Todd Barnes at City of Thornton has been a Synergy Broadcast customer for many, many years dating back to our robotics days. He's been on a mission to make their station tapeless and has succeeded. Here's what he did...

They use Final Cut Pro as their NLE with Episode Pro to transcode the file from Quicktime to MPEG2 and he says they are achieving flawless playback from this setup. They also use Cinematize to convert their DVD programming and Womble as their MPEG2 Editor.

All live meetings are encoded directly into their Synergy Broadcast encoder and transferred to the Synergy Broadcast DS-1000 for playback. In a recent upgrade they purchased Informa to replace their Scala CG so their graphics could be controlled directly by our VLM Automation Software.

Todd says the new workflow is saving them countless hours in both production and playback. In January they will upgrade their Informa with our new Web Interface, DataXpress and Weather Retriever recently announced in our November eNewsletter.

If you would like to include information on what your station is doing please send me an email and I'll include your story in a future newsletter or blog posting. Send information to cjones@synergybroadcast.com.

Error paging has been updated in VLM Version 2.80 so that it will attach and email the current system log instead of just the last 20 system log entries. This log is in the "text file" format and can be viewed in a text editor such as Notepad. You can also copy LogInspector.exe from the run folder of VLM over to your computer and use it to view the file. To do this you need to place the file into a subfolder called "Logs" under the folder where you copy the LogInspector executable.

If you need more information on Error Pager or the update contained in VLM Version 2.80 please contact your Region Manager or Field Service.

We've added some new devices to our list of controllables. These include a new combo player from JVC that includes a VHS deck and DVD player. The model number is JVC SRM V55. This is an RS232 controlled deck but there is a drawback. JVC did not add codes to allow the controller to advance the deck to first video. That must be done manually. The DVD side will advance to first video.

We've also added the Utah Scientific Model 400 and the Extron MAV series of router switches. On the display side the LG Digital TV was recently added and is being used for digital signage applications using our FireBird digital server.

For additional information on the third party products we control please click on the link below.

If your system is currently 3 to 5 years old or older it probably makes sense to do a technolgy refresh. A technology refresh is simply a close look at your systems and their current operating levels on both hardware and software.

Some of the items you want to check are software rev levels of VLM and related programs, the various operating systems and their levels, the age of your hardware components, the network connectivity and your audio/video routing schemes.

The purpose of the technology refresh is to determine where your system stands in relation to the latest or current rev levels and what things you probably need to do to keep your system current and up-to-date. The more current and up-to-date your system, the easier it is to upgrade in most cases and the better it is likely to perform in all phases of your operation. If you have questions about this please give your Synergy Broadcast Region Manager a call for assistance.

WatchDog's primary purpose is to manage the communication between dual-redundant Master Control computers and Playback Servers. If the primary system fails, the back-up takes over so on-air playback continues. In cases where redundant master control computers don't exist, WatchDog can be loaded as a single-instance application to monitor the core applications of a specific computer, such as the Server, Encoder, Master Control.

For more information on WatchDog click on the link below or contact your Region Manager.