For the TV station who has had the number one newscast since TV screens were one inch in diameter, I don't know what was up Friday on the 11pm newscast. Several instances of black, commercials just sitting in pause, the same promo running several times in a row,the weather guy couldn't get his graphics up, they couldn't get the sports guy's mike on, finally the main anchor says their ending the newscast early hoping they'll get their computer problems worked out by the weekend newscast. Come-on, Newscenter 7! What's up with this shoddy performance?
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WHIO-TV Dayton..extreme tech difficulties Friday at 11pm
- Thread starter gr8oldies
- Start date
Re: WHIO-TV Dayton
Sister station WSB-TV Atlanta has its problems too...but it has never abandoned a newscast. One common problem that occurs on a regular basis is the stetching or squeezing of pictures as a result of them being widescreen or not (HD issue).
Sunbeam's WHDH Boston one day last year ended up ending a newscast after 5 minutes due to major computer problems. Computers have become so intertwined in station operations (any anything to do with our lives in general) that a glitch can paralyze a station to its knees.
It was a wonder that when CNN got hit with a major computer virus in 2005, that they stayed on the air (with graphics, albeit no ticker). I remember seeing Ali Velshi's computer constantly rebooting over and over again that day.
gr8oldies said:
Sister station WSB-TV Atlanta has its problems too...but it has never abandoned a newscast. One common problem that occurs on a regular basis is the stetching or squeezing of pictures as a result of them being widescreen or not (HD issue).
Sunbeam's WHDH Boston one day last year ended up ending a newscast after 5 minutes due to major computer problems. Computers have become so intertwined in station operations (any anything to do with our lives in general) that a glitch can paralyze a station to its knees.
It was a wonder that when CNN got hit with a major computer virus in 2005, that they stayed on the air (with graphics, albeit no ticker). I remember seeing Ali Velshi's computer constantly rebooting over and over again that day.
You don't necessarily need a computer/server to cause a major catastrophe. In Topeka, a jolt of static electricity shorted out the switcher five minutes before a 10:00 newscast. We went on the air with the master control switcher, which could only provide two sources ... of anything. There were a lot of closeups, tape, closeups, tape, closeups, and tape.
TheRob said:
We came close to that a few times at my first job (WJBF-TV Augusta, GA). They have a GVG 3000 switcher that was having a mind of its own just before the newscast. But, the engineers got it working just before show time. I think it ended up being a bad board.
In my current job, we have 25 satellite/cable network originations on one platform with a unified archive system. During the first year, trying to get the archive to talk to the playout servers and getting the software program that manages content on the playout servers to communicate properly was a total pain. There were a few times we were running 8-10 networks from VTRs! One time, the archive was messed up so bad (it's data tape with a 5TB cache) the engineers had to take the robot (tape handler) apart and piece it back together! Talk about fun! It's a good thing I'm already bald ;D
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