[quote="Bill Mastorakis"]Hey Lou I switched the NCAA All Star game and can tell you that the bug's built in shot clock took a beat or two from the time the bug op hit the buttton till the clock slid up. I could hear the op hitting the mouse and by the time the clock slid up, the director had the time to ask for it two more times.[/quote] Typical Sports Media? Did anyone see the Kansas-Memphis NCAA Championship Game on CBS? Kansas ties it up, and they bump to break with a band shot??? Come on. Then my next favorite was the over use of the jib. My oh my.

Hey Lou I switched the NCAA All Star game and can tell you that the bug's built in shot clock took a beat or two from the time the bug op hit the buttton till the clock slid up. I could hear the op hitting the mouse and by the time the clock slid up, the director had the time to ask for it two more times.

Cool thing about doing it with a background generator is that you can leave your Backgounds off of your timeline recalls. This means you can use one color for one client and another for someone else simply by changing the color generator. No relearning or modifying timelines.

Ahhh... yes.... didn't even think about using the BG generator to fill it... I've started doing that for the Tele when they want a color. Brilliant! Of course now that I think about it, why didn't I just matte fill it. Geee... all the stuff you think about when not in front of the switcher. Next time.... Thanks for the idea. --- Dan

[quote="Dan Berger"]I've had bad luck changing the colors of clocks in the Sony 8k. I usually just make them white (kill the chroma, adjust whites & blacks). Never a problem changing colors on the Kalypso or in the Dveous. Just last night I had a yellow Play clock (AFL), the director asked me to change it to red. I said "No Problem" (he also TD's). But the red I got was really bad, I didn't like it. The director said it was fine (plus I never got to see the clock until a half hour before the game, and then we were pre-taping the open & such). I find that I have much better color changing ability when I'm on a Kalypso. Any ideas for the Sony? --- Dan[/quote] Interesting...I guess if you aren't happy with what you're getting from manipulating the keyer vid proc, a possible split-key workaround would be to drop the chroma & make it white as you described, except do it on the eng/input level. Then, use that as a matte for the color background fill. Seems like more work than necessary if you've only got a few minutes to spare (while pre-taping an open), but I guess it falls under the umbrella of an "idea"... Mike

Mike, I tried changing both at the keyer vid proc, and the DME vid proc. I've changed inputs on the input (ENG) before, but more so to correct bad key levels from a FF. But that's a good idea to change the clock cam there too. I don't know how much range you get. I also could've asked the video-op to shade the cam differently too. Just one of those gotta do it now situations, what's quickest without bothering other people. --- Dan

Dan, Just curious, when you're using Sony, how are you going about changing/correcting the color? Are you manipulating the chroma at the input level across the board (eng/switcher/input), on the keyer level (keyer vid proc), or through some other means?

I've had bad luck changing the colors of clocks in the Sony 8k. I usually just make them white (kill the chroma, adjust whites & blacks). Never a problem changing colors on the Kalypso or in the Dveous. Just last night I had a yellow Play clock (AFL), the director asked me to change it to red. I said "No Problem" (he also TD's). But the red I got was really bad, I didn't like it. The director said it was fine (plus I never got to see the clock until a half hour before the game, and then we were pre-taping the open & such). I find that I have much better color changing ability when I'm on a Kalypso. Any ideas for the Sony? --- Dan

Any switcher with built in color moodification capability can accomplish the same thing. I usually take the clear cclocks and change them in the ENG menu to act as their own hole cutter. Then crank the luminance, take out the chroma and crush the blacks and you have a pretty good clip of itself. Key this over a black box (with white borders if you need them), matte fill it and you can make the clocks any color you want. You can do the same thing in the Dveous. Send 1A and 1B theclock camera. Make it a keyed pair. Remove the color from the signal in color modify. Adjust your blacks and luminance level. Adjust your clip and gain till it keys as good as possible. Go to the crop menu and adjust the Border setting unytil you see color in the keyed signal. Adjust the luminance, saturation and he to make the clock any color you want. (Wanna get wacky, go to Orbital effects and modulate Hue with a sine wave and watch the clock change colors on the air.) If you have Art work for the shot, put this in 2A and 2B and key the whole thing with one keyer. Scott

A good video guy can dig into the menus and actually stretch the video to crush the mids and lows and make the background almost black. I've seen clocks I thought would be impossible and they worked their magic.

