Fully controlled PC Control Room - Suggestions

[artful42]

Hoping to be given some pointers as to whether this is possible.

I am wanting to set up a Control Room in a school. This will be overlooking a staged area with Blue/Green Screen, small lighting rig, about 4 cameras and a few microphones.

The control room will control all of this, LIVE.

In the control room there will be several PCs controlling each item (1 for lights, 1 for cameras etc)

Every instance just needs VERY basic control so...

PC for lights should be able to turn lights on and off and maybe move one light.

PC for sound to mix audio input from microphones plus any music, sound effects generated from control room PC (pre recorded)

PC for cameras should be able to select camera to generate live feed and also ideally have PTZ control over the cameras

PC for cromakey should be able to generate the backgrounds

 

All this then needs to be mixed into a single broadcastable (local LAN only) source.

Not to complicate things further - this needs to be operated by mutli-touch screens rather than mouse and keyboards

[Grum]

Just curious, why do you want everything to run on PC ?

 

Somethings might be better / easier / cheaper if you purchased the correct specialist equipment plus you'll have the added benefit of teaching your students on equipment they might actually use in the real world if they go on to do this type of work for a living.

[boswell]

Because the OP is an ICT reseller maybe!!

[ramdram]

Hmm...how long do the PCs take to reboot? Would they reboot to the exact cue? Would they all resync to each other sort of thing?

 

One of these ideas which sound "brilliant" in principle and on paper. To my mind there is too much hardware, in your proposal, to go wrong at a critical moment...could be a power thing if no uninterruptible power supply, or a networking problem, or glitch in the user input to the program, say.

 

Boswell points out you are a supplier of IT stuff to "schools" so obviously you would want to float your boat as to the viability of a project your boss or yourself dreamed up. Given plenty of cash and a programmer who understood "theatre" then it is probably achievable.

 

The big caveat is of course the system is very complex and inherently unreliable. Then is is debatable as to whether the students are supposed to be learning how to operate a theatre, so to speak, or it is just an extension to their IT course?

 

Then there is the cost of the hardware needed to run your "magic" system...further reading of this site (you are are only a new boy by the look of it) would have/will reveal that schools are not exactly overflowing with cash resources for ANY project.

 

I suppose the idea could work, given the caveats above...but would the students really benefit from such an automated system...would there be enough teaching/technician resources available...or is it just going to be another white elephant the school authorities have to bear?

 

What do you think?

[Brian]

The problem is that the negative posts above all come at the question from a theatre/live event perspective. From a TV perspective there is nothing new in the OPs question. I was running complete TV channels from what were essentially PC's many years ago. The days of racks and racks of VTs and similar have long gone.

 

There will therefore be a huge benefit to the students in learning on such a system.

[dbuckley]

Crestron or AMX or StarDraw.

[ramdram]

Brian, there may be benefits in running such an operation...assuming you have the staff/technicians to run/maintain the kit. And you have a Head who can talk his LEA into believing his/her school MUST have a TV studio and there is a pot of gold available.

 

It might be more cost effective to leave the PC/TV studio training to the "specialist" colleges, where the staff have more of an idea of the TV program making industry and on running such a set up.

 

Perhaps the OP should not have said "school" and confined his "target" to colleges of further or higher education...in which case his idea might be more applicable, and as such would probably would be of huge benefit to the students.

[Bobbsy]

I'm going to disagree a bit with Brian here. Yes, computer control is certainly the norm for TV transmission suites these days, but that's definitely not the case for a live production studio--which is what's implied here with the mention of 4 cameras.

 

PCs are great for any task where automation is the idea but they're not the perfect solution to everything. Yes, I suppose you could find individual control systems to do most of these tasks, buy hardware interfaces to route video and audio into the computers--then throw in a pile of custom interfaces to adapt multi-touch screens to control them. However, you'd be spending a lot of money to create a system that is almost--but not quite--as convenient as buying specialist dedicated boxes for some of these tasks. And, because this would be a system (or, rather, a series of systems) you'd be inventing from scratch, I question the value of the experience the students will get.

 

It's also worth noting that the driving force of moving to automation in the area of broadcasting is to cut staff costs. Money spent upfront on hardware eventually saves the cost of hiring operators. This advantage does not apply in a school where the students to run things are free! Indeed, in a broadcast company, the goal would be to have ONE computer and operator controlling everything, not multiple PCs, control panels and, therefore, operators!

 

Individual parts of the project could indeed be computers--but I'd put in specialist hardware for other parts.

 

Bob

[Roderick]

I would suggest that the OP may be a wizz with computers, but has little understanding of how things television or theatre work.

Just looking at what all these PC's are supposed to do my guess is that none of this is generated by an end user.

