Autocue Production Suite at BroadcastShow

Autocue Production Suite at BroadcastShow
The Autocue Production Suite (APS) is a single, integrated system designed to replace traditional, individual broadcast devices. When combined with our newsroom, prompting and production applications, it offers a cost-effective end-to-end workflow solution. We’ve been working with BroadcastShow over the last few months to trial the system in a live studio environment and to test and deploy new functionality ahead its full launch at IBC2012.
We have two more shows under our belt now – one shown just before IBC and the other just after. The last one was slightly challenging, as some of our kit hadn’t arrived back from Amsterdam in time causing some last minute improvisation, but overall both live programs went very well. A lot of work, on both hardware and software, has taken place in the background over the last couple of months and the overall system is now a lot more settled. In particular, the current version of firmware has considerably improved resource utilisation on the main server, as demonstrated by the stable performances during the last two programs.
The second episode of the show had featured some unexpected audio level changes. To help narrow down the cause we added audio level meters to our input from the studio mixer, which demonstrated that the problem was actually more related to very high levels on some edited packages rather than particularly low levels from the studio. This extra monitoring allowed the levels to be reduced for those packages before they were played to air, resulting in much more consistent audio for the last two shows.
We had identified that communication between Simon, Matt and I during the previous live shows was difficult, so I prioritised development of a talkback system for the APS. This was installed before Show# 3, and not only allowed us to speak to each other but also made monitoring of the program output much easier.
Another challenge that we identified during Show# 3 was that it was unnecessarily hard to review clips, particularly in order to identify suitable in- and out-points. By reconfiguring the software control panels, adding a couple of video connections and moving the monitor speakers from the rack onto the control desk, this process is now much easier – allowing clips to be viewed on the large 46” studio monitor and heard easily without having to route signals through the studio mixer.
Another significant step was the introduction of a proper cable loom and studio wall box. This allows our equipment rack to be positioned outside the studio during recordings, with all of the audio, video, network and control cables neatly routed up and over the dividing wall and properly terminated on a connection panel. It greatly improved the cable management on the studio floor!
The APS has had Still Store functionality for some time, but this feature hasn’t been used in the BroadcastShow before. It was great to be able to exploit the capability during the Holdan interview in Show# 4. But the experience of each show is also a great way to identify potential new features and behaviour – for example, before the next show, we will be adding further flexibility for setting and managing audio levels.
I met with one of our APS customers this week – the University of Bedfordshire at Luton, who installed their system at the start of this year. It was great to be able to explain all of the changes that have been made to the system recently on the basis of our experience with the BroadcastShow, and they are now very much looking forward to upgrading to the same version.