Work of a Television Channel. An Inside Look. Part 1 (Video Editor)
It turned out that the channel had fired the people who were in charge of broadcasting. And they asked me to take over. My knowledge about broadcasting was practically nil. I sat down in the broadcast studio and began to familiarize myself with the documentation, the software in which the broadcast is assembled, the licensing conditions, etc.
The situation was as follows: the playlist was compiled until 3:00 PM. Meaning, at 3:00 PM, the broadcasting stops. Do whatever you want, but the broadcast must not stop.
It turned out that the entire broadcast boiled down to the fact that a sequence of video files was compiled using a special program for Windows. The main function of this program is the convenient creation of round-the-clock playlists. Also, it checks the integrity of the file so it doesn’t glitch when playback starts. That is, one Play Out program, which manages the playlists, and the second is a video player controlled by Play Out. Also, all this functionality is automatically duplicated on a backup server. If the main one fails, you can manually switch to the backup while the problem is being fixed. For example, you might need to reboot the computer, clean it, etc. All this is done through a small director’s console.
Its main goal is to select the broadcasting signal source: the first server, the backup second, and separately the live broadcast. The broadcast studio is located next to the main studio block, the equipment-studio block (HSB). You can communicate with the director through a microphone and headphones, but mostly, for some reason, this communication happened through the air. The main goal of this communication is to synchronize live broadcasts with the playlist.
But the challenges of working as a program director didn’t stop there. It turned out that, in addition to all this, it was necessary to monitor the meaning and language of the broadcast content to fit into the concept of the license. That is, for example, there must be at least 5 hours of news broadcasts per day, 3 hours of educational, 1 hour of children’s, 1 hour of sports, etc. The license spells all this out, with each channel having its own concept. Broadcasts in the Ukrainian language must run from 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM, with the channel’s own content (created by the channel) being at least 5 hours a day, among other conditions.
All this had to be documented with the appropriate paperwork for each day ahead with a list of the programs to be broadcast. Plus, it was necessary to compile the program for the following week so it could be published in newspapers, on the internet, and on teletext (each modern TV has a corresponding button for this).
It was also necessary to ensure that the entire broadcast was recorded on a separate server.
At first, I was overwhelmed, but then Excel came to my aid with its macros. Fortunately, there was a simple export from Play Out. In general, I managed to organize the work and replace two people who had worked there before me. And after.
I think I’ve covered the main points of broadcasting. Next, I moved to the HSB (Hardware-Studio Block), where I worked at absolutely all the workstations. In the next article, I’ll talk about this experience.
Work of a Television Channel. An Inside Look. Part 3 (ASB – Hardware-Studio Block) ->
