/she would have little if any time to go get their lunch break. And editor who would be assigned that chore after a 10pm newscast might sometimes end up not getting out of the station till midnight.
So, my question is, how do the rest of you do it? Can anyone please share ideas on how to best manage the workflow of archiving in a tapeless environment, in an efficient manner, so that no one, be they photog or editor, has to stay past the end of their shift?
One other thing I should mention is that we are a relatively small newscast, and on any given night, there's usually only ONE editor on duty, so having one guy edit the show and the other do the tape archiving, cannot be part of the equation here.
Any advice you can offer is appreciated.
With the old system, at most stations I've worked at, we would edit onto an archive tape (hence editing and archiving were all done in the same step), and the editor would write down the tape# and timecode for each story next to it's slug on his copy of the rundown. At the end of the newscast, he/she would hand that copy of the rundown to the producer of that show, who would then enter that info into the computer system.
Now that we initially just transfer our edited Avid sequences to a tapeless playback server (ISIS), I and my fellow photogs and editors trying to work out the best, most efficient system for getting all this archiving work done. Today our editor was out, so I and another photog had to edit the show, so afterwards, I experimented with this process. I got together all the edited sequences we had aired on the newscasts into one bin. Then I created a master sequence. One by one, I drag each sequence into the preview monitor and then hit the edit button to add it to the master sequence, making sure to move each over to create a second or two of black in between each video. Then I take the master sequence and insert edit it onto a blacked archive tape -the whole sequence of sequences, all at once. This is usually a 13 to 15 minute dub. As it's dubbing, I take note of the timecodes as each sequence starts, and write them next to the slug on the rundown. Then after the dub is finished, I take the rundown to a computer in the newsroom (we don't have iNews in the Avid bays themselves) and enter those tape #'s and time codes into each script for todays newscast.
Well, I can be sure that today's stuff got archived, but as I said before, I was experimenting with how long it would take. I'm sure that a lot of it was that I've never done that before, so I took a long time. In my case, I started the above described process at about 5:40pm, and didn't get done till about 6:35pm. -Almost an hour. The most tedious part of the process was putting the sequence together and dubbing to tape. My shift is supposed to end at 5:45pm, so I certainly would not want to do this every day. It would also be inconvenient for the editor, because he/she would have little if any time to go get their lunch break. And editor who would be assigned that chore after a 10pm newscast might sometimes end up not getting out of the station till midnight.
So, my question is, how do the rest of you do it? Can anyone please share ideas on how to best manage the workflow of archiving in a tapeless environment, in an efficient manner, so that no one, be they photog or editor, has to stay past the end of their shift?
One other thing I should mention is that we are a relatively small newscast, and on any given night, there's usually only ONE editor on duty, so having one guy edit the show and the other do the tape archiving, cannot be part of the equation here.
Any advice you can offer is appreciated.