Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
Blogcast
MillimeterHard Driving VH1's Game
Jun 1, 2001 12:00 PM, Michael Goldman
VH1 matched a venerable creative concept — based on Name that Tune — with modern hard-disk recorder technology to make production of its new gameshow, Name that Video, viable. The show tests music knowledge of contestants by quizzing them about video clips. The cable network and production company, Broadway Video, turned to New York's Scharff Weisberg for projection equipment (NEC NightHawk MultiSync high-light projectors), and the design of a turnkey solution for implementing a digital show-control system.
That system was designed to solve two problems. The first revolved around the issue of how to permit the game to be played in real-time during tapings. Crew members need the ability to somehow search through hours of clips and instantly relay selects to rear- and plasma-screen projectors live on stage. The second problem involved figuring out a way for Broadway Video to edit and prepare clips for upcoming episodes while VH1 and Scharff Weisberg crews simultaneously taped current episodes. In order to meet the producer's grueling deadline, four episodes a day had to be taped.
“The point was to devise a system that would permit producers to tape one program while Broadway Video was creating and recording video content for the next, and we could only do that by designing a system that permitted automated access to content within any episode, regardless of content changes,” says Michael Halper, Scharff Weisberg VP of staging. “Therefore, only a hard-drive solution would work.”
Scharff Weisberg designed a system built around 21 removable, 18GB hard drives, operating on nine DoReMi hard-disk recorders. By utilizing removable hard drives, producers ensured an uninterrupted data flow. Broadway Video could be programming one set of hard drives at its Manhattan location, while producers were simultaneously using others to tape episodes. To make the system work, Scharff Weisberg designed what Halper calls “a timecode template model,” in which timecode numbers assigned to clips in each category remained constant from show to show. That method, combined with the use of Dataton Control System software to access clips from the hard drives during taping, allowed producers to get around the problem of having to re-program the control system for each episode.
“The concept is much like an edit decision list,” says Halper. “We programmed one permanent EDL, and then we change the content everyday, but the content — by category — always gets assigned to the same timecode number by Broadway Video as they prepare hard drives. We designed special, rolling cases for the drives, and after each taping, we pack them up and messenger them over to Broadway Video, which gives us back six, pre-programmed hard drives for the next episode.”
According to Lars Pederson, Scharff Weisberg's senior technical consultant, this solution was essentially the “only way” to produce Name that Video.
“Broadway Video took care of programming the hard disks to make sure the clips matched the permanent timecode number template we devised,” says Pederson. “But we still needed a simple user interface for an operator to find and play back clips during the game, as they were selected. The Dataton system gave us a button interface for the operator to find clips just by touching his screen. That still left us with the problem of how to define and modify the clips (sometimes as many as 700 per episode) and upload that information to the DoReMi hard drives so that the Dataton system can easily find them. The solution there was to use InstantQ software (from Markie Enterprises), a simple utility that sets up clip parameters by the in-and-out timecode points. So using the hard drives in combination with the Dataton and InstantQ tools gave us the show control system the project required.”
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.