PixButtons
At the heart of the unified control system of the Broadcast Pix
Switcher are the unique PixButtons. They provide streamlined control of
all tools, sources and keyers. Each has a display built into the
button. At the top of each PixButton is an icon, which shows which
device it is operating. Many buttons also tell which device is active,
and their color tells if they are on-air, on preview or off.
For Source Selection
The PixButtons are used in 5 different areas of the control panel. The
above pictures shows their use in the program row of the switcher
portion of the Broadcast Pix Studio system. In this show shown above
the icons at the top of each PixButton show that the 9 sources have
been assigned to: 3 cameras, 1 tape recorder, and from inside the
system's workstation: 2 channels of Clips, a still store, Character
Generator and Logo generator. The Still Store is on-air and red. The
PixButtons also tell the exact content, such as the River clip and Mens
Fours clip are now in the two clip stores, the CG is Mens Double and
logo is Pinnacle.
 For Device Selection
The three PixButton above the words
"Device Select" provide fast access to control a variety of devices. In
the show illustrated at the right, they have been assigned to control
the: the second channel of internal clip store, or camera control or an
external DDR. For other shows these PixButtons may reset to control of
other devices.
For Device Control
Twelve PixButtons are arranged, into a
PixPad. The one at the right has been assigned to the first channel of
internal clip store. The first nine PixButtons on the PixPad show the
names of the first nine clips in this store. The River clip is
illuminated red, as it is the active clip at this time. The Next
PixButton at the bottom will go to the next nine clips in the library.
The Control button enables features like jumping to a clip by number,
or trimming clips, or setting to auto-start on transition.
The PixPad can instantly reassign to other devices and the PixButtons
will change accordingly, such as the Effect PixPad from a soft-panel
shown above
If you select the numeric keypad PixButton, then the PixPad
changes to a numeric keypad, as shown here. You can enter a content
element by number, which is handy for very large content libraries.
The PixButtons on the PixPad are used for more then just
content selection. They can also be used for modifiers, which are
accessed by pressing the Controls PixButton. For example, the
PixButtons on the right show clip store modifiers, which can set
mark-in and mark-out points, or set a clip to loop, or to auto-start
when taken to air from preview to program. Other tools have their own
modifiers, such as modifying a DVE box for size, position, crop, border
size and color.
For Keyer Control You always know what content is in each
keyer, thanks to the 3 Key PixButtons in the lower right corner of the
panel. In this example, key 1 has camera 1, key 2 has a clip from the
first channel of clip store, and the clip is called River, and key 3
has a logo called Pinnacle. The color indicates tally, which in this
example tells us Key 1 is on-air, Key 2 is on preview and Key 3 in on
neither the air nor part of the next transition. Of course, like all
PixButtons, the Key PixButtons do more than just tell information at a
glance. When pressed they also take each key on-air or off-air.
|
“The Slate 3000 is a great solution for ‘TNT Overtime’ and ‘TNT RaceBuddy’ because it lets a single operator control all aspects of the webcasts, as well as up to five simultaneously streamed outputs, all from a single, compact system.”