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Tricaster/broadcast sports question…
Sorry if this is kind of broad, but any input is greatly appreciated….
I work for a minor league baseball team. And we broadcast every home game for the closed circuit tvs. The tvs are located in all the suites, next to all the food stands, etc. Basically hers our setup. We have a broadcast tricaster on one computer, and the stand alone text program (live text) on the other. We use Live Text for the graphics of each players name/stats. We also use it for overlays for promotions in between innings, and for the score bar that we broadcast across the bottom. On the other computer (where the tricaster is located) we obviously set the external to read from the live text computer. Everything works smoothly and we are all very happy with what the programs and how it looks.
My only complaint is this: Every time a player walks up to bat, we have to take the score bar down, put the players stats/name graphic up, take it back down, then put the score bar back up. We obviously have to do this 100 times a game or more. Are there any other programs out there that I can use where I can keep the score up, while bringing the players stats up as well? Obviously, we see it on multiple channels every day, and it looks easy, but obviously it is not.
If what I said in anyway doesnt make sense, or you are confused, just let me know. Its kind of hard to put this into words, I hope you can understand. Thank you.
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3 Replies
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I’m looking at getting a Tricaster (or probably VT[5]) myself. I can’t help thinking that there are Tricaster-specific forums (on Newtek’s website?) where people are participating who have actually done this.
After watching the whizzy demonstration at the NAB convention a couple weeks ago, I would be surprised if there wasn’t some way of putting up multiple overlays/keys. I would be tempted to use separated “feeder” computers for the continuous score ribbon, and another for the player stats.
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WHat you’re asking for used to be handled by having another bus upstream or downstream. I’m trying to think of what the flow would be if you only have one preview bus, one key bus, and one program bus.
Maybe you can use a virtual DDR as another graphics source, but that still doesn’t solve the bus shortage. You might assign two near-identical gfx sources and set up a wipe between them. But I think you’re still stuck there too, because you don’t have another tier of busses to pre-compose with.
If the Tricaster has something like an E-Mem, a way to store pre-programmed sequences of switcher effects that you trip with one command, that at least would smooth out your flow.
I think maybe this is something you have to solve at the point of the graphics workstation and not at the live switch position. In the separate tricaster you’re using for graphics generation, you have more potential for layering between the various combos you need, and then sending just that mix over to the TD for incorporation into his flow. That makes your graphics guy also a part-time TD. Doubt he gets a raise though:-)
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At their NAB demonstration (similar to the one that is available online), Newtek made it clear that the Tricaster has MULTIPLE of the equivalent of down-stream keyers (DSK). I can’t imagine why you couldn’t have the score ribbon and the player stats overlays intependently showing in the frame. I suggested two different computers to source them so that you wouldn’t have to do the awkward switch between score and stat.
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