OK, here's what I have been able to find out so far: Virtual VTR and Final Cut Pro are separate programs, and each lets you digitize from external sources. We plan on using Virtual VTR to ingest VTR material and Final Cut to ingest CD's, DVD's, and other digital material. Once in the G5, Final Cut lets you manage the material by the use of folders & sub-folders (I heard that it also does thumbnails, although I did not witness this personally). The cool thing is that the folders & the material inside are just POINTERS to the actual material, which can reside on external (and thus removeable) drives. Images & clips can be pushed onto these drives without affecting the FCP program or the G5 itself. This could be helpful for material that changes often - just replace the actual data & let the existing pointers now point to the new image. Once inside FCP, you create sequences of what you want to play back. These sequences show up as elements of a FCP timeline. By moving back & forth (through the FCP interface) on the timeline, you call up different clips / stills / elements of the sequence. Note that a sequence can consist of stills, clips (with or without audio), and/or TIFF/TARGA files (with their associated Key Signal). It's a kind of "one-stop-shopping" for all of your playback elements...not JUST for stills. Changning from one element to another is supposedly instantaneous. Plus, using a KONA card with FCP and/or other commercially available programs lets you convert from pretty much any format to whatever format you're using. Another option is to have FCP convert your clips, stills, and sequences into one or more Quicktime Movies. While I am by no means an expert on Quicktime, I have been told that this is a very flexible way to manipulate & recall your elements. This is supposedly the "hot tip" for being able to manipulate the images remotely. Which brings me to external control. I have a couple of people researching this right now, but apparently the G5 has the ability to accept external commands from one of its RS-422 ports. This is what you would use to externally drive Quicktime. The folks that I spoke to have no doubts that external control is possible, but they are our playback people (we have separate video playback people & separate CG/Stills operators on our shows) and had not been involved in the kind of remote integration that you are asking about - they are only experts on local control. They tell me that they should have more information for me sometime next week - I am posting this now because I didn't want you to think that I forgot about your queries. Again, I'll post more when I get more information, as I know that something like this could have some big implications for those who are looking for an HD stills device.

[quote="Bob Ennis"]The game board gurus are experimenting with both Virtual VTR and with Final Cut Pro to see which one will work best for the Jeopardy set-up.[/quote] I would be quite interested in finding out how one controls Final Cut from a remote system. It was my understanding that FCP did not have a VTR Emulation mode like some AVIDs have. Perhaps there is some other way they can hook into Final Cut?

Bob, Is the G5 virtual vtr a seperate program from final cut? How do you control it, DNF/Switcher/Lance/ or the final cut program itself and is there a seperate operator? Very interesting topic. I ask this because we may be looking for a graphics server for live news, and this may be an option. I found this web site and was reading about virtual vtr

Here's what I have found out so far about the G5's: The G5's are running in Virtual VTR for recording & cue-up (for recall by the Jeopardy game computer). Whether the image is to be used as a still or as a clip for Wheel, it is being created as a Quicktime Movie using Final Cut Pro. This is for importing stills from CD - which will also work for Jeopardy. The file management program that we're using is also Final Cut Pro. It apparently lets you organize everything as thumbnails as well as using alphanumerics. It'll instantly cut between any clip/still. We've been using it as a playback device on Wheel for a couple of years, and it works well for our purposes. The game board gurus are experimenting with both Virtual VTR and with Final Cut Pro to see which one will work best for the Jeopardy set-up. I'll post follow-ups when I can get more in-depth info.

[quote="Bob Ennis"]We had a couple of Pinnacle Lightnings, but they're SD. For our 1st Wheel taping, we temporarily used them (downconverting to get images in & upconverting to get images out), but for the best quality the decision was made to go with an HD native device. We already use a Mac to play back HD images into our contestant wall, so they're happy with the technology.[/quote] I am also curious what kind of software the G5's run on. I would think these are very simliar to a Viz or Brainstorm which is a powerful PC running some sort of software. Bill

We had a couple of Pinnacle Lightnings, but they're SD. For our 1st Wheel taping, we temporarily used them (downconverting to get images in & upconverting to get images out), but for the best quality the decision was made to go with an HD native device. We already use a Mac to play back HD images into our contestant wall, so they're happy with the technology.

[quote="Bob Ennis"]The G5's will be installed sometime this week - I won't be the one who will be operating them, but I'll make sure to take a closer look & keep you posted...[/quote] Fascinating! Can you tell us what technology the G5 is replacing? -Scott

The G5's will be installed sometime this week - I won't be the one who will be operating them, but I'll make sure to take a closer look & keep you posted. I know that in the case of Jeopardy, our game computer will have to be able to call up any still at any time, so I assume that the computer folks have worked out the interface. For Wheel, we use a couple of hundred stills per season - it will be very important to have a good list management program. Again, I trust that "those who write the checks" did their homework...we were consulted on what our needs were before the season started - we'll see how much of what we asked for will actually be there. I'll let you know.

[quote="Bob Ennis"]For both Wheel of Fortune & Jeopardy, we are going to be using a Macintosh G5 as our HD Still Store.[/quote] Bob, are you using any special software on the G5 for playlist capability? Thanks, -= Ken =-

For both Wheel of Fortune & Jeopardy, we are going to be using a Macintosh G5 as our HD Still Store. The Frame Memory from the SONY 8000 will suppliment this for things that have to play within switcher-generated effects, but I've already got the FM pretty much filled up with animations. You may want to look at the G5 as an alternative.

