Automated Television Station Question
 

Hi all! I was recently asked how difficult it would be to run an "automated" closed circut television station, and since I have no real knowledge in this area, I ask the fine folks of DVinfo! Basically the question is in regards to a church that broadcasts its service to a nearby seniors home with roughly 300 units. Currently the live signal goes through a coax cable buried under a parking lot. The church is interested in providing roughly 10 hours of pretaped programming a day. Is there a software package that would allow the services to be stored on a harddrive and played back at predetermined cues? I've seen similar systems in hospitals before. If anyone could give me some ideas or links to get me started it would be appreciated.

Automated Amen
 

PC or Mac? Any budget established?

If on the Mac side, check into BugTV: http://www.bug.tv/Home.html

Good luck,

Paul

Hi Matt..............
 

Can't say I've any specialist experience with "automated" tv stations, tho' have been involved with providing TV services to large scale apartments/ hospitals.

Depending on how often the content of the "10 hours per day" is changeing, you might get some milage out of a humble Hard Disk DVR.

Load your footage, set "Continuous Loop" and hit play.

Hey presto.

Depending on just how smart the box is, you may be able to set a start and stop time as well, tho' just letting it run continuously wouldn't do any harm, and old folk keep notoriously strange hours.

If you don't already have an amp on the Church end of that cable, now might be a good time to put one in, don't think the drive circuits are that crash hot on them, but that's just detail.

Worth checking out.


CS


PS: Having re - read your original post, I'm not entirely sure I grasped the subtleties therein. You may want to be a bit more specific about "pre determined cues". That one lost me.

more
 

Thanks for the help so far! I'm a Mac user myself, however they have no preference. By "predetermined cues" I simply meant being able to start at a programmed time. They would like me to produce some thirty second, one and three minute vignettes to fill the time before the services which would start on the even hour. As for a budget, non has been determined yet, so I'd like to look at a few options.

Check out Leightronix. Their equipment run many a cable station for programming.

http://www.leightronix.com/

also check out this other leightronix link

http://www.worshipbroadcasting.com/

Also for messaging software, there are a few different ones out but Scala is used quite a bit.

http://www.scala.com/index.html

try a search under digital signage

You might want to look at a VT5 system from Newtek I know of many churches and small station that use it for exactly what you are looking for. Great thing is you can use it for switching you live events and then have it roll right into the pre-recorded.
There is a plug in that does scheduling too.

All in if you went pretty high end you would spend at max around $15k if you watched the budget you could be set for around $8k.

check out www.Newtek.com
email me if you would like more info
brett AT beanan dot com

I'm using the Leightronix Mini-T-NX with great results. We broadcast 5.5 hours of programing week nights on the local PEG channel. Has plenty of HDD for storage as well as being an 8 input switch that has the capabilities to send start, stop and rewind signals to VHS, DVD and other playback devices.

Really like this unit.

talk about a budget
 

Okay...so I've discussed it a bit with the powers that be at the church(no not God) and they would like to spend $5,000 or less as they just recently spent over $10,000 to upgrade the cameras and buy a switcher. They suggested that I should try to find a "lightly used" system, or find a unique way to do the job.

sounds like the mini-T-n would be a good option and should work with your budget

check out the Tri-Caster then http://www.newtek.com/tricaster/

Tricaster
 

The Tricaster looks like an amazing system...does anyone have any experience with it?

Brett, do you have a link to more info on the scheduling plug-in. I know someone with a tri-caster and he's curious. Is is similar to the old arexx scripts from the amiga days?

I'm interested in the scheduling plugin too! More info. please.

found something : http://www.youngmonkey.ca/hands/rest...ins/Scheduler/