[Jeff Markgraf]

Sorry – forgot that part. Both drives are Mac OSX Extended. 1 is journaled, the other is not. I think the 2 Gig split files show up as -1, -2, etc.

[Jeff Markgraf]

2 meters for eSata is a good rule. When it comes to high frequency signals (like digital), the quality (purity) of the conductor and the characteristics of the dielectric are important. But I would think any cable that conforms to the standard would suffice, at least for shorter runs. The connector is more likely to be a problem is cheaper cables.

FYI, the high-dollar “audiophile” cable isn’t merely a marketing ploy. I have experienced significant differences in both speaker and interconnect cables on my own system and on others. I grant that what is significant to me may be insignificant or inaudible to someone else…just as my wife can’t seem to see compression artifacts or see any significant difference between SD & HD. And I personally don’t have the funds to buy cable that costs hundreds of dollars per foot. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hear the difference on a sufficiently high resolution system. (end rant) 🙂

[Jeff Markgraf]

Most newsrooms are highly automated these days. The Chyron (or other CG) is typically fed info from the newsroom computer system. So lower third identifiers are generated from info put into the rundown. That info may be input by an AP, a producer, a reporter…or who knows who else. There is rarely a “CG operator” as we think of that position from a decade ago, so bad info is less likely to get flagged before going to air.

Having done my share of news (as a director), I can attest to the ease with which typos and bad spelling make it to air. It’s a fast-moving, always-changing environment. At some point, though, is bound to notice & fix the super.

To answer another part of the question – yes, if the identifier is entered incorrectly in the first place, it has the potential to be reused over and over again, unless someone spots it and corrects it. As an example, look at the density of the information contained in Fox News’ recent incorrect ID of Mark Sanford as a Democratic governor. That banner had a LOT of words in it, and the “(D)” was pretty buried. As much as I accept the likelihood of Fox’s political agenda, I’m far more inclined to point to simple human error on that getting by, even repeatedly.

[Jeff Markgraf]

Pen in mouse mode with 1 30″ monitor. I find pen mode almost unusable.

[Jeff Markgraf]

Do local affiliates get/accept phone calls from viewers when this sort of thing happens, or is there usually no way to get a message to the control room (after normal bus. hours, etc.) … or once a show has started is a broadcaster normally loath to change/correct the aspect ratio on-the-fly (if this is even possible)?

Don’t count on ever getting master control on the phone, unless you get the direct line from a friend at the station. Even then the guy on duty may not know anything’s wrong, or may not be able to fix it.

Does Oregon have a statewide public TV network, or are the various markets fully independent stations? If the stations are mostly fed from a central hub (as in Oklahoma), it’s possible that only the network feed in in HD, with the local station just bypassing the SD master control switcher for net feeds only. The re-broadcast may be local, and therefore in SD.

It’s hard to tell what happened in the scenario you describe. There’s no excuse for SD on the HD unless the program is only available in SD. Both public TV stations here in LA (KCET & KOCE) have several secondary channels, so one may see an HD show on the main channel one night, then see it again a week later in SD on one of the secondary channels. In that case, the SD feed is letter-boxed. Sometimes I’ll see an SD program that was letter-boxed for aesthetic reasons (especially documentaries) shown on the HD feed, so there’s pillar-boxed material inside a letter box inside a pillar box, all in HD (16:9) with the logo in the black pillars. Yikes!

Always keep in mind that in the broadcast world, it’s the revolution, and digital broadcast isn’t necessarily HD broadcast. Not a single station is required to air HD programming. It’s just digital (except in some small markets, where it’s still analogue).

I’ll be quiet now, ’cause I could talk about this stuff for hours…

[Jeff Markgraf]

Warning – long post.

TV stations and the networks have a lot of $$ tied up in legacy equipment. That money they spent several years ago on new SD cameras/tape decks, etc., may take years to amortize. I went through this at ABC a number of years ago, and accounting insisted on an 8-year schedule. So when ABC replaced their aging 1″ VTRs with D2 composite digital decks, they missed the DigiBeta revolution by a couple of years. But those D2 decks weren’t going anywhere until they had been fully written down. Period.

Networks (and major market stations) have millions tied up in older equipment. As they replace ENG cameras, they’ll replace them with HD models. But the SD stuff still works, day in and day out. NBC is particularly stuck in SD field equipment. KNBC in LA has very few HD cameras in the field. KABC has mostly HD, but they made the commitment early. KCBS/KCAL appear to blow up some of their SD live shots to fill the 16:9 frame.

