Newsroom software & XD850

[JonCrowe]

A station I'm working with on a project is using ENPS by the Associated Press to write/produce their newscasts. The ENPS software interfaces with the current cg (chyron). When a reporter writes a story in ENPS they can enter text and have a lower third created in the chyron. ENPS uses the MOS protocol which they claim is an open standard protocol.

We're wanting to use the XD850 and have the same ability for the reporters in the newsroom to put in their lower thirds, and have them show up in the 850. These lower thirds are only two lines, name & description. Is there an easy way to do this without installing LiveText on every newsroom computer?

[Brian Mirrlees]

I guess the first question to answer is if the TCXD-850 is MOS compliant, and then if it is, is there a MOS client for it that you can network to ENPS?

my lengthy long winded overview below...

The MOS protocol is a duplex serial communications standard which connects devices on the MOS network back to the central news room computer production system. ENPS is a premiere or "A" line type of system with a large installed base of systems around the world.

The intergration of the ENPS system with various MOS compliant devices in a full news production enviroment requires a playlist controller(s) at the specific device(s) on the MOS network.

These can be video servers, conventional graphic devices like CGs or Still Stores etc.

In the case of a character generator, the CG template is first created in the CG unit. This template defines screen position for display, font type, size, border/edge, background carriers, plates, backgrounds, motions etc.

In our facility, once the CG template has been made, it is then linked or set-up in the ENPS system for "CG" input by producers, writers, reporters, editors etc.

They are simple text input fields that appear on the ENPS workstation screen, and can be opened, created, edited, saved, and assigned to a specific channel on the CG,

The user will go to the CG column drop down for the story they are working on and select the approriate CG "key". We call these by a variety of descriptive names like "1 Line locater", or "2 Line Locater", "Banner", etc.
and input the required text data and then save it with a time note in the story position in the rundown.

Prior to airtime, the Producer will "lock" the order of the rundown page numbers so that if the order has to change while on air for whatever reason (like a live truck not being ready or a reporter item/story not being ready - like that never happens) then the rundown order can change or float. After the lock, if an item or "story slug" has to move up or down in the show, all the ENPS attributes associtated with it on the page numbers (like A12, A13, A14x or B8, etc.) move with the Page and Story slug.

Our station has used both Chyron Infinits, and Deko 3000s. Each CG has had to interface to ENPS via a specific MOS interface/playlist controller.
This device will transfer the text data from the various ENPS workstations throughout the facility and store it in the CG in the defined template format and a specific file address or page location. Once it is stored, it will send a confirmation back to ENPS that shows that it is stored and ready.

We currently use 2 DEKO units for a total of four (4) output channel going to the production switcher. Each DEKO unit has to have a separate MOS input/playlist controller.

During the show, the CG operator "simply" scrolls down the playlist and hits the read function on the CG... well in "theory"... The live CG operator catches alot of spelling errors, mis-formatted keys (like when the producer or reporter exceeds the total number of characters of a field by typing in 27 characters on a template designed for 18. Our operators also load, start, play, stop, clear motions and various clips... we have found this to be faster and more reliable. The Ops also add live flags, clocks etc.

[csandy]

Huntsville is nice. Like the new Bridgestreet mall.

Maybe NewTek will sell you a volume license?

OR - you can have a custom application on each work station that updates a centralized database. The TCXD can pull the changes from the database from a LiveText 2 template.

Get in touch with José or one of the other professional title makers on here and I'm sure they will be able to help you out.

[JonCrowe]

Brian, you described the workflow exactly. The question is, can LiveText or a title template be "created" inside of ENPS. Or there may be a much simpler
way to do it using an Lscript or database.

csandy, yes Huntsville is very nice, and speaking of bridgestreet, we have a 4pm newscast from there everyday M-F.

[Paul Lara]

TriCaster TCXD850 does not support MOS protocol, but there may be some database hooks that could be used instead.

[JonCrowe]

Thanks Paul. The reporters/producers just need a way to create the lower third text (name & description) and have that update a template in LiveText. It should be easy from one machine, but there are 10 to 15 computers that would need to be able to "create" the lower text without overwriting anyone else's text. Any more details on the database hooks?

[ZachSchuster]

Just to chime in... last I heard, the XD line does not support Datalink, so dynamically updating CG templates would be tough. However, a separate system running LiveText 2, you could probably have an application developed that pulls the data from the database and into keys and values that would populate CG templates in LT2.

[csandy]

csandy, yes Huntsville is very nice, and speaking of bridgestreet, we have a 4pm newscast from there everyday M-F.

Cool. I just saw a bad movie at that very good theatre - in the upstairs lounge section.

What's the URL to your webcast? I'd love to see it.

[csandy]

Just to chime in... last I heard, the XD line does not support Datalink, so dynamically updating CG templates would be tough.

Datalink is integrated into LiveText 2 now. So it's natively part of the TCXD850 system. The LT2 manual should describe how to set up the database hooks.

[ZachSchuster]

Datalink is integrated into LiveText 2 now. So it's natively part of the TCXD850 system. The LT2 manual should describe how to set up the database hooks.

Right, but on my XD300, LiveText 2 does NOT support Datalink when in Live Production. Steve mentioned a while back that it would be the same for the XD850.

[SBowie]

Right, but on my XD300, LiveText 2 does NOT support Datalink when in Live Production.

To be quite clear, you can't use TCXD's integrated LT2 when live - just like you can't use Edit Text on TCSD while live. Of course, you can use an external, standalone copy of LT2 without that restriction.

[PIZAZZ]

I have a few installations with EZNews in schools and we are working on a way to do this also. So far some custom scripts and programming have come into play to interface their database with a go between database to finally get it into LiveText2.0.

So here is another vote for the ability for LiveText2.0 to accept MOS feeds. Industry standards are awesome.

[ZachSchuster]

To be quite clear, you can't use TCXD's integrated LT2 when live - just like you can't use Edit Text on TCSD while live. Of course, you can use an external, standalone copy of LT2 without that restriction.

Correct. Sorry for not being clear on that. The point is this... on the TCXD series, you cannot have datalink CGs native on the system, you must use a standalone copy of LT2 running on another computer.

[SBowie]

No worries, Zach, I knew exactly what you meant - just making sure it doesn't confuse someone less familiar with the details.

[csandy]

Hopefully the guy who started the post will share whether a LT2 workstation solution would work for him, at least in the short term.

I'm with Jef that using the MOS protocol in the long run makes sense. It's an open standard isn't it? I don't think there are any royalties to be paid or expensive licenses or anything like that. Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong.