The MVS-8000A now has a feature that automatically puts "wings" on the sides of video that is 4:3. You basically tell the switcher that input x is 4:3 and it will use one of the 3 utility busses on each M/E to replace the edges (and you can adjust them) with something on that utility bus. It's pretty cool, especially if you want to use live video like a server with moving graphics as your edge fill. RE

Lou At the risk if sounding like a grouch. If you don't make the tape room go back and fix their mistakes, they will never learn. While it does take a little bit of a mental leap to wrap your mind around the whole 4:3 <-> 16:9 concept, once you figure it out you own it for life. You never know when those resources you're using to cover for the tape room's lack of education are going to be needed for something else. If you make a noise about these things, then production gets an education as well and they can start ordering animations that use the entire 16:9 field while still 4:3 "safe". This improves things for everyone - including the viewers - those poor early adopter saps who paid WAAAY too much for their Hi Def TV's :-) (apologies to all present who may fall into this group).

I know in the sports world it seems as if a lot of producers, directors, a-d's and tape folks need a lesson in aspect ratio and format. I don't know how many times the tape room has loaded 4x3 images "stretched" to 16x9, and on the flip side how many are confused as to why their melt tape was recorded in anamorphic. The other night in fact, tape loaded all 4x3 promos stretched. Instead of having them reload it's just easier to DVE it and don't tell anyone. It's not that hard to catch this stuff either. If the players look super fat, it's probably not right.

The Snell & Wilcox that I have used is the baby unit that HDNet has, I have not used the newer, larger S&W switchers. I have not used the XtenDD but I do like the DD-35. We have a MVS-8000, not the newer 8000A. It has been good, we have had some hardware issues but I do not know if that is because our 8000 is in a truck rather then a studio. Some things to think of, what router would you buy and how does it interface with the swicher? One client just put a Kalypso Duo in and eight or ten inputs are fed from the Grass router. It has worked well, the couple of times that I have used it. Mark, you have my number so if you want to call, feel free.

Thanks for the input guys. Any thoughts or preferences on the different products out there that you are using? We have a Zodiak right now, and if it were totally up to me I would stay with the Grass product, but are there any advantages to the Sony, Snell & Wilcox, or the Phillips? Price? Dependibility? Quality?

[quote="sahonen"]How do you generally handle switching between several 4x3 sources in a row?[/quote] When we do a 16x9 show the only possible 4x3 elements would be from a melt reel. We do not bring any other SD sources, except for a clock camera, into the HD chain. (Clocks get squeezed and cropped anyway, no real difference.) Tape may feed EVS a bunch of 4x3 pieces that become a package, we then wing the EVS in pre-production, so that we are not winging anything live. I know that NMT had two converters that the TD routed, in HD-1, not sure if they are still done that way after the rebuild. In our truck, I do not have any routable up or down converters or ARCs. Brad, we do the show for a 4x3 world. We just know that there is a small but growing number of HD sets out there. I am not sure when we will start doing the shows for the 16x9 only world.

How do you generally handle switching between several 4x3 sources in a row? I haven't done an HD show, but when I do a 16x9 SD show (usually a live concert DVD or the like) I do it one of two ways. What I did for a while was use two keyers with TEs and switch back and forth between them, but remembering which keyer is the "program" and which is the "preview" gets a little hairy sometimes, it reminds me of being on a switcher without flip-flopping busses. Then one day I had a eureka moment and started switching on the background on an M/E, then putting that M/E into a TEed keyer downstream. It works if you've got an M/E to burn. Trouble with these concert shows though is I've generally got all my M/Es tied up going out to projection screens onstage because we need dissolves on the screens. On bringing 4x3 into the show by blowing it up and cutting off the top and bottom, the trouble with that for me is by blowing it up you lose a lot of detail, even in an SD show. I can imagine if it's an SD source in an HD show, the loss of detail would be even more apparent. Also what ends up happening is the SD viewers who are watching a 4x3 center cut will lose a great deal of the original picture because your TE is cutting off the top and bottom and the broadcast center cut is cutting off the sides. You just end up seeing a tiny square of the original picture.

Brad, brain fart on my end. When we bring 4x3 into our 16x9 truck it is in the form of "melt" reels the producers have from non- hi def games. The material is played back on some Sony HD VTR that can aspect the video or leave it alone. It is the tape room's job to set the VTR correctly so they get the correct look. We, the TD's, just give them the wings with the correct artwork that they want. We do check for aspect, usually... Every now and then something gets by that we, everyone in the truck, didn't catch. Like a promo that should have fit the 4x3 world, but we all made it fit the 16x9 world. Oops.

