[quote="Dan Berger"]While you're at it, take a look at this: --- Dan[/quote] This was the station mentioned awhile back here : Qucik story. This newscast has been number 1 for over 20 years. A new owner came in, Montecito Broadcasting, did the old slash and burn to the whole place, and got the Ignite system on air less than a month ago, and the train wrecks have been plentiful. Yes, I'm sure bugs will be worked out, but so far the wheels have fallen off on the top rated newscast in the market. The joke is rating s will stay up since people will tune in to see what goes wrong. The anchor has always been an arrogant sort, and all the bad karma he's experiencing was summed up nicely by a former employee and competitor:

[quote="Dan Berger"]While you're at it, take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfNuk6eL49M[/quote] Half of me says good for him, maybe that's the only way the bean counters will get the message. The other half says that that was completely unprofessional and should have been handled off the air. The viewers really aren't interested in how we get it on the air as long as it does, and at that moment they were watching commercials instead of the news they tuned in to see because the anchor felt like bringing an internal production matter out on the air. I'm trying to imagine the poor people in the control room who on top of producing a newscast with no crew, had to reshuffle the entire show because their A block was cut short. And while we're at it:

I would not give up and go to the end of the Un-Employment line... I know a TD who was never a director who was able to start working on Ignite after just 2 weeks of training, while the directors were given 6 weeks of training, and couldn't get it. I believe that TD's have a better mind set to work on such a platform than a lot of directors. Managment seems to think that directors should be running the thing, cause directors know how to control the show. I think more TD's are more capable of controling the show than managment thinks. We're not just button pushers, but that button pushing that we have been doing for the last X number of years can mean that we are better in understanding the equipment, and the shows better. I have directors asking me all the time at the last second, "can you do that," well, yeah, if you gave me more warning than 5 seconds. TD's often think out every scenario of how to get from here to there and knows the limitations of the equipment, better than a director who has never gone from here to there, and just told someone to go from here to there. Of course I also know a lot of TD's who couldn't handle it, as well as a lot of directors who would be fine working on it. I hope to be one of those freelancers charging $600/day to figure out what it is they want to do, cause I don't want to do that every day... news is already a crappy environment to work in. The short story... More directors should start walking toward the Un-Employment line than TD's. While you're at it, take a look at this: --- Dan

Thanks for the responses. Yes, we are one of the Cox HD automated conversions. Ignite is coming. If it works, there will be a glut of TD's in the freelance pool looking for work. Staff directors are a dying breed, unless you direct AND TD, or freelance TD on the side. Looks like we may become high end editors that understand a switcher.

If you design things right you can make sure they have to keep calling you back to figure out why your switcher setup only works under certain conditions (I didn't put a source hold on that E-Mem... I thought that left-side OTSs were always over camera 3!) Charging them your $600/day freelance rate, of course. It's probably bad for on-air quality, but if the station cared about that they wouldn't be automating would they?

[quote="jonas"]what does the td do if the switcher is automated?[/quote] When the switcher's automated it gives the TD plenty of time to get a good spot down in the unemployment office line. (I'd imagine they just mouse click through the show)

what does the td do if the switcher is automated?

The Kayak has E-Mems per M/E, not just a Master E-Mem. On the 2 M/E model you have to delegate the E-Mem section of the panel to the M/E you want, but with 2.5 or more M/Es you get an E-Mem section next to every M/E. One thing to watch out for when buying DPM options is that they are per M/E. If you buy 4 keyers of DPM for P/P, you can't use any of them on M/E1, unlike a Kalypso. Just a heads-up. Never worked with an automation system myself so I can't really give you advice in that regard, but I imagine in terms of what effects happen where you could basically keep it the same as how you're cutting things now.

Staff TD at a station that has automated switching- are you sure you want help getting this to work? :-)

Ah ha! You must be working at one of the 3 COX TV stations installing Ignite this year. KTVU in Oakland, CA is doing the same thing under the same timeline. They want it installed & running by the November elections, I think their timeline is off by about a year. I haven't heard of a single station that has installed Parkervision/Ignite and got it up and running in under 1 1/2 years. Last week the control room was gutted, and wires have begun to be pulled, so they are moving fairly fast on this. But, I think COX is just listening to sales people, not to others who have installed it and gone through the training process. It's one thing to have the automation system installed, it's another thing to have it programmed for that specific station, and have all the employees trained on it for air. It may be that they just want the elections to be in HD, and it won't be automated, but that is not what I hear their plan is. I guess your question was more about the Kayak though... I haven't worked on it, I've seen it, and it does have emems, internal DVE, macros, and a lot of other "bells & whistles," it just depends on if you are talking to a sales person, or a user as to how well it works. There are a lot of postings in Editsuite about the Kayak, take a look around. I assume there will be a lot more in the coming months, as a lot of stations are purchasing it. My question is, if it's connected to Ignite, do you even have to know how to use the Kayak? Doesn't Ignite control it? --- Dan