Dave, I agree with your frustration with "crippled" switchers. It's not like an analog switcher where a chroma keyer or something like that is a piece of hardware that has to be physically manufactured and put into the switcher. We're talking about features that are already in the hardware that is sitting in your truck, but you have to pay extra to be allowed to use them. It's like buying a sports car and having to pay extra to use more than 4 cylinders. I think a lot of things would improve if we made the bean counters come out and try to put out a show with the trucks they're refusing to outfit properly. I was on a truck recently that ran out of gaffer's tape, for crying out loud. Come on, spend $25 on a couple more rolls, it's not going to make your family starve.

Last season I asked a director if he thought duals were here to stay and he said "Not if the end client, the team owners, really care about their product." As we sit here today Fox has lost KC, Cleveland, Chicago x2, Mets in just the last few years. I have been told that Fox barely held onto the Astros and Twins deals. Comcast is positioning themselves for Detroit and possibly the Bay Area. Yes, there are some owners who will accept mediocrity in exchange for enough cash. Several directors have told me that the reason Fox went to these dual feeds was that they were bleeding $$$ and that at least once, someone had thrown out the idea of one production team, one set of talent for BOTH feeds. That person had probably thought that the WUSA telecasts were great too. I am glad that I work in a market where duals are not really done. I hear that we are scheduled for three when interleague play comes around. Those are the only ones we will be doing and I know that it will be very interesting.

Steve B, EIC on 10HDX, asked the home show TD last night what he thought about them removing the DVEous and replacing it with the other 3 transform engines. (I was working the Duel). Ken and I both agreed that we'd rather keep the DVEous. First and foremost, the DVEous can give you 4 more panes of video (vs 2 for the 2 ADDED TEs). The LA home shows have a full pre and postgame show with double and triple boxes. When you've given way an m/e and you don't have double take, then you need the DVEous to help out with composited keying ability at least. I composite two of the three boxes with the animation and return it on one keyer using (the remaining) transform engine on another keyer to bring in the 3rd box. This is all keyed on m/e 2 , but i use me2c and me2p2 to feed the boxes in the DVEous, so that all the camera choices are in one convenient place without have to reach for the aux panel, but i digress! Let's say that they took out the DVEous and put in the other three transform engines: When they buy the transform engines they don't pay full freight even for the ones they have! This means no kurl, no lighting, and none of the other effects needed to make "that glow thing" that producers vaguely demand (and you now no longer have the DVEous for). As it is, there's no double take (so no split screen for the Duel show unless you feel daring and program an emem for it - no previews!), there are no chroma keyers (so no way to crunch a fill and matte of cover animation into one CK channel and use a second matte for video under the cover), at this rate, maybe they should just have put a Ross switcher up front and a CV-120 in the duel! I should mention here that Steve is one of the most motivated EICs I have ever worked with. He is always ready to make any improvement possible to his truck and, if I had to choose a truck to HAVE to do a duel on, 10HDX is certainly the least painful to work on. Upgrading the switcher features is something he would love to do (if only to not have to listen to us whine about it all the time), but it is out of his bailliwick. (he's pretty handy with hardwood flooring, though!) I keep demanding the full switcher feature set. I keep asking my production teams to demand the full switcher feature set. Same result: "who's going to pay for it?" Well, why should WE have to pay for NOT having it? The cost of adding all these features to the switcher is less than one percent of the cost of the entire truck! How cheap can you get? Just give me the tools to let me do my job to the satisfaction of the CLIENT, so that i don't feel the need to waste an entire afternoon slamming your trucks on the internet! (how many features would you leave out of your new lamborghini???)) Of course the truck builders aren't entirely to blame here. It is human nature to get the 'best' brand name possessions for bargain-basemant prices (witness the explosion of 'imitation' Yves Saint Lauren and Gucci luggage on those crowded Southwest cattle cars (err, flights)). Being allowed to market your truck as having a Kalypso switcher, when in fact all you have is this crippled little easy-bake knock off of a 'world class' switcher is made possible by the manufacturer who's bright idea it was to allow the device to leave the plant in this crippled condition in the first place. I'm extremely skeptical that the difference in price between the crippled switcher and the fully operational one has any effect on sales. If the buyer believes that the GVG solution is best for his clients then the difference in price is unlikely to drive him (or her) to the SONY, Philips or S&W solution. The brand and the user interface are still the major selling points for GVG switchers. We, the TDs that use this equipment to make our clients' shows happen, are a major voice in what gear our clients and their vendors purchase. When we suggest that the Kalypso is the best purchase for the application (as i have), then we mean the whole enchilada! By short-changing the features and allowing the vendors to buy less than a fully functional Kalypso all that the manufacturer has done is trade on our recommendations to make the sale, then 'reward' our loyalty by tying our hands behind our backs (I had an earthier metaphor here, but decided that i have already expressed my disgust with sufficient vigor). Hmm, any more groups I can alienate in one rant?? It's not that I'm bitter (although it does sound a bit like that, doesn't it?), it's just that these things must be brought to bear in the light of day, or at least an LCD screen. Last time I had strong feelings about something and voiced them, my career took an interesting turn, maybe it's about to do so again. Oh well. it certainly keeps life interesting! Happy punching, punchmonkeys! *** "Duel" is intentionally misspelled! ***

I worked one of the first games off that truck last year, soccer here in LA. If I remember right, I had no DVE, no ME 1, and found out after about an hour or so from call that ME2 didn't work either. So I cut cameras on ME3, and had a source hold to fly (using TE's) to replay machines. They also wanted to do a 2 box post game. What a great day!!! But what a gorgeous picture!!!! Glad to hear it's been upgraded since then.

