We have 4 internal and 4 external...no resizers unfortunately. We cam from a 4K and DVEous also...where we had aux buses to feed the DVEous.. So we keep most of our crosstalks as external..and internals for other stuff. True it is the "way we used to do it mentality"....just being able to slam something in an aux. We have separate 1RU aux panels....I am pretty sure that you can assign internals to be fed by the 1RU panels....We have them on the main backsplash aux panels. One thing I like to be able to do is just quickly put something in an aux...key the aux..and away you go. This I think is just based on what I learned on... As in if the director wants to do a quick move on a SS..etc. I have been pretty happy w/ 4 and 4. -Curt

[quote="todd2"]Without a Flexipad on PP, what is a good way to call up DME wipe patterns on the fly? Is there a way other than the Shotbox?[/quote] I don't have a P/P flexi either, this is how I do DME wipe, a lot easier then using flexi anyway. Build your DME wipe (or regular wipe, white flash, etc) on an ME with a flexi. Copy that to the P/P DME wipe in the menu. So now the effect is there but you cannot recall manually. Go to offline macro editing, and wording may be different then what I remember but, recall DME wipe on P/P, dme wipe # 1, etc. Pause a frame or 2 Select on P/P DME as your transition Pause frame or 2 P/P auto trans, set trans rate to 20 or whatever works, use continue function (instead of event), auto trans again to change trans rate back to your 'normal' Pause 30 frames or few frames past length of your auto trans P/P mix as your transition Attach Macro to your favorite button, (nam or super mix is a favorite) Great thing about this is you don't have to call up DME wipe on the flexi, hit DME as your trans, change duration, etc. One button done. Unfortunately can't wipe with font, not sure if you can add a dme keyer wipe into that as well, should be able to since DME wipes do 3 channels, guessing it won't work, have to try it. I have not used a G on a show, played with it a little, I find the idea of the re-sizers are great, but still want some real DME's, like 8. The resizers tie up keyers, and if you have more then a 2 box that you have to change quickly have to change over to key 3/4, etc. Don't get me wrong, I will take them but I want the other 8 as well. Either way if you only get 4 get the external in my opinion

[quote="Joe Kern"][quote="Bill D"]I would definitly favor external over internal if you only have 4 channels. If you have 8 most places go with 4 and 4.[/quote] I was wondering why you favor external over internal. We use 8 channels and use them all internally. We mainly do news, but do some sport's specials as well. It's been a while so I don't remember the ups and downs of using the DME's internally/externally. The extra switcher inputs and routing the DMEs thru the Aux busses I do remember not wanting to do. Joe[/quote] Except for tying up in's and out's the external can do everything an internal can do but more. You can send a keyer to external, and you can use DME wipes with external. Advantage over internal is the combiner. With the 4 channels you can combine any sources to come back into the switcher as one source (1 keyer). So 4 box 1 keyer, fly around 4 different F/K pairs back on one keyer, each with it's own key signal. You can pair the first 3 channels together and then take the other channel by itself, etc. Or 2 and 2, whatever. With internals you need 4 keyers to move around 4 channels of different F/K pairs. And burn 2 keyers on 2 ME's to do it. On 1 keyer you can do 4 channels of internal on 1 keyer but you are locked into using just one set of F/K, CG flying over a 3 box, or a 4Box. You can take combiner as a source for easier compositing if there is a time where you need the ME's but don't mind burning a channel of DME to composite something.

We are currently running 5.21, so a lot of the cool features are a pipe dream at this point. Supposedly Sony had given us the go-ahead to upgrade to 7.11, but finding time to get the engineers to do it is another thing. I think it is pretty low priority since we don't use the switcher for the "big" shows. I am going to push them, now. Sounds like we are missing a lot of potential. Know about the combiners, but that is an issue we are having with the switcher. It either gets stuck in, or more commonly out of combiner mode. I guess Sony is telling us that the software upgrade with help to correct that (?). There are a lot of effects that I have already built, but the combiner issue has gotten so bad that I can't really build anything else as I can't "see" the other channels to know where stuff is going once the combiner craps out. Need to keep rebooting from the panel, which solves the problem, for a few minutes of use. I am going to talk to the guys today and see if they will try and load the software this week. Thanks, Todd

Todd, Yeah without a Flexipad on P/P it is kind of difficult. however, in v7.20 which comes out right after NAB there is a new feature called a "virtual Flexipad" It will let you have a flexipad on the menu screen and it will work just like a real one. So, you could have the P/P "flexipad" on the touchscreen to call up that kind of stuff. Also, as you put it, think outside the box a little. With V7.20 and the virtual flexipad, you could use menu macros to press a button on the virtual flexipad to change DME wipe patterns. You can then call any of those up anywhere. You may not know it but there's a new feature that's been out for about 8 months that allows you to press a button on any M/E and use the Key 2/4 buss as another memory recall row. You can assign virtually anything to this on a button by button basis. It will even split the LCD displays so the top row show the first 4 characters of whatever memory (macro, shotbox, utility, etc) you've assigned and the bottom row to show the first 4 characters of the crosspoint. The advantage this has over using macro attachments is you can get back to full keyer crosspoint functionality with a single button press. If you don't know about them, there are also a lot of cool things you can do with the built-in DMEs..... first off I assume you know they have a built-in combiner? All you do is assign more than one channel to a single keyer. Of course, the MVS-8000G you'll be getting will also have a resizer (basically a 2D DME) on each keyer. So, you'll start out with 16 channels or resizer, then add higher-end 3D DMEs to the mix. RE

