Mike: agreed. When there's fiber, I just go TX OUT -> NET RETURN. I was speaking specifically of uplink transmission. There really isn't a fiber "confidence" anyway, at least not in the way that I intend for a confidence feed -- it would be a fiber "net return".

[quote="sahonen"][quote="Mike Cumbo"]If the DAs aren't powered the router has no sources.[/quote] If the DA has a loop-through, will it still loop if the DA isn't powered? Probably a moot point because the CCU doesn't have power anyway...[/quote] In theory the loop through should pass video, of course many DAs have a terminator on that connector since it affects the termination of the input. As you mentioned, if the router is dead, the CCUs may not have power as well. Something else to think about, most router heads need local power as well as having the frame powered, so the wall wart near you would also need AC. Another thing, some routers use an Ethernet cable for control data, if you run the multiple cable through a Ethernet switch, that needs AC as well. Steve, it would be great to see net return or transmission but at many pro venues, since you use fiber, those sources do not exist. I think only the networks will pay, for select shows, to have a fiber confidence feed.

[quote="sahonen"][quote="JohnHowardSC"]Number 1 of course is that recurring one where the AD is counting down, hits zero and I look down to find NO switcher...[/quote] You mean your worst nightmare is that you're a director?[/quote] OK, this made me laugh :-) [quote="Sean"]I did a show a year or so ago where the director asked for the following on the monitor wall: -output of the truck to the uplink -output of the uplink truck -net off air[/quote] This has been my SOP ever since my first ESPN Plus game. Together on the wall: TX OUT -> UPLINK CONFIDENCE -> NET RETURN/OFF AIR. I like to see that my signal is leaving the truck, is coming back down from the bird, and is on the air. If a network person says that there's an issue with our signal, I can quickly help to troubleshoot - plus I like to know that "at one place in the universe" our signal is being downlinked and looks good.

[quote="Mike Cumbo"]If the DAs aren't powered the router has no sources.[/quote] If the DA has a loop-through, will it still loop if the DA isn't powered? Probably a moot point because the CCU doesn't have power anyway...

One thing to also consider, how is the router fed? In many trucks the output of say CCU1 goes to a patch bay, it normals to a distribution amp labeled CAM1, the one of the output of DA1 feeds the router and the other outputs are available to the engineers as well. If the DAs aren't powered the router has no sources. Another thing to consider. Several years back at Oriole Park the Warehouse section lost power, lower power utility had a failure. VYVX's fiber electronics did not go through the warehouse but HTN's did. Those circuits were dead. One could have had 20 HTN paths booked but they all were gone. Unless there is both a fiber and sat transmission route you still have a single point of failure waiting to bite you.

[quote="JohnHowardSC"]for the sake of the engineering argument, if the master TX router was on an uninterruptable power supply (and how common is that on today's weight-challenged trucks???) and was mirrored shouldn't the non-affected truck (in theory) be able to take themselves to air? They would obviously be without all other resources of the powerless truck but would they not be available as a destination on that router if all else was lost? I'm definitely not an EIC and I've honestly never really thought this through but if the router has power and one signal passing through has juice behind it - my pea brain thinks it should work.[/quote] John ... you're right, a uninterruptable power source is the only way this could work. It's actually kind of simple if you think about it. Remember you only need to power the router so depending on it's load, a simple APC Battery Backup could possibly work. Or there is the other option of a redundant TX path (a backup if you will) from the Pre-Game truck. With a second TX router generated from the TD's, TP's or EIC's could then select the back up TX path to mirror what the game truck does at specific times. The Battery back up would probably be the cheapest and easiest then the mirror TX router would work! All this is great, but then what about game coverage and announcers. While FOX had control of the game, they were lucky (as I said) it happened when it did, but power could go out at anytime. I was the TD for the Japanese Feed of the Orange Bowl back years ago when NBC lost power during game action. After that show is when generators finally became the norm on bigger shows. It was so long ago that OJ was the sideline reporter. Anyway, the Orange Bowl (the old one), was having power issues all week. I was directing a taped pre game show there earlier in the week and our mobile unit lost power two or three times throughout the day. So when NBC's game truck went dead, New York had nowhere to go and I knew exactly what happened. The Japanese only had (count them) 2 cameras. One (1) Booth and one (1) camera which did color for us and it then became game camera for the world after the power outage. NBC NY realizing the game truck would not be back anytime soon switched to the Japanese feed (which still had power) and they scrambled in the NY studio to get talent on the set for PXP. It was interesting to say the least. It's all timing, but there are ways to prevent some of this although there will always be an air gap. RET

