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Character Generator Purchase
I have the opportunity to specify a new character generator for a digital upgrade to our studio control room.
We are a small PBS station located at a university. We produce several local weekly shows in our studios, both live and recorded, plus a student-produced daily local news show during the fall and spring semesters. We currently have a TypeDeko that’s about 10 years old and still working as well as it ever did.
We’re looking to replace the old Deko with an HD/SD hybrid character generator, with two channels if we can afford it. Part of our mission is training students, so we would like to have gear that they may encounter in their future careers. I do many different jobs at the station, including print and web design. I spend most of my time working on Macs, and we do editing on Final Cut Pro. I will have a very limited amount of time to learn a new character generator, and I will be completely responsible for designing templates for all our regular productions. Our graphics operators are students with a minimum of training.
I know that if we purchase a new Deko it will be very familiar for me because they don’t seem to have changed much in the past 10 years. Of course that could also be a disadvantage. I’m looking for input on the usability and learning curves for Chyron and VizRT systems, and any other suggestions on broadcast graphics systems that I may not have considered.
If you had the cash to purchase a new on-air graphics machine for a new control room, and limited time to devote to working with it, what would you buy?
Thanks for any advice you might want to share.
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Melinda Stamp
WNMU-TV, Marquette, Michigan -
1 Reply
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I work for a station that has a Vizrt system and my advice is to buy another system. The Viz is VERY powerful and because of this has a very steep learning curve. Also, to effectively use the power of the Viz you have to be familiar with several other Viz programs. A further problem with the Viz for your situation is that the Viz does not have many easily available tutorials (and the ones they have tend to be very complicated). In addition, most of the graphic elements are created in Photoshop or Illustrator and then assembled in the Viz interface. Don’t get me wrong, the Viz is a very good choice for an operation that can put the resources into it, but with a constantly changing crew skill level it’s a bit hard to handle.
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