Has this ever happened to you: you went into a store, saw an interesting thing, and twirled it in your hands. I really liked it, but the price is steep. They put it back on the shelf and left. Then we thought and thought – it sunk into our souls. It was decided to buy. We found some money, returned to the store and bought it.

It happened to me. That’s how I bought my first digital camera.

But now more and more trade is moving online. How can you show a product to someone on the Internet? Photos?

I would like to show you these mini reviewers made specifically for an online store. The fact is that photography does not give the buyer a sense of presence. Even if you take a lot of high-quality photos, a person most likely will not view them all. And, as a result, he will not choose this position. And reviews of this kind will show not only the product, but even more. Look, leave a comment, did you feel like you held the product in your hands? Here’s a small selection. Enjoy watching.

And here I am at the ASB – the studio equipment block. The studio with a huge LED screen – 2 meters high and 15 meters long, with six cameras and 32 light sources on the engineering ceiling. There’s a special console for these lights, through which brightness and color are controlled. The position of the lighting devices had to be manually adjusted using a long poker and scaffolding (a ladder on wheels with a platform). All this is separated by a soundproof door and a glass wall, so we can see each other but not hear (sometimes there’s hustle in the ASB). And a curtain that spans the entire wall, needed so that guests in the studio aren’t distracted by us if necessary.

And so, for example, we’re preparing for the news live.

The operator with an assistant adjusts the cameras and lights, moves furniture to marked spots. For such frequent broadcasts, there are already marks for the table, chair, cameras, presets for the lights. The director’s assistant studies the news (script), checks that all the stories from the editors have arrived in a specific folder in the network. Marks which ones are there, which aren’t, sets up the playlist with stories, breaks. The person responsible for the screen sets the background on it, usually also on presets. Presets are saved settings. They are used everywhere for repeatable processes. Titles are being prepared. And for the news – we had a small animation with the weather forecast at the end of the news. All titles in the stories are set by editors. The prompter formats the text for the announcer on the prompter computer. The director oversees everyone and makes adjustments if he dislikes something. The announcer gets makeup, a radio microphone is clipped on, a mini-earpiece in the ear, so he can be prompted during the broadcast. He warms up, reading the news and tongue twisters.

And then, the broadcast. The studio control gives a countdown from 10 to “go”. The director warns the announcer about this in his ear. And the director’s assistant launches the news intro from his computer. The director, accordingly, chooses the right video input. And in the studio, on their mini director’s console, they switch the video input from PlayOut to the studio. The studio is live.

The operator at the control desk manages the cameras (zoom in, zoom out), the director chooses which camera to broadcast. More precisely, not the camera, but the video input. On the console, the main video inputs are cameras 1-6, VMIX (assistant’s computer), skype in 4 channels, Live in 4 channels (these are the operators’ cameras outside, streaming via 4G), titles (with an alpha channel – transparent overlay), video from a computer for video bridges and others.

The prompter scrolls the text, the announcer reads it, looking straight into the camera. The thing is, under the camera, horizontally to the floor, there’s a prompter monitor, and directly in front of the camera, there’s polished glass at a 45-degree angle – in it, the announcer sees his text. It turns out that the camera films right through this glass, and it seems to the viewer that the announcer knows all this text by heart and therefore looks into the camera without looking away))

And then the announcer says: “More on this story…”. And the director commands “Launch!” – the assistant launches the edited story, the director chooses the corresponding video input. The story lasts a couple of minutes – everyone is busy with their tasks (you can even run to the bathroom if the story’s length allows). And sometimes, a file from the editors doesn’t arrive, then the news script is adjusted. The announcer is warned that we’re skipping such-and-such news, the prompter also removes it. 10 seconds before, the assistant warns everyone – the work continues.

In the end, the weather, and farewell. The operator gives the camera a pull back, the finishing jingle. And in the studio control, the countdown when he must take over the broadcast. Launches the next show and on his console switches back to his playlist.

And that’s not all. If the editors didn’t manage to prepare everything for the broadcast, then the reading of missed news by the announcer in the studios follows. I.e., the prompter scrolls – the announcer reads. All of this, of course, is recorded and sent for re-editing of all the news with additions of what was missed in the live broadcast. If everything went smoothly, then the recorded news is simply transcoded into H.264 format, and this file goes into Play Out for repeats.

In the studio control room, after these procedures, work is bustling. The duration of the news can’t be precisely predicted, so the entire playlist shifts off its schedule. Adjustments begin, switching one show for another (a couple of minutes longer or shorter). Intervals, intros, commercials, educational clips, etc., are shuffled. The main goal is to get all the primary programs back to their scheduled start times.

And sometimes, the opposite happens. A live broadcast is underway, and the command from the studio control is “Stretch for another 3 minutes and 45 seconds.” This is whispered to the hosts. Using their skill, they can finish the broadcast with up to 5 seconds of precision.

It turns out that the ASB is a single organism with a significant number of people who must work smoothly and synchronously. Everyone must perform their function clearly and on time. One mistake, and the entire broadcast coughs.

Well, dear readers, I think I’ve slightly unveiled the mystery behind the screen. Like you, I used to watch movies or shows without realizing the amount of work put into them. I’ve even edited videos myself, choosing shots, effects, and spending a day or more to create something special (lasting about 10-15 seconds). Then proudly showing it to family, “Look what I made,” and they’re like, “Okay, turn it on; I’ll come over in a sec.” Both funny and sad)

If you need quality video content – write or call, we’ll do everything. Good luck and success!

A short video review. Illustration for this article. It’s about that studio I’ve been telling you about.

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) ->

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I had the opportunity to work at a television channel.

I started as a video editor, who edited segments for current news broadcasts. Specifically, a camera operator and a journalist would shoot a story, the journalist would then create a script and do a voice-over. The editor’s task was to cut the video according to the script and overlay the voice-over. In the news broadcast, the anchor would say: “And now, our colleague will tell us more about this…” and the director’s assistant would play the pre-edited video file live. Sometimes, it was simply about stitching together several photographs or surveillance camera footage, usually sourced from the internet, to create a short video clip (30-40 seconds). The director’s assistant would play this clip when the anchor was talking about the news, to keep the viewers from getting bored by watching the anchor the whole time.

I also had to edit shows. For example, a “Cooking Show.” This involved a team of camera operators and a director going to a restaurant, setting up several cameras, and filming the show for several hours non-stop. The director is shouting, the restaurant staff are nervous. All of this can be seen in the footage. The result is a 15-20 minute show that was edited from hours of multi-camera footage. I edited talk shows with video links in a similar way. Several cameras in our studio and several in another city. You mix everything together, cut out the unnecessary parts, balance the sound, add music. And, of course, color correction.

Sometimes, I had to redo the opening and closing titles for news broadcasts. Change the logo, the year, adjust the sequence of shots to match the music, and so on. Creating new titles for talk shows was also part of the job.

Later, I started working in the live broadcast department. But more on that next time.