[quote="Mike Cumbo"]... how you DO handle 4x3 material when you need to use it in the 16x9 world...[/quote] If 4:3 vision isn't pre-treated before it gets to your 16:9 Kalypso, you need to use a Transform Engine (or an External DVE) to squish the sides in. The X-aspect needs to be 75%. Currently you can only use a Transform Engine for a Keyed source. However, Squeezing the Aspect and then keying it would leave the Background video visible at the sides. To get around this, you can turn on the Transform Engine's "Shadow" feature, make the Shadow's size bigger than 1.00, and then make the shadow Opaque. This puts the Matte colour from the Shadow in the "wings" or "Pillar-box" of the keyer, hiding the entire background. You can leave this Matte black, or make it some other colour if you prefer. If you need other video in the wings, you can key the Transform Engine over your DDR or Still Store, although this takes up a lot of your Kalypso's real estate (a whole M/E partition or more). How much easier would it be if you could attach a Transform Engine to a Background row, as it was originally designed? It's possible that the vision has already been pre-treated, perhaps by an Aspect Ratio Converter or similar. In this case, there will be black "wings" already at the left and right sides of frame. If you want to put alternative video in the wings, you would use a Keyer with a Preset Pattern as the Key Type (the "curtain" wipe pattern), and turn on the Preset Pattern Border. The Border would be filled with Video from a Utility Row (your DDR), and positioned so the existing black wings are covered over by the Video inside the Border. Cutting to this Source is as simple as Cutting-on the Keyer. Another way of handling 4:3 material is to ARC it so the video has correct geometry (ie, the 75% X-aspect), and then zooming-in until the sides of the video reach the edge of frame. This has the benefit of needing no graphical treatment in the "wings" at the sides, but at the expense of chopping-off the top and/or bottom of the vision. It would be unsuitable where text forms part of the material, but could be used to good effect where you have control over framing. For example, if you were doing a 2-way/Remote/DTL (various terminology for the same thing) with a 4:3 facility, you could ask the camera operator to frame much wider than normal with (what seems like) too much headroom. The excess is chopped-off, and the result is a full 16:9 of video, albeit with a slightly reduced resolution. An External DVE gives a lot more options in flexibility, since it can appear as a Background crosspoint. You could feed the DVE with a dedicated Aux bus, and have a selection of pre-set treatments as appropriate. If using the above technique to "zoom-in" on 4:3 material, you also have the flexibility to reframe the incoming video to give more headroom or more at the bottom of frame (since the remote camera operator may not be able to determine how much headroom the end-result will have). An External DVE also allows you to control the degree of "wings" you permit; from 25% of the screen down to 0%, depending on how much of the top and bottom you want to chop off. I've found that even when your entire workflow is 16:9, you still tend to allow for 4:3 safe title. In Australia, for each of the networks there's a Digital TV broadcast (the 16:9 version) and the old Analogue TV broadcast (4:3), with the same programs on each. Different networks adopt different practices with respect the what the 4:3 (Analogue) viewers see of a 16:9 program. Some do a "centre-cut", so everything needs to be 4:3 safe. Some ARC the 16:9 program to 14:9 on the analogue broadcast, resulting in the loss of a small amount from each side, and a slight "letter-box" at the top and bottom. Some programs are ARCed with deep letterboxing, so there's a large black bar at the top and bottom, but the full width is seen. Notwithstanding all this, the free-to-air transmission is often re-broadcast on some of the cable networks, back in 4:3. So the safest thing is 4:3 safe title in everything. No pun intended, of course. brad

Mark the biggest issue is how you DO handle 4x3 material when you need to use it in the 16x9 world. We tend to "wing" things. Curtain wipes with the background off the DDR. Yes, it ties the DDR up but any "winging" is done in pre-production. Management needs to decide when things gets stretched, what is left in a 4x3 mode with black bars on the sides and when the wings are used. Our biggest hassle is "Is it being fed correctly?" You are a studio environment, you don't have producers walking with melt tapes in different flavors so some issues will be minor.

From an operator's standpoint, you shouldn't experience any operational differences just because you change formats. If you're used to a Kalypso SD (or other GV product) then a Kalypso HD will not be a big change for you. If you're used to a SONY 7K or 9K, an 8000 won't be much different. If you're used to an ExtenDD, then a Kayak HD will operate very much the same. All you're really doing is changing the format (and all of the brands pretty much do that part quitewell) - the panels & software should stay transparent to you. Just make sure that any features that you use (and may need) in SD mode (such as the number of keyers or background sources/buses) don't get lost when you move into HD, or you may be sorry later.