[quote="Bill D"]Mike, when you do this do you just go into ENG menu and change the normal Pgm output that feeds 'pgm' to the truck, to your aux bus. Do you tell the engineer?[/quote] Yes and Yes. I always tell them and clearly label the aux bux in the menu and on the panel. There have been times the truck has gone down, lost power, switched power, or it's the start of another day from a cold truck, and the EIC usually likes to put bars or something on the switcher. If I'm not in the truck and they don't know I'm feeding an AUX as my PGM, they'll be staring at a black PGM monitor even though bars is punched up on the PGM/PST monitor.

[quote="JohnHowardSC"]Number 1 of course is that recurring one where the AD is counting down, hits zero and I look down to find NO switcher...[/quote] You mean your worst nightmare is that you're a director?

You're right - in this scenario that wouldn't have worked. And in the bigger picture the argument is, what the hell are they going to say/do if you CAN get the pregame truck on the air? "Ohh, um ... well ... we seem to have..." An extended commercial break sounds mighty fine. But just for the sake of the engineering argument, if the master TX router was on an uninterruptable power supply (and how common is that on today's weight-challenged trucks???) and was mirrored shouldn't the non-affected truck (in theory) be able to take themselves to air? They would obviously be without all other resources of the powerless truck but would they not be available as a destination on that router if all else was lost? I'm definitely not an EIC and I've honestly never really thought this through but if the router has power and one signal passing through has juice behind it - my pea brain thinks it should work. Let's face it, these days my worries and desires for multiple router heads usually revolve around switchers taking dumps on the air rather than the loss of truck power, although both are right up there among my top 5 nightmares. Number 1 of course is that recurring one where the AD is counting down, hits zero and I look down to find NO switcher...

[quote="JohnHowardSC"]Early in our planning I really had to insist that our Pregame TD have my full show router in his truck for the BCS Championship game last night. The initial response was, "what do you need that for?" Following the Orange Bowl incident I'll now insist that there be a mirror TX router in there, too. J[/quote] Hi John: Hope all is well. Happy New Year! We had a full show router with Audio follow from the game truck, but the problem again was the TX router and it originating from the game truck. Even if I punched up the game truck router it wouldn't have made a difference without TX router control. Additionally, when the game truck was down, they were down and there was nothing to access on the router at that point and having a mirror TX router from the game truck would have produced the same result. As I'm sure you heard it was a scramble, but none of it made a difference without being able to actually have control to route transmission. That could of only been done as the truck began to reset.

John, one question. If the show truck power goes out, none of your sources will be available to the pre-game router, right? What is your answer to that? Unless pre-game can get a camera in position to provide just a wide game cover, with PxP and Color audio, a still from master may be better.

Having done severely fewer national shows than the rest of y'all, this might be a beginner question: I did a show a year or so ago where the director asked for the following on the monitor wall: -output of the truck to the uplink -output of the uplink truck -net off air I looked at the list and immediately understood what she was up to. These three items provided a "what's wrong" chain for video trouble. Net says video is no good? Output of the truck is fine, so it must be...yep, video from the uplink is bad. Later in the day, I noticed that the uplink truck output wasn't in the wall. I asked the EIC about it and he said "its the same as net return, you don't need it." I glanced over at the director who was looking up form her laptop with a "this should be interesting look" on her face (the EIC had not been pleasant to deal with all day...and as an entry level sports TD I go out of my way to make friends with my EIC!). After a bit of finangling, I got it put in the wall. So, that's a long setup to a short question: is that standard procedure to include on the monitor wall? I have seen it since then, but not always. What's everyone's thoughts on asking for it. Obviously, in the case of the halftime show, it would only be of value if the AD knew what was going on and knew to look at that monitor (plus, it would need to be in both trucks in that specific instance).