[quote="mtiffee"]Ah, the Verizon Center, with the transparent shot clocks. Tricky camera shading/painting to get them to work well.[/quote] What have others found to get those to work? I've had house guys put something like cardboard behind them, I've even used inverted chroma key, wondering if anyone has any easy solution? Or are you just crushing the setup/black level and driving the chroma?

Ah, the Verizon Center, with the transparent shot clocks. Tricky camera shading/painting to get them to work well.

Considering that Sport Media is in that area one would hope that they could get things working in that venue. Has anyone watched the games from the Verizon Center? When we do NBA or NHL out of that place we have full scoreboard data. The one game I saw from there yesterday looked like they were shooting a shot clock, not using data. I know that shot clock data can be had from that scoreboard. MASN, another Sports Media client, had it for a college hoops tournament there in December.

The RBC center in Raleigh was where we did the sports media interface test so that's not surprising.

The Davidson/Gonzaga game today from Raleigh, NC, had a white shot clock, very visible.

[quote="Lou Delgresiano"][quote="scottgfx"][quote="Lou Delgresiano"]I find it's becoming where a lot of the suits are former gfx guys, and hence a huge push for gfx.[/quote] Before you know it, those guys will be asking for a clean-feed of just the graphics. :)[/quote] It can seem that way for any commercial break, "put font 1 online, show them font 2," as if we never built an iso.[/quote] I had a show not to long ago where the producers Iso router went down and I had to run the iso monitor from an aux. Every break / every package / every promo...I had the producer asking for something in the ISO more than the director calling cameras...that was a blast!!

[quote="scottgfx"][quote="Lou Delgresiano"]I find it's becoming where a lot of the suits are former gfx guys, and hence a huge push for gfx.[/quote] Before you know it, those guys will be asking for a clean-feed of just the graphics. :)[/quote] It can seem that way for any commercial break, "put font 1 online, show them font 2," as if we never built an iso.

I agree even though sometimes more work for the TD, I like the idea if the shot clock in basketball up all the time and even the play clock in football to be up all the time. The latter could just be b/c the Giants always end up running their play way to close to zero

[quote="Lou Delgresiano"]I find it's becoming where a lot of the suits are former gfx guys, and hence a huge push for gfx.[/quote] Before you know it, those guys will be asking for a clean-feed of just the graphics. :)

[quote="Mike Cumbo"]That choice is made by some suit who makes much more the we do. Why do they use a certain color for player name fonts? Answer, same reason. Graphics made the look up and the suit decided what he or she liked.[/quote] I find it's becoming where a lot of the suits are former gfx guys, and hence a huge push for gfx.

That choice is made by some suit who makes much more the we do. Why do they use a certain color for player name fonts? Answer, same reason. Graphics made the look up and the suit decided what he or she liked.

Just a general thought...with ESPN, and a few of the smaller Clients I have, they have the Shot Clock stay in for the duration of the game. I find that to be a very good thing, I believe it provides all the information all the time to the viewer. I am just curious why CSTV, and CBS for example want the clock in and out? There is plenty of room on the bar for a shot clock. Just my thoughts...

Thanks.

The TD normally does the shot clock for CBS. It's built to transform out of the score bug. A few weeks ago on my show they were testing a sports media interface but it only worked for the first half. I believe they wanted to have everything interfaced for the tourney but I saw a few games today used TD shot clock. I was in Little Rock yesterday setting up for RD1 and 2 but had to return home suddenly because of an emergency situation. One of the things that makes it difficult is that CBS won't allow you to use a clock under the bleachers or in the patch room. You must use the clock on the court. I guess a while back there was an offset between the clocks that became an issue. Also, the interfaced clock is white, while the TD clock is red. On that show a few weeks ago, I made my backup shotclock white to match theirs. I'm very anal about my clocks looking good, I usually frame and focus the camera myself and walk into video and work with them on painting. CBS is also very particular about their ME clocks. They require the clocks to be shot with an HD camera to avoid delay caused by frame syncs / upcoverters. They also want the game camera delayed to match the delay caused by transforming the clocks. Some TD's frame sync the game camera and re-enter it for the clock effect. I use the TE to position the clocks so I also TE the game camera.