[quote="Clint Hendricks"]I was just wondering how a shop like MSNBC that appears to have hundreds of different DDR wipes/opens manages its setup. Thanks for the thoughts! -Clint[/quote] Clint here at MSNBC we have a 4K. Each emem uses auto recall. The Sony 7350 doesn't have auto recall so you have to use the shot box to bounce around like we do. We have some effects that use some of the board and others that use other parts. In theory we have 100 emems, although once we get to about 50 of them we run out of DPM keyframes, which is really bad. In theory if all you call up is 'triggered' effects you can recall 100 effects using the recall button panel. Effect 32 recall enter (hate the enter part) If you are only using DPM3/4 levels, etc for all your effects this will work. If you have some effects that need ME 2, some that need the DVE , etc then without auto recall you will get smoked eventually. One trick someone taught us was to leave all levels enabled and if the effect you need only uses certain levels delete the keyframes from all other levels. good luck.. ask for a Sony 9K or 8K, perhaps :)

In the P-2 timeline mode, you can call up multiple registers on the same timeline. You can layer your register recalls. Example: Build a timeline EFFECT using P-2 that recalls REG#1 on keyframe 1 and have it call up REG#11 on keyframe 2 (.01 in between keyframes). Then build another EFFECT calling up 2&12,3&13...etc. You can put them all on 1 timeline if you want!...(but I dont recomend this.) You get a whole bunch of Shotbox space this way...but of course none of this works if each ddr effect has variable timelines for it's transition. Just a thought though.

Thanks for the additional thoughts. From what our engineers tell me you cannot hook up another shot box to the switcher. And unfortunately our DDR animations are for quick segment opens - breaking news, severe weather, america tonight, war on terror.... the list goes on and on.... along with reopens opens etc... For now we put our most used animations / effects in the shotbox and then use a standard GPI Trigger effect to trigger the animations that we cannot fit into the box. We are already using different setup files for am, pm shows and the syndicated sports shows we do. I was just wondering how a shop like MSNBC that appears to have hundreds of different DDR wipes/opens manages its setup. Thanks for the thoughts! -Clint

I worked at a station that had hundreds of different DDR animations, mostly because they had animations for every possible anchor combination that could be working that morning or night. What they did was load a playlist of animations from the rundown before the show and use GPIs to advance and play them. There weren't any real time-sensitive animations, the shortest window in which an undercut had to happen was about 15 frames, but they were typically more along the lines of 2-3 seconds of fullscreen. They would just manually hit the undercut when the animation went full.

I wonder if you could hook up another shotbox....? I would assume not since if memory serves you only had the 32 assignable in the shotbox menu. Do you need to have all 32 at once...and then more...meaning are you trying to load for a morning show, noon and night show all at once? If not, maybe you could create another setup file for each show. This would ( I think) enable you to have 32 for each show...THe TD for the AM show could load AM setup, Noon Setup for noon...etc... We used to have two separate files for two different shows...we had two overlays that would go over the shotbox register depending on what show was needed.. Not sure if this helps. -Curt

The nice feature of the shotbox is that it can call up a different effect and VTR register from the same shotbox number. We save a lot of effect space using this feature. All of our "franchise stinger" animations - america tonight, new details, etc.... are all the same length and style. So we have one effect that works for all of them that the shotbox calls up. So the shotbox always calls up effect 5, while calling up different VTR registers to cue the correct clip. If we called them up using the recall panel on the switcher we would have to use two steps, or make multiple copies of the effect for each clip. That's why I was wondering how bigger operations might do it - the only thing I can think of is using one shotbox/control for the DDR to call up different clips, and then have a generic effect on the switcher shotbox that would trigger the DDR to pay whichever clip was already loaded. Thanks, Clint

[quote="Clint Hendricks"]Hello All: I am wondering how TDs program their DDR Animations - opens and undercut wipes. We are using a sony 7350 with a shotbox that can hold 32 effects. Currently we have our most used animations programmed into the shotbox so it calls up the correct DDR clip and switcher effect. We also have a generic effect stored in the shotbox that will trigger our DDR to play a currently loaded clip that we call-up manually in the ddr, which we use for any animations that do not fit in our shotbox. We are wondering how other organizations recall effects/clips- as far as I know the switcher can't have any more shotbox space (maybe an extra 4-5 if we use unused menu buttons on the control panel), PBUS control can hold 99 registers but there would still need to be a shotbox effect with the PBUS commands. Do other organizations use the DDRs shotbox or a controller to call up a specific clip in thd DDR and use the switcher shotbox to call up a generic effect to trigger a play command on the DDR? With the large amount of animations we use we are looking for any helpful ideas of how other stations/networks are doing things to get around manually cueing clips in our DDR. Thanks a lot, Clint T.D. - WLUK-TV Green Bay, WI[/quote] On the GVG 4K's, the emems have auto recall, so you call up emems (there are 100 of them), emem is calling up DDR's.. I assume your shotboxes are calling up effects that call up DDR's?. The only way to get more would be to call up effects from the recall panel (32 recall enter, etc). No auto recall though so have to be careful about what is enabled. The 7350 had some cool features but I thought it was terrible for live use. Too many pitfalls, this was one of them. Shotboxes are great though, too bad limited amount. Bill