WINOL - 7 December

Au revoir my beloved WINOL. My very last show and it was much more emotional than I first thought. For the last 11 weeks I have been counting down the shows as things have gone wrong every week and I was not enjoying WINOL as much as I used to. I expected to just feel relief when I finished and we packed up the studio but it does feel a bit like the end to an era. I have been on production for WINOL for the last three semesters and I have learnt so much. I know every part of the gallery and the studio and I really do hope that this will not be the last time I am in a studio.

The show went well, Dan directed, I was on the sound board, George vision mixed and Justina was on autocue. I think it is quite ironic that I was on the sound board and enjoying it when only three weeks ago I dreaded it. The show went so smoothly, everyone was relaxed, happy and calm. The packages were great, and the presenters did really well too. It felt bittersweet because we were all tired and just waiting for the end but on the other hand I felt quite sad that it was all finished. My three semesters have flown buy, it feels like only yesterday that I was working with third years before me on their last WINOL. The only advice I can give to anyone working on WINOL is; enjoy every minute. From the complete lows to the ecstatic highs, enjoy everything because it will all be gone in the blink of an eye.

The only problem we had this week was that our green screen was no longer on the SD card and ALL of our work had been deleted from the computer in the studio. When I say ALL I mean absolutely everything, even the routes and backgrounds to the files were deleted. Suspiciously Media still had all of their work on the computer though, and in fact had more work; plastering the entire desktop. I worked on getting back the green screens whilst Jack focused on putting the beginning sequence together.

Luckily on the Tuesday I found all of our music for the opening sequence in ten second parts which helped Jack as he then only had to find the video of the opening sequence and put the two together. I remembered that Chris had saved the Sportsweek background on Flickr so after trolling it for a while I found the background. The WINOL news bulletin background was completely lost though. I realise that this is partly our fault as we should have backed everything up but I do not think it entered any of our minds for a moment that we may loose all of our work.

So, my only idea for making sure that we had a background for the following day would be to look though all our tapes of WINOL to find a spot where there was no-one being filmed and just an empty room with our background. It took five tapes but I finally found a tiny spot, about three seconds long that had no-one and nothing in. I captured this, grabbed it, then saved it to the desktop.

To get the picture on to the SD card you have to open it in photoshop. You then have to change the image size to 720x576 pixels. You then need to save this as 24 bit.bit map or 24 BMP. Put in the SD card and move the background in to the file marked, 'images' and you're done. When it is put into the vision mixer it should download properly. My next blog will have the Sportsweek and WINOL backgrounds in for any future use, best to back everything up.

That was my feat for this week. Getting our green screens back and having them working in time for our bulletin at three.

Please find above my very last WINOL Bulletin show. Enjoy.

I wish good luck to everyone that is carrying on with WINOL or just starting. I hope I have guides that are relevant for you on my blog. Such as my OB Kit and Tricaster post and my next one with the green screens in. Best of Luck.

A Guide to... Setting up the Tricaster and the OB Kit

This is just something to refer back to as there are so many wires for each of them and it can get very confusing.

OB Kit:

For this you will need 1 x Black Cable

2x White Cable

1x Blue Cable

1x Audio box from the OB kit

1x Audio box

1x Orange extension lead

Talk Back, grey wire. In the front of the OB kit.

Microphone, in little black pouch.

1. "Audio Tie 1" links with the black cable to the microphone cable.

2. The left green wire from the cupboard links to one audio box. Then plug the headphones in to the same audio box.

3. The right green wire links with the blue cable and is plugged in to the second audio box. Plug the talk back in to this box too.

4. "Video to Studio" links with one of the white cables and goes in to the yellow hole on the camera.

5. "PGM Out" links with the other white cable and goes in to the TV box. You need to also plug this TV box in to the mains with the plug.

6. Make sure all the plugs are turned on around the cupboard. You may not always need the extension lead.

7. Turn the camera on and check the microphone and the talk back are working. You will now be fully connected with the studio.

Tricaster:

For this you will need 1x Tricaster

1x Tricaster screen

1x Internet cable

2x Plugs

1x Blue ended cable

1x Audio cable from the power tower in the gallery

1x Camera cable from the power tower in the gallery

1x Mouse linked to the tricaster through a USB lead.

1. Get all the wires out, the screen and the tricaster.

2. Plug in the tricaster and the screen with the power cables.

3. Link the screen and the tricaster together with the blue ended cable. One end goes in to the blue slot on the back of the screen and the other end goes on to the blue plug in slot at the bottom of the tricaster.

4. Plug in the Internet cable to the slot on the tricaster and to the wall in the studio.

5. From the Power tower get the camera cable and the two audio cables. Put the camera cable on to the "Y Composite" on the front of the tricaster and put the audio cable in to the top two slots on the front of the tricaster.

6. Turn the tricaster on at the back and the round button at the front of the tricaster.

7. No need to press ANYTHING else until it is fully loaded, and the gallery screen comes up.

To link the Tricaster to ustream to broadcast live or to record you need to go on to ustream.tv and login. You need to do this on another laptop. Do not do it on the tricaster and do not use the compter in the gallery because your recording from the tape deck will have the voices out of sync.

The login details are, username: WINCHESTERJOURNALISM

password: WINCHESTER1

All in capitals. Then click on the tricaster to record/stream. Click on ustream to stream and allow all options. Only click this just before you are ready to start recording or you will have a black screen for some times before your showing starts.

When saving this make sure you write something in every box as this is the only way it will save. You will then find it under, "my videos".

Good Luck.