Transmission - Bug Burners

Last week Jamie (Head of TX) and I spent the morning trying to find ways in which to get the bug burners to work. Using the bug files from last year we each started work on an individual channel to see who could find the most efficient way of doing this. There was further complexity in the fact that the bug-burners had been wired in a very strange way last year as they were also used to insert GPI's for the WSS inserters. 

After trying many different attempts we finally figured out that one of the bug-burners didn't want to store the file on its internal storage, so we took a step back and used a spare burner to store and generate the key image which would then be passed into the original burner which would also fill the key. 

Luckily the other bug-burner was working fine and was able to both key and fill the image by itself. 

More information about the rest of the weeks tasks can be found on Jamies blog.

 

Pres 1 Standalone Bug/Keyer

 

  Pres 2 Bug Generator

Pres 2 Keyer

 Pres 2 Output

Engineering - Update

Seeing as all the engineering departments are now moving into TV systems to do their work we decided to have a massive tidy up. Not the most exciting of jobs but something that needed to be done none the less! We began by sorting through the piles of equipment and sorting it into different groups, transmission, audio, video etc. Then we created separate areas for all of these so that we would know where everything was when we needed to get to it.

Then we had the daunting task of sorting through and recoiling the cabling that was all over the floor, however with all of us helping out it didn't take that long before we had loads of need piles of video and audio cabling. 

After moving a few of the defunct racks about and re-positioning them at the back of TV Systems we then had a space in which we could place our newly created TX, OB and Interactive racks.

The last thing to do was to install a couple of internet connected PC's at the back of the room, a mega sound system and place a few tools here and there. As an afterthought we also obtained a white board and some engineeringesque posters to brighten the place up. TV Systems has now been affectionately been dubbed the "engineering office" and hopefully we'll be able to get a fair amount of Rave Live stuff done!

Transmission - Racking the Equipment

We have finally managed to find and sort out some half height mobile racks that we think will be suitable for the TX, Distribution and Presentation areas on the day of the event. Jamie has been busy drawing up system diagrams and working out what pieces of equipment would need to appear on the CTP's of each rack.

Meanwhile we racked the TX equipment (encoders, mux, IRD etc) into one of these racks in preparation. It got a bit fiddly in terms of leaving enough space so that everything could be cooled and so that each piece of equipment would be easily accessible from the back of the rack. In the end everything managed to fit and after plugging up and sorting out a few minor problems within the encoder configurations the rack was up and running again. 

 

Engineering - Musion

On Wednesday Emily (Sponsorship & Branding), Kat (Branding), David (Talent Showdown Producer), Dave and I went up to Regents Park to visit Musion.

Musion are the world leaders in 3D holographic projection systems and what we saw during their demonstration was fairly incredible, the basic idea is that an HD image is projected onto a transparent foil which makes it appear as if it were floating in mid air. The image can then be interacted with by a rehearsed presenter providing a very realistic holographic feel to the set-up.

The idea for Rave Live would be to to have this holographic set-up on the main stage and use it to present channel listings and student animations, along hosting the initial opening to the event. There was also another idea to provide some kind of live 'telepresence' (making a person appear as a hologram) for which we would need to provide the camera.

Dave and I went along to view this from a more technical perspective and as such we were looking at the real-time implications behind using Musion on the day, as such we came up with a list of pros and cons:

Pros:

• Looks really good when it is shot and filmed well

• They will provide the equipment to achieve this and also the man power to rig it up

• They will provide some help to us when filming and producing the content for this

• They can do it with a feed of HDSDI which we can achieve with a HDX900 from stores

• If we can include this in one of the shows as an insert then it will look really professional and engage the audience really well

Cons:

• It needs a lot of light for it to work and also it needs a light show to be effective

• The equipment that they will bring is heavy which will put some restrictions on our shows rigs due to weight

• It will take 6+ hours to rig which eats into a whole days rigging time, assuming that we cannot rig around them on the stage so this cuts the stages rig time by a day

• The screen is expensive and can be broken, with students on and off stage all the time there would be a possibility that it could get broken

• It works best with high contrast meaning there should be as little light off the stage as possible. With the venue being used as an exhibition as well there will be a lot of light spilling onto the stage

• We're not sure how this will fit into the schedule, with the shows on stage and the time needed for the turn around will there be time to show anything on this?

• We do not have the content yet, it seems a little bit too late to be making content now

Obviously a lot of these points require us liaising with representatives from Musion, especially the items concerning the actual rig. The idea is to start doing this as soon as management have decided how they wish to proceed and whether or not we will actually be using Musion.