What is the actual purpose of this set-up? Why is it there?

[paulears]

The obvious product would be the Newtec Tricaster - it's a PC all in one box solution. Very popular info here.

 

There aren't really many other solutions - most people in education look at hardware solutions - like the Sony Anycast or the Edirol/Roland units, but the Tricasters have amazing keying facilities, built in virtual studios and come in HD and SD versions. Lighting seems to be MagicQ yet again.

 

I too am a little uncertain what you're trying to do. An educational studio, for something like media studies at GCSE and A Level/BTEC levels has the requirement for all students to be busy - as Bob says. A fully remote control studio doesn't allow for the things these courses need.

 

Studio facilities both simple and complex are rarely out of the box solutions and you cannot spec equipment without a proper budget or needs sheet.

 

I did one last year for a school studio in Bahrain where following their list of "it must be able to do this, and this and this" cost over $250,000. The initial expectation was around $50,000 - but as their requirements were examined, the costs spiralled upwards. At the time, there was a Tricaster in the plan - then it changed from SD to HD, and at that time, the Tricaster in HD only had 3 camera inputs and they needed 4 - so a hardware product was specified instead, with much larger cost. The change fro SD to HD cameras was a big increase to ones with the facilities they needed. Just asking for tally lights was a big step up.

 

What's the idea behind the demand for PC solutions to all this? If the idea is vocational training that mimics professional practice - this seems a little odd?

[lightsource]

Not to complicate things further - this needs to be operated by mutli-touch screens rather than mouse and keyboards

 

 

What's the idea behind the demand for PC solutions to all this? If the idea is vocational training that mimics professional practice - this seems a little odd?

 

I would also say Paul, that reading that last line in the OP, (first quote) a lot of money will also be needed to develop the (Software) system as a viable solution. A question, is why touchscreen only?

 

Everyone wants the best tool for the job, with the best user interface possible, so why take that away at the first opportunity?

 

I think we're all wasting our time here.

[artful42]

Thanks for all your reply's.

This whole project has been dreamed up by a school. The school are having a large extension to accomodate this requirement and they will be getting a size-able grant for the Studio Project. This Studio will be made available to all other schools in the area for full day sessions.

We wanted it to be PC based becuase of the age of the children that will be operating the equipment. It is not intended to teach them the industry standard and we don't want them to be getting confussed with many dials, sliders etc. which you get on many mixing desks.

The control Studio is going to be large, housing 4 or 5 machines intended for use by 2 children per machine.

The whole plan of the project is just to introduce the children to and get them interested and excited about what and how things happen in a studio.

We want children and staff to to be able to come into the studio suite with limited / no experience and at the end of the day come away having acheived something rather than feeling bemused by over complicated technology.

If they can press a single button on a screen to turn a camera on and off, change the chromakey background then this is the goal, I guess I am looking at custom software for this - but I just thought I'd raise these ideas to see if anything like this is currently available or if anyone has any constructive thoughts or ideas to help us along the way.

Many thanks again.

P.S. Yes I am in the ICT Reseller market but we provide schools with a service rather than just supplyhing them with equipment, so if a computer based solution isn't going to work here we'll advice the school accordingly. You don't have to worry about the school being sold a system they don't need or one that is going to be left collecting dust.

[paulears]

Well sadly, your clients are going to be very disappointed. A few of us on here are well versed about vocational education in schools and up to speed on what is being taught, and the skills of the staff. I can almost guarantee that what you are proposing will fall into disuse extremely quickly. Running a studio needs in-depth technical support, which most schools simply don't have and standard operating practices. If the major TV stations could have done this, they would have. The sad truth is that TV and audio production needs people. What you're proposing here is doomed (as Private Frazer would have said).

 

 

Screens won't cut it. In almost every technical production discipline you need to do multiple things at the same time. Maybe select a camera and cut to a new background, or engage PiP and select the right source, or add the border. Turn on two microphones together, run a clip and switch to it - everything is multiple actions. This is why people still spend lots on hardware control surfaces. You cannot work this with a mouse or even touch screen - it doesn't work.

 

You're also forgetting that not everyone is computer literate - including the teachers. Audio and video software is complex and multi-layered. It has to be. A knobless environment is a great idea - it just doesn't work.

 

We're all singing from the same hymn sheet here - any decent consultant brought in to look at the project itself would see the flaws. Hopefully you won't generate a waste of money here. Computers can really help add features to hardware system. They are not replacements. Look at the Tricasters I mentioned. Look at what the hardware needs to have. It runs on a PC inside - but the interface to the outside world is not in the area that computer retailer has experience of. There is no off the shelf card that gives you all the ins and outs you need for anything other than 'playing' at the very basic level.

