Clip Store
In addition to a powerful switcher and CG, every Broadcast Pix 2000
Switcher and all Slate 100 Pro models include a clip store. It's a great
place to keep opens, closes, bumpers, or any clips or animations. The
format is "601" digital uncompressed, so the quality is outstanding. And
in addition to clips, the clip store can also play animations for
intricately moving graphics or spinning logos.
Thumbnails of the clips are tiled on the Multi-View monitor wall on the
system's computer monitor. As shown at the right, the system can have
two independent channels of clip stores. For example, the second channel
could hold additional clips and some animations.
PixPad
The first channel of clips is standard, and it holds one hour of clips.
It can be expanded to up to four hours, and a second channel is a
surprisingly economical option. When a clip store is selected all of the
control panel's device controls are instantly assigned to it, including
the knobs, motion controls and the dynamic PixPad. The PixPad is shown
at the right, and its buttons display the names of the clips. These clip
names are automatically taken off of the files names of each clip and
placed on the PixButtons. You can see 9 clips at a glance, to correspond
to the 9 thumbnails shown on the monitor wall, above. And when you press
the next button, both the PixPad and the monitor wall jump to the next
nine clips in the library. Or you can access them by number, which is
handy if you have a lot of them.
Auto Start, Auto Stop...
When you press the Controls PixButton on the above PixPad, it displays
the clip modifiers, as shown at the right. You can set a clip to
auto-start, at the instant it is taken to air. Even the largest studios
have great difficulty providing this feature with expensive add-on gear,
and it is free with every Broadcast Pix system. Each clip can be set to
auto-stop when it comes off-air, and even auto-rewind. Or press loop to
have the clip endlessly loop, which is ideal for animated backgrounds,
such as "Jump-backs" from Digital Juice. The controls also enable you to
set mark-in points or mark-out to trim off unwanted portions, and then
the auto-start function will work from there.
The motion controls and knobs are shown below. The displays tell you at
all times which clip store is active, which clip is selected, and which
modifiers are applied to it. In this example, AX means it is set to both
auto-start and auto-stop. The display always, shows the time code for
the clip. The motion buttons work just like on any VTR to play, pause,
or rewind. And the left knob can scrub a clip, to quickly find a spot.
Animations
In addition to clips, the clip store is a great place to hold and play
out animations. The system can create an animation from a wide variety
of animation creation software packages, including the Inscriber
TitleMotion Character Generator that is included as standard equipment
in every Broadcast Pix Studio switcher. Inscriber can create an
animation out of just about any graphics, including complex fly-ins of
each component. Or use another popular animation generator, including
Digital Juice, or Adobe or Deko. Just export your animation as a series
of Targa (.tga) images and they can be brought into a Broadcast Pix
system and rendered together into a powerful animation. The animations
can have keys, so they can be over-layed, and they can have sound. In
addition to .tga animations, the Broadcast Pix Studio can create an
animation out of a series of .jpg, .gif, .bmp or .png files.
Audio...
Standard equipment is embedded audio, where the stereo audio signal is
stored in (embedded in) the SDI digital stream. This works great with
Digital Video Tape Recorders (VTRs) and other new devices that have
embedded audio.
...On the 2000 and 2100....
for a more versatile audio solution, order the optional audio board
which goes inside the Break-out-Box (BoB) in the 2000 and 2100 models,
as shown below. The audio board makes recording audio a snap. Just
attached the video coming from the VTR, server, editor, DVD player,
router or other source to the BoB in SDI or any analog format, and also
attach its corresponding audio, and record. It accepts both analog
stereo audio and digital AES-EBU. And the connectors are professional
XLRs, for a secure connection. For playing clips there are two sets of
audio outputs because there are two channels of clip store. Each comes
out analog stereo audio and digital AES-EBU. Just attach them to your
mixer, and the audio is ready to go.
...On the Slate 100 and 1000....
for a more versatile audio solution, the analog stereo audio break-out,
attaches to the back of the workstation. It is an option on the Slate
100 and standard on the Slate 100pro and Slate 1000. It provides
break-out to 6 XLR connectors which makes recording audio a snap. Just
attached the video coming from the VTR, server, editor, DVD player,
router or other source to theses For playing clips there are two sets of
audio outputs because there are two channels of clip store. Just attach
them to your mixer, and the audio is ready to go.
Compressed Clip Import Option
A new option will soon be available for the Clip Store on all Broadcast
Pix systems that enables compressed clips to be expanded into the
uncompressed format of the Broadcast Pix clip store. It works on DV and
MPEG2 clips. You will be able to test the software fro free, as it will
be a free download from the Broadcast Pix website. |
