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.

WINOL Strike Special

This week has been a lot of hard work preparing for the strikes. I am happy to say that it was all worth it and we all pulled together an amazing four hour show. I had my reservations about not doing in the studio and going to the Unite the union offices. My gut feeling was that we have a studio that we all know how to work and will only have a very few technical problems; if we do there is always Dave or Corin there to help us. I also thought that the day was going to be hard enough without moving it to another location and taking all the equipment there.

The reasons for which it was moved were: it was easier access for guests, no picket lines to cross, it was a better backdrop for the audience than just a green screen and we were in the heart of the action being in the middle of Southampton.

After visiting and starting to set up on the Tuesday I soon started to feel excited about what we were going to attempt to do. The offices looked great, and had a real old air about them. We had the desk in front of the window where you could see The Avenue behind and the room was plenty big enough for everyone to fit in and work. Rehearsals did not start off as we had liked but within an hour we had been rehearsing and nothing had gone wrong. The hour literally flew by. My role was to work as the director for packages and adverts, worked on the vision mixer, sound and VT's but this was extremely hard with the Tricaster because you could only do everything via a mouse and a keyboard. Jack fixed the vision mixing problem by finding the correct wire for the vision mixing desk and plugging that in but it was still too much work for one person so on the day Katie Rowles and I worked together.

After the rehearsals I felt much better about the strikes on the Wednesday. We still had a few problems to work out but it did start to look like we were going to be able to pull it off.

We started more rehearsals at 10.30 on the 30th. They started out all right but the Internet connections in the room were not as good as they could have been and a problem that we should have fixed the day before. We had guests arrive at about 11am so we were not rehearsing for long before we had to start being professional and working as if it was a live broadcast.

Once the interview had finished we were left with about 10 minutes to prepare ourselves before going live. The interview was no scheduled and I think it left a lot of people worrying and panicking about not having a proper rehearsal and time to breathe. This may have been one of the reasons that in the first hour we were broadcasting on ustream with very little to no sound. The ustream was also behind out filming by about four minutes. The problems with the microphones meant that we had to shut everything off and practically start again. This was not a good start but once this problem was fixed we did not have any others that day.

Working on the vision mixer. the only problem was the lack of cameras and the fact the once we started broadcasting we could not shut the program off. This meant that when we got more packages in on the memory sticks, we had to keep the sticks until we had aired the package otherwise it would go offline. We also only had three memory sticks that were programmed with the Tricaster so we had to alternate with these.

Katie and I also found a way of writing straps and putting them on the live cameras as we were rolling. This was a large feat for us because this enabled us to put names up as well as naming the different areas of the studio. For example when the guests came on we had the strap, "WINOL Live Debate", this made it look even more professional.

The reporters did an amazing job with all of their packages and if we did not have as many as we did all ready save and in the bank we would have had a lot less content and the beginning few hours of the show would have been really boring and hard to get through. Towards the end of our broadcast we started to get some really great content of the strikes, however, the strikes had also started to calm down and in some places they had gone home.

Our Skypes did not work as well as we had planned, or as we had rehearsed. We had one from London Metropolitan, which had to be cancelled half way through and a couple from Liverpool which worked really well but that was it.

Louis O'Brien did really well with getting in the guests that he did. We had Seb Miell, a student, some union members and some councillors. It was really well rounded and we got some great answers from them about the strikes. Jake Gable was great at interviewing them as was Hana Keegan and Cara Laithwaite at presenting. They had all really got a firm knowledge in a lot of the points of the strikes. This was a necessity but they managed to pull it off really well and left myself and the viewer understanding what was going on during the day.

As we streamed to ustream we do not currently have the full show for upload. You can watch above the OB's though, so enjoy.

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.

Winol - 18th May

This week was a DISASTER! I probably say it most weeks but this week was the epitome of awful.

We started out with a plan, as always but we had to pre-record an OOV in the morning which is where it all went wrong. The OOV script and package was not saved correctly so this took time to find and upload. The drop box where we were going to be putting all the packages instead of running back and forth with a hard drive didn't work also. We managed to record the OOV fine and Justina edited it just before we were due to upload the headline clips. This was OK, again a couple were not done by the deadline but they did not miss it by too much time.