Definitely some good things to think about Matt and Rick. I have to look into the Multi-PGM II. I don't know if we have that. I guess I am just not thinking outside of the box that much. I am kinda set in my TD ways, and have never worked on a system like the 8000 (A, G or otherwise). The 8000 seems so counter intuitive to how things were at all of the other shops I've worked in. DME was a source, Aux fed the DME and that was about it. I am getting to the point of figuring out that technology has made the system a bit different, but it is not necessarily wrong, it is just different. Some of what you guys are saying, I have pretty much concluded on my own, but was not sure if I was correct or not. Other stuff, I had no idea about or never even thought of as a possibility. Our training on the 8000 was 4 hours, and some TD's were doubled up (as was I). It was about 3 and a half hours in before I even learned how to save a snapshot. I know that this is the stations fault for setting it up this way, but about 90% of what I have learned about the 8000 has been from reading this forum and screwing around with the switcher. So when I make it seem like I am fighting the system, I just don't know if the stuff I have figured out about the switcher is correct. Matt makes some good points about why the internal DME's are just fine. If you read some of my past posts, you will probably notice that some of my questions seem so basic in nature compared to what a lot of you are used to on the Sony. This is my training course. With that said, I try to read as much as possible and only ask a question when I am baffled by something since I know a lot of you have better stuff to do than train me. I am just frustrated by what our station handed to us as training. And we were told that the 4 hours was probably it. Learn on what we have. So thanks for the ideas. You guys have increased my understanding of the switcher quite a bit. Rick, I don't view you as that. You are a great help! And yes, we do have the full ME PP, so we can DME wipe. Without a Flexipad on PP, what is a good way to call up DME wipe patterns on the fly? Is there a way other than the Shotbox?

Todd, Is the small 8000A you're referring to a switcher with a .5 M/E on PGM/PST. Sorry, I certainly don't mean to come off wrong, but you don't really need to tie up an M/E. As long as you have a full M/E on PGM/PST you can just do DME wipes on PGM/PST and not give up anything. You were mentioning about taking camera 1 and then taking the DVE to go fram A to B. However, you could also just take camera 1, then take A then press the DME button in the next transition area and auto trans (with as complex an effect as you can dream of) from A to B. You can do 3 channel effects as DME wipes if you want. Also, if you purchase Multi-PGM II split M/E software, you can do DME wipes on the Sub M/E as well. Again, please don't take my statements as "know it all", I certainly don't know exactly what you have. Regards, RE

Todd, As I think to when I first started using the 8000 and the Kalypso, the single biggest adjustment to my thinking as a TD was the use of the key busses to feed the internal DMEs and TEs, and not having an external DVE anymore. What I quickly realized was that yes, we replaced a 2 channel DVE with 4 channels of internal DME, but that I needed to better manage my resources and think of different ways to accomplish things. If I run a keyframe effect, maybe making the last KF release the DME channels, things like that. Still, I know of a few facilities (like yours) that have kept their DVEous, a Kaleidoscope, or a DME-7000 (and even a DME-5000) as an external source. I don't do as much sports as I used to, but there aren't many productions that do DVE effects as the replay move anymore ... it seems that except for an ESPN 360 game I did, it's all fast-forward, or a clip of some kind now. As I think of the last sports shows that I did, I only used the DVE for a few 2 box set-ups, a split-screen, a shot clock, and maybe some sort of a bump treatment for a bump to break effect. All of that was on a Kalypso, and used the internal TEs. I can understand not wanting to tie-up an ME to do a simple A to B slide (I do tie-up an ME when I want to do a slide), but I've changed how I switch other scenarios based on the technology that is available to me. We do lots of clip transitions, so I've built all of those to be macros and to happen on P/P, freeing up an ME. You might even be able to do the same thing with your slide and move it to P/P. Your configuration sounds pretty standard to me, so I'd like to mention how helpful the 8000G's resizers have been to me, and we run an operations very much like yours. While not capable of high-end DME effects, simple 2 and 3 box set-ups can now be done in an ME without taking-up DME channels. So, with 4 channels of DME and 4 resizers available per ME, we're in pretty good shape. It's been a help to us, and figured that I'd mention it as you guys spec-out a new switcher for your main room. That said, most of my 2 box set-ups are built as 2 channel DME effects, so that each box is fed by selecting your source on either PGM or PST of each ME, and hitting "auto trans" pulls a box to full-screen. Good luck... Matt