Mike, when you do this do you just go into ENG menu and change the normal Pgm output that feeds 'pgm' to the truck, to your aux bus. Do you tell the engineer? I assume this is easier then telling them to use another output that the aux you want to use is already going.

[quote="Rick Tugman"]they saw the game truck getting reset as the game TD made sure his elements were working.[/quote] This is one reason I use an AUX output as my PGM output. In that case, you could punch up the wide shot or game camera on the AUX bus, then continue to configure or test run the switcher. It's also great for 3 hour director look-sees on golf. The director can look at cameras on the PGM monitor, and I can continue to build. It's also great if you want to move the PGM/PST ME upstream, like for tickers and such or squeeze back in a DVE.

Rick, I agree completely with your statement regarding redundant TX routers for these kinds of shows. I'll go a step further and add redundant TX routers on some sort of a UPS system. It sounds to me as if the Orange Bowl incident was indeed a fluke occurrence but it does demonstrate the need to have multiple layers of redundancy on the big shows. Early in our planning I really had to insist that our Pregame TD have my full show router in his truck for the BCS Championship game last night. The initial response was, "what do you need that for?" Following the Orange Bowl incident I'll now insist that there be a mirror TX router in there, too. J

[quote="Mike Cumbo"]Rick, did a breaker in the truck fail or a stadium power panel? generator failure? As for the TX router, years back NBC had twin 10x1 audio/video routers that had AC power as primary and a Anton Bauer brick battery as backup power feeding two different transmission paths. Fiber was primary, a sat truck was secondary. There were two trucks, game truck and pre/halftime/post, each truck had the other in it's switcher but the guy who had the 10x's was king. This was before NBC lost NFL back in the 90's and $$ was not much of an issue, now do you think the bean counters would go for redundancy like this? They will ask "did any inventory not run or do we have any spots that we have to rebate or refund?"[/quote] Mike is was a breaker that interconnected the house power with the generator power outside the truck. I don't think the bean counters have a choice in some sort of redundancy ... nothing was lost, but one spot destined for halftime actually ran after the game as the make up. It was a game specific spot! Redundancy is something that now has to be looked at just to keep things going. FOX was just lucky it happened when it did.

Rick, did a breaker in the truck fail or a stadium power panel? generator failure? As for the TX router, years back NBC had twin 10x1 audio/video routers that had AC power as primary and a Anton Bauer brick battery as backup power feeding two different transmission paths. Fiber was primary, a sat truck was secondary. There were two trucks, game truck and pre/halftime/post, each truck had the other in it's switcher but the guy who had the 10x's was king. This was before NBC lost NFL back in the 90's and $$ was not much of an issue, now do you think the bean counters would go for redundancy like this? They will ask "did any inventory not run or do we have any spots that we have to rebate or refund?"

[quote="PSU442"]Hey guys -- I actually didn't watch it but a friend of mine was telling me that during the half-time of the orange bowl he witnessed the most chaotic minute of live television he's ever seen. From what he told me it almost sounds like the back channel of an evs made air. He too works in sports and couldn't believe how long it went on, almost as if nobody was watching. Anybody have any insight? Anybody else see it? Chris[/quote] I was there and as John mentioned, the game truck lost power. The power outage actually happened at a good time (during a commercial break). One of the breakers for the Game truck tripped, and while FOX had control of the game, LA just continued to run promos. In the rush to get content on the air communication broke down in LA because they did not have a feed of the pre game truck which was routed through the game truck. Not knowing that transmission was routed through the game truck, the AD was preparing LA to come to the pre game truck which they actually never had. As Pre Game Talent and cameras were put into place, a sponsored element was cued on the pre game truck, the game truck began to come back online.... but things needed to be reset. During that reset, the AD along with all the confusion in LA said, "do you see us?, Come to us... come to us." LA then took the Game truck (which was routed to TX) and they saw the game truck getting reset as the game TD made sure his elements were working. It wasn't as bad as your friend made it sound, but the valuable lesson here is redundant TX routers, especially with two trucks!

The Game truck lost power right at the end of halftime.