Another thing to consider with field acquisition is bandwidth. I think a microwave feed tops out at 18 Meg per second, so HD has to be compressed to use a standard microwave link. I recall Sony Beta SX and some others squeeze the video into that bandwidth…otherwise it’s SD or nothing. Or satellite for the live shot, which is out of reach for smaller markets.

Back at the station, a modern HD switcher can be set to automatically place the SD 4:3 video sources into a pillar-boxed background, so at least the whole 16:9 frame looks pretty and there aren’t any black bars.

As the network news budgets have shrunk, they’ve had to rely more than they used to on affiliate-based crews and and locally-sourced equipment… all of which is more likely to be SD rather than HD. In fact, I often see more SD material on the network show than on the local show.

On a side note, the real fun can be seen on local when a piece of video is not flagged correctly. It’s painful to see anamorphic 4:3 video inside a pillar box. Umm, did no one notice the squeeze? I see it a lot on the early shows (4, 5 or 6pm), where the deadlines are tighter and mistakes more likely to get through.

Just a couple more notes…

The networks rarely do live shots, but they do rely heavily on tape being fed to them, (rather than actual tapes delivered from the field). So SD vs HD is often a bandwidth issue (even satellite still requires more bandwidth for HD).

As far as resolution… as Dave pointed out, cable & satellite TV are re-compressing the already compressed broadcast stream, so it starts to look pretty bad very quickly. OTA video can look pretty good (as long as you don’t mind motion artifacts!). I can easily distinguish between a satellite live shot vs microwave, and newer station cameras vs. tape from the local stringer shooting HDV. When KABC pulls something from their highly compressed affiliate news feed, it looks awful. So does KNBC’s low-res stuff from their affiliate feed that looks like single-field up-converted to interlaced. Weird.

Are we sorry we asked yet?

[Jeff Markgraf]

So I checked it out now that I’m back at work. And, yes, I can just turn off tracks 5-16 in the clip settings tab. I seem to recall that didn’t work before, but it’s OK now. What confused me (and still puzzles me) is that I can’t get access to the Input Channels dropdown – it’s grayed out.

Per Baz’s reply, I checked the device control preset. The” Blackmagic NTSC 29.97″ preset says 4 channels of audio. Yet all 16 show up as available in the capture window. I edited the preset (to 2 channels) and it had no effect. So I put it back to 4 channels (still no effect).

So the immediate problem is solved, but the underlying settings & solution seem unresolved. Shouldn’t the preset present only 4 channels as available? Or is this just one of those “FCP is what it is “mysteries?

Thanks for all your help, guys.

[Jeff Markgraf]

That was the first thing I tried to do. Didn’t seem to work. Still got a clip with 16 channels of nothing.

Of course, this was some time ago, and I’ve been using mostly clips digitized elsewhere lately. I’ll try it again, as the system was just updated a couple of weeks ago.

[Jeff Markgraf]

Well, yes and no…(warning – long post)

The two monitor setup has a long history, but I would suggest that has more to do with the limited size and resolution of older video cards and monitors. Back when a 21″ computer monitor was a >$1000 proposition, and 800×600 was considered high resolution, you made do with 2 15″ or 17″ monitors on that Avid. And you still felt like you were always running out of room. Not to mention the heat from 2 of the really big CRT monitors was a huge problem in a bay already overstuffed with tape deck, BOB, “Pizza box” effects unit, TBC, 19″ or 21″ broadcast pix monitor — plus a nervous client or two.

I’ve been editing a few years (OK- more than a few years) and I just started using a single 30″ Apple display. The 24″ HD pix monitor is directly above and a few feet “behind” the edit monitor. No more cluttered desk. No more swiveling the head between 3 different monitors. Little or no head movement needed to switch from one to the other – just lift the eyes. This layout has done a lot to mitigate neck & back tension during long edit sessions. And the pen & tablet nipped an incipient carpal tunnel issue in the bud.

(For the Old Folks: I first worked with this kind of layout back in a linear bay with the Axial 20/20 with the source video integrated into the EDL display. It was such a great setup, I couldn’t imagine why no one had done it before.)

Granted, I do mostly promo editing/producing, so my bin & viewer requirements are certainly simpler than a documentary or long-form editor. But I find I have no problem getting to my footage quickly. Using the pen in “mouse” mode lets me get around the huge screen easily.

So while I’d never tell anyone it’s wrong to use a traditional 2 monitors + pix monitor setup, I also wouldn’t dismiss a single monitor setup out of hand.

[Jeff Markgraf]

Kind of makes you wonder IF he’ll ask a second question…