Without questioning you, Ben, after what happened at Euro 2008 this year*, I cannot believe that networks that broadcast sports haven't made the effort to prepare for "worst case" scenarios.
As for Turner: No one at CNNHN or TNT couldn't have grabbed the satellite coordinates and picked up the feed? * A lightning strike at the stadium effectively took out the global TV feed for the better part of the second half, missing two goals in the process. On Oct 19, 12:51 pm, "Ben Scripps" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 3:59 AM, PGage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I wonder if the technical people here can explain this a little > > better. Why couldn't they have put an audio feed on the air? It seems > > like, if they could put the Steve Harvey show on they could have found > > a way to grab the radio feed from ESPN or something and put it on > > until they fixed the problem. > > I'll preface this by saying my experience is with small-market > television and not so much with national cable networks, so this is > obviously a guess. > > They said the router failed. The router is basically an audio/video > switchboard--think of the old-time telephone operators stringing a > cable from one phone line to another to place calls. The router is an > electronic version of that, allowing a station to direct any piece of > audio/video to anyplace that has an output from the router. The > master control switcher (the piece of equipment, not the person > operating it) likely has only a limited number of direct inputs on the > board, which are reserved for things like tape decks, servers and > commercial playback systems. (This being TBS, there are likely direct > feeds from CNN and other semi-external sources available as well.) > Because they need the flexibility to patch anything on the air, there > are several outputs for the router, so the MCO can patch through > anything necessary for on-air. But, if the router fails, the MCO is > limited to the buttons that are directly patched into the switcher > itself--thus, the standby tape of "Steve Harvey", 'cause there was > nothing else to go to. > > The other thing is that, ignoring any rights issues with ESPN, the > engineers there likely knew it wouldn't take very long to get the > router back up and running, and it would take some of them away from > working on the router problem to devise some method of patching > through the audio. Plus, if they went to those extremes, trying to > patch through the audio from ESPN, it would basically be them trying > to bypass the entire infrastructure of master control--essentially > connecting the ESPN audio directly into the outgoing satellite feed. > And if you're gonna go to those extremes, you might as well just patch > in the incoming satellite feed of the game instead of the ESPN audio. > > -- > -- > Ben Scripps > [EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Like TV only smarter. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
