Recent News

Some problems with the vision mixer and Collage have been resolved:

• The Pixelpower Collage key output now works, this means that keying can now be done correctly on any text / graphic created in the Collage. The collage has also recently been upgraded.
• The key source is auto selected when the 'Cap Gen' is selected at key fill. This however relies on certain settings in the vision mixer to be correct, will write an idiot's guide soon.
• Bars (temporarily) restored to the vision mixer on the correct source.
• Colour Backgrounds 1 and 2 now correctly assigned and fully working.

Remote aux panel next...

Kris

With the recent donation of two more Pixelpower Collages we can hopefully replace the Aston in Studio B gallery. There is also the added possibility of linking the machines together to share templates / images hopefully making them more user friendly.

UPDATE Day1:

• Units are SDI only. Will contact Pixelpower...
• Need analogue board, board taken from another machine.
• New working unit (after much swapping of boards) installed and working in Studio A

Comments:

• Old Studio A unit to be installed into Studio B? With newer software (swap of hard disk)
• Existing jobs/pictures/files need transfering to new machine - may be available vie a 'network'

I have secured a remote interface box from YooMedia Plc for the Pixelpower Collage who I currently work for. This will clear up the quirks with the keyboard and mouse controls as well as enabling a full VGA monitor for editing. This interfaces via ethernet with the pixelpower and can act as a console for multiple pixelpower devices once they are all placed on the same network. I will come in to install and configure this at some point in the next week as it is not a documented product, at this stage I will put up configuration information for the device as a sub-section of the Pixelpower page.

The Profile Video Server is a 4 channel device designed to record both audio and video (M-JPEG), over Rave On Air it was installed in a temporary fashion into Studio A to allow playback of material for the news service. This included basic routing for video but no audio, it has now been installed in a more permenant fashion with full audio recording and playback. Audio can be patched from Sound Control A in the same manner as the studio VTR's. As a default, one of the video channel outputs is available direct to the vision mixer, one to the digital matrix and one to the monitor stack for previewing material. This is patchable from Bay 6 in VAR as are the inputs. It should be noted that the device has its own internal routing control, this means that for example input 1 does not neccesarily correspond to record channel 1 etc. Check the internal routing table for current status before routing. A short guide will appear soon for using the device within the Ravensbourne installation.

The two preview monitors for lighting and vision respectively are now fed via SDI digital video. As a result of this, there is a new Pro-bel panel for controlling these identified by the blue back light. The top row with the labels towards the left controls the lighting preview monitor, and the bottom row with the labels to the right controls the waveform/vectorscope and vision monitor. Joystick overrides from camera control panels function as they did before.

Please note that it is possible to lock these panels, if the panel does not respond please check that neither of the two lock symbols are lit on the left of the unit, if they are simply push the button next to them to unlock. Note also that while camera joysticks are depressed the lock symbol will appear for the bottom row, this is normal and will disappear upon release of the joystick.

The principle outcome of this change is that signals to the waveform/vectorscope and vision monitor are now following the same signal path as that to the vision mixer. Colour and picture levels here are once again reliable as a transmission reference.

The Rostrum Camera in Post Production has now been added to the digital matrix allowing it to be used remotely by locations served from this matrix. This allows footage to be captured directly to Studio A including the Pixelpower Collage, as well as post production suites including the Avid Adrenaline and Symphony systems.

Two Avid Adrenaline suites have been installed into Post Production.

These have dedicated hardware render boxes which also act as audio/video/data I/O interfaces.

I took the liberty of adding these to the digital matrix, which allows them to ingest material direct from studios or any other source on the matrix and also to playout to any area equipped with SDI inputs such as the recently upgraded Studio A. This will be used during Rave On Air to allow news edited on the day to be played straight to air without having to go via tape. More information on the suites can be found on the Post Production page.

The Adrenaline suites take the place on the digital matrix of the Final Cut Pro suites which were removed from it last year. The matrix requires some configuration changes in order for it to properly accept these new suites as well as a couple of extra rules added to prevent null routes. This will result in approximatly 10 minutes of down time on the matrix while the new configuration is uploaded and the matrix restarted. This will happen on Friday 19th May over the lunch period to reduce disturbance to affected areas (Critically: Studio A, Presentation Suite and Dubbing Bay).

After an improved degree of contact with Pro-bel we were sent the upgrade ROM's to change the System 3 to an Aurora based system. After installing these the system was found not to boot correctly, this has been resolved through technical support provided by Pro-bel's David Salmon however we still have no communications between computer and the control frame, rendering it useless at the moment. Investigations are on going....

There is a fault with the remote interface box which connects the Aston Concept mainframe to the keyboard, mouse and replay panel. As a temporary solution we have run a mouse and a keyboard directly from the mainframe to Studio A gallery via a KVM over CAT5 box. Although this does work, it does not allow use of the replay panel but provides a temporary work around.

A digital matrix panel has also been installed into VAR to allow digital source monitoring in there.

The Omnibus system in the Presentation Suite has been decommisioned and removed ready for the installation of a Pharos automation system. This is taking place largely as a result of the reliability issues we have faced using the Omnibus system as well as the generous donation by Pharos. Installation is scheduled to be completed 2 weeks before RaveOnAir.

