Have You Got A Plan......

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Tonight it happened. 4:58pm--The news tease rolls without a hitch--we hit the show open, anchors say "Good Evening, here the lastest..." and bingo, bango, bongo-- the server crashed and suddenly we are a newscast without video. No packages, no V/O-sots, nothing. Graphics were all in place, they were in a different server. Robotics, remotes, control room were all un-affected. The cry goes forth from the producer- I need stories on TAPE, NOW!

By 5:10 the first packages and v/o's were headed to the old "Tape Room", a phrase we haven't used for over two years. We are entirely Sony DNE-700 based, and all of our edited stories live in the local machines until cleared the next day. We only have two SX playback machines in Master Control, everything else is SP from the old days.

For the 5, we had to record the stories from the DNE to SX Tape, and run them to Master Control, where they aired as they arrived. We survived that trauma with some help from two remotes, including a lead story from our helicopter over a Hazardous materials site, and a house fire.

During the thirty minute break, editors finished stories for the 6pm newscast and dumped them to SX tape. All of the SX Tapes were then dubbed to SP in our lone tape-to-tape edit bay. By 5:55 the first segment had been finished, and the second segment was completed ten minutes later. Everyone not directly involved in editing helped with labeling, rewinding blank tapes for dubs, and running tapes to MC. Our EP made sure every tape had the proper playlist designation on the label as it left the edit area. Another manager kept track of which stories were being cut in which rooms, and kept traffic flowing to the dub center.

By 6:20, the last teases and vo's were done, and sent down the hall. Quite an effort by many folks, most on overtime. But it raises the question, how prepared is your operation to handle the "crash" when it comes?
 

F-stop

Member
As crazy as it sounds, I believe these major catastrophes are actually great for moral. Everybody pulls together and goes well above and beyond. There is no pety bitching, backstabbing or whining about how much work they have to do. It's times like that, where I am never more proud to be in the good ole' tv news biz. Everybody, if only for a short time unites and usually kicks ass and overcomes any obstical thrown there way. A true news TEAM in every sence of the word.

I would never wish any such event on my station or any other, but you can't beat the pride that you should feel on the drive home tonight. :D

Am I just crazy?
 

News Active

Active member
Here we edit our stories on three non-linear edits and then print them back to a "backup tape" to assigned timecode point and after that all stories are captured to the video server in the master control and played back from there. The vision mixer automatically cues the backup tape to the correct timecode during the show in case the VR breaks down. Of course, if we are in a hurry, we can play the stories directly to the show from all of our edit bays.
 

Sportsguy

Well-known member
I can understand the ease of operation a server gives, but how the heck do you guys archive video? I'm sure the server can hold tons, but what about stuff from a year or so ago? Where does it all go?

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a tape that I know will be useable a few years down the road. We have 3/4 tapes from the early 80's that still look OK.

How will we deal with today's video ten, fifteen years down the road if it's never been put on tape?
 
Archiving is done by our editors. After 3 or 4 days worth of news programming, they go through our "On Air" server and delete the teases, promos, bumps, and miscellaneous stuff that we would never need. Then they drag everything into a "Compile" category in the server, (which is just another folder.)

Then, when it is full, (about 2 hours and 40 minutes worth), it is transferred to a 3 hour SX tape. Those tapes are kept in our largest edit room on shelves. We have about 2 and a half years worth of SX file tapes now. Everything is filed by date, and a log sheet is generated automatically for each tape. One copy is kept in the box, and another is kept in an archive notebook.

When the system works properly, (thats ENPS), you can search for stories by title or text words. Each story script is saved in the newsroom server. About 30 per cent of the time, you have to use the date and manually find a story. At least we have everything on tape for later use.

I can't imagine editing directly on the server, and losing everything you had done for the day. That would be frustrating.

But teamwork will always make things better, for sure.
 
S

<stroke the hokie>

Guest
Originally posted by Sportsguy:
I can understand the ease of operation a server gives, but how the heck do you guys archive video? I'm sure the server can hold tons, but what about stuff from a year or so ago? Where does it all go?

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a tape that I know will be useable a few years down the road. We have 3/4 tapes from the early 80's that still look OK.

How will we deal with today's video ten, fifteen years down the road if it's never been put on tape?
We back up to tape the next day..when we send video to the server, we simoultaneously send it to the archive..it gets dubbed the next day, logged to tape and it's very easy to find everything since it's done by date,
 
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