HDNet can get away with having a fairly bare-bones truck because they're their own client and the truck only really does one show. It doesn't need to have the versatility of a truck that needs to be able to handle any show that wants to rent it out. They don't even have an analog video router, they can just patch the monitor wall because it doesn't change that often. That said, I agree wholeheartedly about the lack of an external DVE in a truck that's actually used by many different clients. Just recently a truck (thankfully not mine) showed up from out of town with a dead switcher that came back online only three hours before showtime. The TD was saved by the fact that the truck had a DVEous and he was able to simply load the replay moves and get on with the show. A lot of people are saving money by realizing that shows can get on the air with less resources. What they don't realize is that if anything goes wrong, it's those extra resources that allow us to keep things going relatively smoothly. By the way, Colorado Studios (owners of HDNet) have taken over as the main truck company in my market, edging out the current company and buying out their trucks, as well as introducing us to the dual feed. They're building unit 12HDX to serve this market, and 11HDX will also be making occasional appearances, as well as the trucks bought from the previous company. While it will be nice having an HD truck serving this market instead of having to drive one up from Chicago, I don't like how it got here.

HDNet is operated by the same group of people who brought you Duel Feeds. It sounds as if they cheaped out on this truck as they did on their other trucks they recently built. I did a show last night on Mobile Television Group's 11HDX - it's a truck that is 3 months old with a Kalypso.... a Kalypso with no external DVE, but you have 6 transform engines.... not sure about double take because I didn't look. When the client handed me his DVE disk last night, I told him flat out "I can't do anything with that, there is no DVE." He didn't believe it but I did advise him of the internal Transform Engines. I guess the bean counters don't think we need DVE's because of the Transform Engines. I guess they don't care that it will just take that much longer to program the clients effects which may want along with the other added responsibilities that were added to the regional level in recent years. What is the difference between these shows now and a network show except for set up time???? On a local level the problem will always be that certian clients will want their own DVE effects and they want their shows to be as seemless as possible. What I see happening is some home TD somewhere who has no external DVE is going to have to built the clients effects (transforms) and store them on a zip disk / thumb drive at a high emem number so the client can have access to these when they travel to these trucks. This is just one more thing to make our jobs harder with the little time we are given regionally. While the truck companies are saving money on building these trucks without certain equipment, they are not operators and they don't realize the consequenses when they do these things. There is little time now (on some regional shows) where you have little time to load DDR's, mark cue points and build your show - now you will also be expected to build transform engines for Duet Flys and other possible complicated moves which used to be on DVEous disks. With the little time you have the truck companies should spend the money to do it right and cater to the customer. Not having the equipment they are used to having is not catering. You expect this when you go into a different truck that might have a Sony switcher or DME. I guess you have to consider the source, They are trying to save anywhere they can, but also make your demands known. The EIC told me last night if I want a DVEous to make a demand for it. I have always demanded scopes and certain things in the trucks that worked in the market I work in and for the most part I got it. Unless you ask and keep asking you won't get anything.... but don't be a hero because no one cares.

Matt, I think three TE's. The truck has a Lance TDC-100 for the ClipStore.

[quote="Mike Cumbo"][quote="Matt Saplin"]Anybody worked out of their new HD2X truck? Matt[/quote] I did an NHL game a few weeks back in Philly for them out of that truck. It's nice but no DVEous, no clip cache, no double take. The one thing that they do use is the Abekas ClipStore for a DDR, rather then upconverting a Fast Forward or using a Spot Box. It seems like an OK box, didn't play much with it. I just wish HDNet would upgrade the S&W switcher that they have in the older truck.[/quote] Hi Mike! Thanks for the info...I'm punching an MLS soccer game in a few weeks in HD2X, and it's nice to know what we have available... The Abekas ClipStore: did you just P-BUS that, or run it through the "External Device" interface? Do you remember how many TEs they have on their Kalypso? I hear ya about the Snell...I think they outgrew the Snells about a week after they installed them! One of the EICs (Andy?) told me that the trucks were originally designed to do split feeds, but it didn't take long for the production style to change. Matt

[quote="Matt Saplin"]Anybody worked out of their new HD2X truck? Matt[/quote] I did an NHL game a few weeks back in Philly for them out of that truck. It's nice but no DVEous, no clip cache, no double take. The one thing that they do use is the Abekas ClipStore for a DDR, rather then upconverting a Fast Forward or using a Spot Box. It seems like an OK box, didn't play much with it. I just wish HDNet would upgrade the S&W switcher that they have in the older truck.

Last night's game was out of HD2X, in fact. I haven't worked out of their first truck so I can't list the exact differences but a huge one is that 2X is an expando and all of the production areas face the non-expanding side. The whole thing is very spacious-feeling, since there's not a lot of equipment in that truck at all and the only partition is between the TD and the EVS op. It really feels like everyone is in the same room. EDIT: And I know what you mean about not being able to get over the amount of detail. Sitting in video I didn't have the giant plasma screen they have in production, but I could still make out things like writing on the ads on the boards and names on jerseys in the game cam that would've simply disappeared in SD. I just wish someone would make an inexpensive HDTV so I could get one!

I love watching HDnet hockey. HDnet was an unexpected bonus when I got DirecTV and the hockey games alone make it worthwhile. I only wish they did 2 or 3 a week. I suppose they won't be be doing any playoffs, which is really a shame.

I'm remembering the first show I TD'd for them a few years back...it was an MLL Lacrosse game, and I just couldn't get over the detail. Looking at the monitors in the truck was almost like looking through a window! Anybody worked out of their new HD2X truck? Matt