 

Our opinion seems to be that you are seriously in need of expert advice, but don't actually want to take it.

 

It's fine. I make sensible money every year going to schools and colleges putting right poorly conceived and wasteful projects. Sometimes the end result is nearly the same again expenditure, and that is wrong - because for many of these schools they spent public or charity money on a system poorly designed and totally unsuitable for it's purpose.

 

A few cheap cameras, and an Edirol mixer will be far, far easier for people to work than a PC! A Tricaster will produce stunning results with just a small extra add on hardware box (as Chamsys do with their lighting controls for PC) You can even fix cameras at angles to your greenscreen and have the virtual studio stills switch and track as the camera cuts. Community stations and schools and colleges love them because they are simple and logical to work. I have seen no other computer based product that can do this.

 

My opinion is that a fully controlled PC control room is something that simply won't work - sorry!

 

 

EDIT

The control Studio is going to be large, housing 4 or 5 machines intended for use by 2 children per machine.

 

How on earth will this work? multiple machines? Doing what? one set of cameras (and microphones) to one 'studio control' - the two kids need to be able to hear the studio sound, view the pictures, talk to each other and do things - so what will the others be doing? Even if you stick Adobe Production Premium on each machine - it will be chaos - or do you just mean one computer shared by two people do vision 'things' another does audio things, another does the lights, another does the editing and actual recording? This is perhaps workable - but the communications needed are quite tricky. One workstation will need to handle the recording process, linking to the vision and audio computer stations. Lighting need to see the pictures from the cameras, so needs individual feeds from the cameras. The vision station needs to be able to talk back to the other room, but how do the sound people hear - headphones? Then they can't hear the director, so you give them speakers, which get picked up by the directors microphone and all hell breaks loose!

 

Headphones then need selectable comms and programme audio. It's getting silly now. Having been in rooms planned like this it can be bedlam. The solution, headphones - then stops the kids working together, and worse still, stops the teacher/supervisor hearing what they are hearing - so you then have to install a dedicated monitoring station so the teacher can solve problems and monitor what they're doing.

 

Not wishing to be rude, but have you ever done any TV production using multiple cameras? If you have, I can't quite understand how you've not considered all this?

 

The audio machine, for example - pc based audio mixers are still not that useful without a proper surface with real knobs. Plenty of available software, but fading in music and fading out microphones at the same time is such a basic task that a mouse cannot achieve!

[Ynot]

We wanted it to be PC based becuase of the age of the children that will be operating the equipment. It is not intended to teach them the industry standard and we don't want them to be getting confussed with many dials, sliders etc. which you get on many mixing desks.

OK.

 

THAT statement lone marks you (with respect) as someone who really doesn't understand what proper desks and control equipment actually does and how.

ANY solution, be it PC based or the real tool for the job, can and often will appear confusing and daunting when first presented to a new student. But that is PRECISELY why it needs to have the ease of actual use understood by the teaching staff, who can then educate the young things in what to do. And personally (though this may be an 'age' thing) I've always believed that having a proper box in front of you with all the faders and dials and knobs is infinitely easier to get to grips with than one which is all virtual on a screen.

 

Learning is far easier in a tactile environment - physically pushing up fader 1 and turning knob B is simple, can be done at the same time, and that physical element that aids the education.

 

As for complexity, taking a sound desk for a start - yes, there are a humungous number of knobs on any decent sized mixer, BUT when the teacher breaks it down into what each group of controls is and what they do, it becomes (at entry level) extremely simple to understand. ie - the basics are just input level, auxiliary sends/returns, EQ, pan and channel fader.

Multiply those by the number of channels and that pretty much sums up the hardware, with some extra bits & bobs on some channels.

So please don't confuse the issue by suggesting that just because it's all on a screen instead of a physical box that it's necessarily easier to use - the understanding of precisely what is happening with the sound/lights/video etc is exactly the same in either scenario.

[Jivemaster]

I've seen all this before! and 15 years ago, so it's NOT cutting edge. HOWEVER that was a BBC TVC news studio with some seriously skilled staff. Only the newsreaders were on the floor, all the cameras were fully remote controlled (called daleks!). In the gallery were touch screens giving thumbnails of each available shot type, touch it and all the cameras moved automatically.

 

However for the education sector, 1 you lack the highly skilled gallery staff, 2 you lack the skilled maintenence staff, 3 you lack the sort of budget needed to keep it running.

 

So simply, it can be done, it's already old tech. BUT the support in terms of staff, training and funding needed inside the "education" sector simply isn't going to happen. So the kit will fall into disuse then misuse then disrepair, then the supplier's reputation will likely go the same way