There are still things left to do on Studio A but the system is essentially complete and working.

Contacted Aston today, they are going to send us a spare remote interface for our Aston Concept as we are still having mouse problems with this which are preventing it being used properly.

Also contacted Pro-bel after having no luck with interfacing our System 3 controller with either the original software or the Aurora software. They apparently sent out the update ROM's for us a couple of weeks ago but Kevin O'Neil in tech support there is going to investigate what happened and send these out. This should then allow us to control the UMD's as originally intended as well as the Freeway matrix and its panels. Once Pharos automation is installed into the Presentation Suite there is a chance this will also talk to the controller to enable interfacing with the station routers and pres.

The gallery is now almost finished and we now have only the outstanding items in the list on the project page to complete. The gallery now has stereo audio monitoring as well and all tally systems are working as expected after some initial teething problems.

The upgrade is going well now and the gallery is looking quite impressive with comments including the fact that it looks better than some commercial studio galleries!

• Howard is currently wiring the monitor stack which goes via a termination panel in the bottom of one of the bays making moving it easier if we have to (this covers the possible replacement of the floor tiles amongst other things).

• We have installed two of the new DSR-1500AP VTR's which arrived on Friday and these are wired to the VTR remote panel and to the vision mixer.

• We have edit monitors active for both the Aston Concept and the Pixelpower Collage although we are having a couple of communication issues with the control panels for both. The concept keyboard and replay panel will talk to the mainframe but we have been unable to get a mouse to talk properly with this, we at first thought this was related to Windows NT drivers but having updated these we are still missing something, this will be looked into more on Monday. As part of this we realised that we didn't have the admin account password set by Channel 4, this was traced via our contact Tim at Channel 4 and has now been changed to the engineering admin password used for all other computer systems in the facility. We will concentrate on getting communications for the Pixelpower as a priority as it can if need be operate as a still store as well as a caption generator.

• Quartz delivered the tally interface boxes today (Saturday!) and were shown around the facility as well, we are hoping for a better relationship with them now they are aware we are a bit more than a standard media studies facility!

• I have been investigating problems with talking to the Pro-Bel freeway router for setup and config on its RS232 port which is failing to respond when the laptop is connected to it despite Paul and my best efforts today, although it still responds to routing commands via RS485 control panels. I will ring Pro-Bel tomorrow to try and get a solution and also obtain the System 3 edit software which we need for configuring the UMD's. This can in fact be connected to the Freeway router and used to configure and control that as well and this may be used for a more efficient routing system within the gallery.

• Due to the number of items being installed as part of the upgrade which require PC configuration on a regular basis (UMD's, Tally and Video Routers as well as the vision mixer) we are trying to source a low spec computer which will be permenantly installed into rack 5 in VAR to allow engineering to configure the systems for studio requirements. This will be a network independent computer locked down for engineering staff use only.

A quick summary of whats happened since the weekend:

• The monitor stack has been installed and wiring of this will happen today, this includes all the under monitor displays.
• The new production desk was fitted by MW-Video on 5th April causing the room to provoke very favourable responses from those who have seen it.
• Pro-Bel have delivered 2 of the 7 ADC cards we need to upgrade the cameras, the others are on back order, however this will not be detrimental to studio operations as we can use alternative cards as a short term solution. Currently this means we have all cameras running in 601 component to the vision mixer however only two of these are RGB sourced, the remainder are still PAL.

An update on progress on the Studio A upgrade over the weekend:

• Wiring carried on in VAR and the output of the camera ADC's now appears on the digital matrix as expected.
• A fault with the station sync pulse generators has been resolved enabling Studio A to be synchronous with the rest of the station again.
• The Pixelpower Collage edit monitor on the desk is a TFT as is the case with the edit monitor for the Aston Concept, as the Collage does not have a VGA out we are using a scart to VGA adaptor. This was experimented with today, with normal domestic equipment the box will function as expected as the source will tell the adaptor via scart whether it is a composite or RGB signal. This is not carried with a standard RGB signal and so I have modded the box to accept only RGB. At the same time I disconnected all the config buttons on the side of it before re-assembly. The box was then screwed to the back of the TFT using the VESA mounting holes which the TFT had.
• Studio A floor has now been cleared to be ready for the contractors coming in tomorrow to replace it which will take approx 4 days.

More pictures will be appearing soon, having taken them I then run out of time in college to upload them!

Another progress report:

• James Lloyd plus others have been painting the 6 racks for the monitor stack so with luck this can go into the gallery over the weekend.
• I had a conversation with Brian from MW-Video this afternoon, the desk has been slightly delayed by issues with the vision mixer panel beacuse of the positioning we asked for. The remaining work will be done on Monday morning and hopefully they will either be down on Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. The desk will take approx 2 hours to fit.
• Wiring has continued in VAR and this is almost complete. Cables will be loomed in over the weekend or on Monday morning.
• 2 matching TFT displays have been obtained for the desk by swapping various models around etc. Cables have been made up for the RGB>XGA convertor box we are using to allow one of the TFT's to function as an edit monitor for the Pixelpower Collage although we have so far failed to get this to work properly!