I just had some Sony training recently and I believe they said there is not a line delay (I could be wrong with this my notes are all chicken scratch and hard to make sense out of) since I don't get to work on the 8000 as often as I like I can't check this.

On the Kalypso if you re-enter one half of an M/E into the other half you get a one line delay, is this true for the Sony as well?

I just saw a demo of this a couple of weeks ago. The guy (I think his name was Stacy) did a good job of showing it off. He came right out and said it was pretty much like doubletake but that on the Sony you can have the same keyer on multiple ME partitions at the same time. I remember asking the grass guy about that and their response was "why would you want to do that?" I can think of many reasons. Anyway, Sony's is splt ME software. You can re-enter if you want to. the DVEs work on both sides of the ME (Sony calls them MAIN and SUB). If I remember right, there are 6 outputs on each ME, including 4 PGM outputs. When you turn sony's split ME on it automatically sets up Key 1 and Key on PGM1 which is the main side. Then it automatically also sets Key 3+4 to the SUB side. He showed how you can change the keyer delegations from either setup or the M/E menu. You can state in setup if you want the configurations to change on a effect or keyframe or you can leave it where you must go to setup to change it. I guess that would come in handy if you had a bunch of different effects that kept chaning the key configuration on you. He showed how it's very cool to have this featrue if you have a bunch of plasmas (no keyers on the sub channel so you can just dissolve) and how you can re-enter the sub back into the main so you can dissolve or effect in a dve channel on the same ME. I did like the fact that I could have the same key on both the main and sub ME at the same time. It saves an entire keyer if you want the same bug or something on both sides of the ME. One of the things I really liked on the Sony was the ability to re-map the switcher and what ME's are at what location on the panel. He showed that I can make the top bank ME1 MAIN and the second bank (which is usually ME2) to be ME1 SUB. This is pretty cool if you want to separate out for a portion of your show without having to delegate with the main abd sub buttons. I also like how the readout on the ME display automatically changes when you select main or sub delegation. That's all I remember about that feature - I'm sure there's a lot more I just don't remember. I have to say I was floored by the switcher. We had a kalypso demo a couple of months ago and, at least to our staff, the sony beats it hands down. The grass guy that did our demo did a nice job, but it seemed to us he spent most of his time telling us why we wouldn't like the Sony and I have to say we were all prety much set that we wouldn't like it. Then we saw it. It really seems to us to be a much easier switcher to use. The Sony demo guy hardly ever touched the menu display except for things that made sense to be in a menu (frame store, dve etc). He sure changed our minds. I have to say it was refreshing that the Sony guy didn't spend the whole demo bashing gvg (the same can't be said for the gvg guy, though). It was a very positive experience. Oh yeah, and we all loved that we don't need to use a DNF controller any more!!!!! The sony has awesome built-in DDR support. The names of our server's clips appeared on their touchscreen. And the server wasn't a Sony. We're looking forward to getting our 8000A. Peace, Leo

Yes, we have it on our Kalypso...it's called "Double Take". It basically allows you primary and secondary outputs of each ME, and the ability to assign keyers to each "partition". I am able to re-enter, say, ME3-B on ME3's primary output, but I've only done it as a key (live-shot pulling out of a map with font), not as a direct crosspoint. (I tested this tonight, and you can also re-enter directly as a crosspoint). Our morning director loves this feature...he's basically got the entire show set-up so that he doesn't have recall much during the show. I did hear that Sony was offering a similar feature, but I'm not sure what they call it or how it functions on the 8k/9k. Hope that helps! Matt