[quote="Joe Kern"]I was wondering what type of production Todd does? Again I don't know all the benefits of using them externally, but internally works very well for us. I would be curious how many channels of DME others have and how they use them? Joe[/quote] I work for a broadcast news station. We have one Sony MVS-8000A that we use in a small "Studio B" for one half hour show a day that is only a sports call in show. There are two cameras and a split screen with some CG's, so DME configuration isn't really important. We are planning on replacing a GV 4000 in the "Studio A" control room with a second MVS-8000A. It was originally going to be a second panel off of the one frame until the engineers figured out you can't run multiple shows at the same time without giving up resources. Anyway, I digress. We are currently specing out a second full-blown 8000A, 3 M/E, PP, etc. This would be for our 8+ hours of news per day. The issue I see with having internal DME's is we do a lot of simple deck to deck pushes (i.e. playback A slides left off of the screen to reveal playback B under it for a VO transition). This is a very simple example, and I know this could be accomplished with a DME wipe, but if we wanted to have a seperate DME effect for something slightly more complicated built, it either A. has to be done in an ME, which seems kind of crazy to chew up a whole ME to slide from A to B, or B. I do have the DME MON as a source on the switcher, which works great, but the assingnments for the DME channels are buried in a lesser used keyer up the switcher to route the channels. This could probably work most of the time, but it is obviously not a fool-proof plan. It is going to end in disaster at some point with that keyer, or the other part of the ME getting changed in an undesireable way even through all of the cross-point holds, etc. The way we currently have our 4000 and Krystal (that's right, we still use a Krystal!!)set up is, the Krystal is a source on the switcher. We take the Krytal hot online for pretty much every effect. It uses 3 aux routers for the 3 channels, and the key sources follow without tying up other auxes. This is great. We even have double boxes that are all in the Krystal, channel 1 is still store, channel 2 is a cam, channel 3 is the other cam. So, while I understand that on the Sony, you need to route vid/key seperately, this doesn't seem to be a problem with the number of aux routers we have. Granted on the 4000 we have 2 other aux routers that feed about 7 plasmas, and as soon as news finds out we have additional aux routers, each monitor will have its own source, but still, I don't really think using up auxes to feed the DME would be a problem. Now, I know this is a very generic statement, but in sports the internal seems to be fine. I am by no means a sports TD, so please don't think that I am oversimplifying the job, but I have done a few events for Fox Sports and the DME was keyed over ME for replay. The Sony would be perfect for this. But in the news world, it is just so much easier to go from a camera shot, take the DME online and push from A to B. There is no real need to have a DME keyed. In the Krystal, we have 99 effects. I would say the literally 6 of them are built to be keyed in an ME. Even on effects where a sidepanel graphic it keyed over a camera, that is all internal to the Krystal. Yes, a lot of this is from "the way we used to do it", but I have to admit, it is nice being on the Krystal for and effect, and still being able to set up ME's for a DDR animation to a CK with the CG. On the 4000, this is a 2 ME move with all of the keys. Sorry this is so long, Joe, but that is what we do. I like hearing the feedback on this stuff from everyone. I have rethought a lot of the way I do stuff from reading this forum, so if you think I am way off base with any of this, please let me know. Thanks, Todd

[quote="Bill D"]I would definitly favor external over internal if you only have 4 channels. If you have 8 most places go with 4 and 4.[/quote] I was wondering why you favor external over internal. We use 8 channels and use them all internally. We mainly do news, but do some sport's specials as well. It's been a while so I don't remember the ups and downs of using the DME's internally/externally. The extra switcher inputs and routing the DMEs thru the Aux busses I do remember not wanting to do. However I do like the ability when doing preprod and you key a graphic that is "supposed" to be in position and you suddenly have to move it left/right/up/down/bigger/smaller, I simply attach a DME to that keyer and I am on my way. I was wondering what type of production Todd does? Again I don't know all the benefits of using them externally, but internally works very well for us. I would be curious how many channels of DME others have and how they use them? Joe

Why is it that on the transition module, a DME wipe with a background and a key isnt possible, but I can DME wipe all four keyers together using the keyer mod?

If you're going to use the DME's as externals, you actually might need up to 12 AUX outs. The 8000 flavor does not have external inputs, but the 9000 version does, which allows video in the borders & as backgrounds to the channels - I use this & it makes for much more flexible effects. So depending on which version of DME you have, you may want to plan on using the AUXes accordingly (video, key & external for each channel).

Thanks Bill. I figured it was a card swap since you would need in/outs from the DME. I don't think auxes or ins are an issue, plenty of those. We have a 4 channel, so I would agree with you, want them external. Guess its time to see if I can talk the chief into contacting Sony. Good thing we are specing out a second right now. May help. Todd

Really the DME frame is what you are changing, unrelated to what switcher you have. It is some sort of card to change DME backplane from or to BNC I/O or a big mulit pin connector that connects to the switcher frame. Not sure how Sony handles the swap, as far as $$, would hope it is an equal swap. Remember for external you need 8 aux bus outputs as well as 8 inputs back into the switcher. There is also a bgd input you may want to feed from an aux as well. I would definitly favor external over internal if you only have 4 channels. If you have 8 most places go with 4 and 4.