Use Menu Page 3211 - ENABLE (The MISC menu) Turn on DME OVERRIDE (to allow you to steal a channel anytime) or ON AIR PROTECT (to let you steal a channel EXCEPT when it has an on-air tally).

I'm not sure if there is a way for the Sony to take a channel that is already in use elsewhere on the switcher. I think it is the switcher's way of trying to protect you from jamming yourself. I've gotten in the habit of clearing an M/E when I'm done with a DME effect (like a 2 box) just so it releases the DME channels. I do know that if you program your effects into the "USER DME" region, you can take advantage of greater flexibility with DME channels (so that your Chyron fly doesn't always have to use DME 2 & 3, etc.). In this case, you'd have to use "DME" as your transition selection in a M/E rather than loading a timeline effect, but it would just go out and grab whatever channels of DME are available at the time. Another idea is something that I used to do on the Kalypso -- if you program an effect that used two TEs, program a last keyframe that releases the TE channels that the effect uses. While I haven't tried this on the Sony, it helped manage the TEs on the Grass. Hope this helps... Matt