I am currently working with an X-Clyps and am very unimpressed with its "playlist" capability. We are using "selection lists" which basically takes a text file with a bunch of Clip Numbers and highlights all of those clips. Then you arrow around through the "list". The list is not even displayed in order (the list is highlihgted in the main clip window so the clips are left in numerical order.....when you arrow through them you jump through the list in the correct order) Items cannot be added/moved from the list without editting the text file and reimporting it. I was not involved with the purchase or training of this product from chyron - but the owners manual, nor menus in the actual application mention anything about playlist functionality only this "selection list" method. There may be a separate "control" application that allows playlist management, but the main XClyps program does not appear to. -Clint [quote="Lou Delgresiano"]What about the Chyron XClyps? It allows targa sequences to be loaded directly from the animation source via network file folders, or loaded as a video input. It has playlist management. It's weak on audio, but that doesn't appear to be a necessity. http://www.chyron.com/products/stores/xclyps.html[/quote]

[quote="scottgfx"][quote="Mike Cumbo"]Scott, the Sony 8000/9000 family WORKS. If the 8000 series was just an "improved" 7000 Sony would be out of the switcher business.[/quote] I only made the joke based the threads, in some of the forums here where some try to discredit Sony for... sales practices I guess? I meant for it to be light hearted and failed. Sorry. Since I'm already off topic... Back in the 1980's, all of the switchers had great demo videos that took you through all of the functions and features of the switcher. The Ampex AVC, 4100 and GVG 200, 300 demos were really informative and taught me a lot about switchers. I would hope to see some good demos online of current boards, but I'm not finding them. DVDs? The station I'm at now is still limping along with an AVC that has only one M/E that can do wipe patterns. We would probably do well to get a Sony 8000. That's probably next year.[/quote] Sony has had a great demo DVD for about 3 years. It's probably a little long in the tooth now (with new features, etc ) but it probably would still be great. I don't have a copy though. Ask your chief engineer or someone to get hold of their Sony sales person and I'm sure they can get you a copy. RE

[quote="scottgfx"][quote="Mike Cumbo"]Scott, the Sony 8000/9000 family WORKS. If the 8000 series was just an "improved" 7000 Sony would be out of the switcher business.[/quote] I only made the joke based the threads, in some of the forums here where some try to discredit Sony for... sales practices I guess? I meant for it to be light hearted and failed. Sorry.[/quote] What has Sony done wrong with Sales paractices? If your referring to corporate group deals (which some around here have demonized), well..... GV -- err-- Thomson and every one else does them all the time. RE

[quote="Mike Cumbo"]Scott, the Sony 8000/9000 family WORKS. If the 8000 series was just an "improved" 7000 Sony would be out of the switcher business.[/quote] I only made the joke based the threads, in some of the forums here where some try to discredit Sony for... sales practices I guess? I meant for it to be light hearted and failed. Sorry. Since I'm already off topic... Back in the 1980's, all of the switchers had great demo videos that took you through all of the functions and features of the switcher. The Ampex AVC, 4100 and GVG 200, 300 demos were really informative and taught me a lot about switchers. I would hope to see some good demos online of current boards, but I'm not finding them. DVDs? The station I'm at now is still limping along with an AVC that has only one M/E that can do wipe patterns. We would probably do well to get a Sony 8000. That's probably next year.

Scott, the Sony 8000/9000 family WORKS. If the 8000 series was just an "improved" 7000 Sony would be out of the switcher business. As for the NBC/M II deal I remember getting a tour of one of NBC's trucks, NFL set day, and I saw Sony 1" and Beta SP machines and this was after the M II adoption. The engineer just basically laughed when I asked about the Sony's in the truck. I then heard other stories about the format.

[quote="Mike Cumbo"]Remember what NBC management types said about M II when they decided to switch? The operators had a totally different opinion.[/quote] And what of the users of Sony switchers? :) (sorry, couldn't resist, only kidding) I was a teenager in highschool when the MII thing happened, and I was aware from it because my older brother was in TV and I read the trades. I recall an overnight change in the quality of Late Night with David Letterman. There were tons of dropouts! The early dropout problem was due to bad tape formulations I'm told. I had heard that The Tonight Show refused to convert to MII. Wasn't head-wear an issue too? Years later, my brother was using MII in a edit room in Memphis (circa `94) and said he liked it better than BetaSP. He commented on picture quality being better. I'm sure there were some positive things about MII but Panasonic made too many mistakes and lost that battle. I think they've done well with DVCPRO. We have it where I work. I'm not a big fan of it, but I guess it does the job.

[quote="scottgfx"]How about this? http://www.apple.com/hotnews/articles/2006/02/olympics/[/quote] Now the challenge is to find one of the operators and get a real world assessment of that system. Remember what NBC management types said about M II when they decided to switch? The operators had a totally different opinion.

How about this?

What about the Chyron XClyps? It allows targa sequences to be loaded directly from the animation source via network file folders, or loaded as a video input. It has playlist management. It's weak on audio, but that doesn't appear to be a necessity.

I wonder how the Thunder is in HD. It is only 2 channels, which would be tough to go from our 4 channels. How about devices such as Viz, Brain Storm, etc. They obviously have great playlist setups, not sure how it would interact with other devices mailing things into it from graphics, etc. Bill