Many years back I was doing a small college football game in a truck owned by a company that had just started out. (Not naming the truck because they have grown and now have some good trucks.) Well the producer liked taping the open early, we taped it about 12:25 and then we had a break. Air time was 1pm. I put bars up and go to the restroom, when I come back both program and preview were "black". I then look at the scope near the switcher and see a flat line, it is now 12:40 or so. Turns out the switcher had only one power supply for the frame and it failed. At various points I was cutting the show on a router, Pgm/Pst and Me-3. Sometimes I had a keyer, others none were functioning. I did have the director ask why I was CUTTING to replay rather then using the DVE move he wanted. I had a talk with the producer about the director after that. Or, maybe it was the time there was condensation in the frame and I had part of ME-3, nothing else worked. That director had trouble understanding that I couldn't key two things simultaneously. Yes, I have been lucky, knock wood. I have been in trucks when everything around me has failed, routers audio boards, CG's, EVS's, etc but few switcher melt downs.

Worst failure for me would have to be this past October...was "comboing" the 11pm news, and had just started the sports segment. Faded-up on the anchor, rolled and took the first VO, lost the locator CG. I tried to recall a snapshot in ME-1, and nothing happened. So, I tried it again, but to no avail...by now, we are close to the end of the VO, so I tried to change the preset bus on the switcher for a wipe to the next VO...NOTHING HAPPENED! I quickly determined that the entire switcher had locked-up on me, and I'm stuck on a channel of Profile! I had the clip tail-out on the air, and the next item cue-up...this while I'm trying to communicate to the anchor, producer and studio crew to have the anchor toss to a break. The anchor is asking to see the next set of highlights "Do we have that? Do we have that?" So, still frame of baseball on-the air, the anchor finally says "Toss to break? Really?", and I had master control roll the break. I had to go reset the switcher, while having master control extend the break. We ended the show on camera, explaining that we were having some really bad technical problems. Well, a week later, a new switcher had been ordered (we'd been looking at them for a few months), and we all realized that our current board was living on borrowed time. The make and model of the failing switcher has been left out to protect the guilty... ;) Matt