Every week the headline script and straps were not as good as they could have been. This meant that we were then trying to come up with better ones when we should have been recording them. Just gone 1 we finished the headlines but we could not export any storiees to our hard drive until Justina had finished editing them and putting them on. This put us back on deadlines for colelcting the packages. If the drop box was working we would have been able to stop the constant backflow of missing deadlines.

Once all the packages were uploaded we then had trouble putting them on to the VT machine, once they were on it then kept crashing and disco wheeling so we closed the whole computer and it then looked like it would work. After last week having Andys package fail in the actual bulletin because I had not checked it meant that I was extra careful this week and I checked that every package worked correctly. What we did not have time to do was to fully play every package for timings. This meant that we found out Kieran had left his package long during the actual bulletin.

The production team did plan 30 minutes after we uploaded the packages to watch through them, make sure they work and for timings but we just did not have the time to accomplish it this week. However I will try again next week.

We also had Andy in as an interviewee about his package this week as well as Natasha as presenter and Sam as Sports presenter. This meant we needed three microphones and three talk backs. We only had two talkbacks which meant Andy went without one. It would have been better if he had had one as his alloted time was limited but Natasha did really well in getting him to wrap up his answer. We had three microphones but two of them kept cutting out and dying. Katie kept replacing them with batteries but in the end Corin checked mic 3 which is now not to be used and Andy and Sam had to swap a microphone I got out from the loan counter at 2.40pm.

After all that I was downstairs trying to get the new microphone to work whilst Justina was counting down to going Live. No one pressed record so we had to stop and start again meaning that we went live at 3.05pm. We still have not done a recording on the Tricaster for the last two weeks as it was messing up our voice syncing but I would like to try this next week.

After it was all recorded we had to put in packages that the VT machine did not allow to work in the bulletin. We also edited the ends and took out a problem we ahd with Kierans pacakge as well as a bad handover.

We then could not export it. We took out the two packages we had problems with in Final Cut and on the VT machine and it exported within three minutes. We could not log on to YouTube after the editing problem and then when we finally could log in YouTube would not fully upload our bulletin. I stayed in Tab9 until eight pm and Justina and Karen stayed until ten pm resutling the multiple upload failures and the bulletin still not being on the site.

The next day Brian managed to get the bulletin uplaoded and on to WINOL by the afternoon. He took out Stuarts piece on Vince Cable and went back through the rushes. I think this is what stopped the VT machine from working and stopped the export from working on Final Cut. This is the first week that I know of where the bulletin has not been up on a Wednesday.

My aims for next week are to use ustream, use and train people on the Tricaster and to have the bulletin up by four pm.

Winol - 16th March

This week was not the best for the production team. We were not able to get in to the studio until 12pm. We had two Skype interviews to do, Japan and Bahrain, Sportsweek, headlines and the bulletin to do in two hours, (before rehearsals for the bulletin).

Of course we all panicked, Justina had the idea to get a camera from the loan counter and film the Bahrain interview on a normal computer. In the end, it looked really good, not as good as it could have looked but not too bad. We then got in to the studio and filmed the Japan Skype interview. The production team worked really well and we got everything done that was needed of us. This made me very proud of my team and happy that we all work well together as well as knowing what we need to do and how to do it.

We worked on the strap lines throughout the morning, before we were able to get in to the studio. Once in the studio we got the Skype done, we did Sportsweek and the headlines were done. However today was the day that everything fell apart. We tried capturing and logging the headlines but when we tried this there were pink fuzzy lines running throughout the recorded footage. This meant we then had to re-shoot the headlines. We did this in one take and Justina edited them quickly.

We then focused on the bulletin. I showed Natasha what to do on the vision mixer and she did an amazing job with only a little bit of training. We then found that the VT's were in the wrong order, there was one missing and there was a spelling mistake on the sports graphic. With all of this going on, we found it hard to hear each other because of the presenters voices being turned up in the gallery, there were quite a few people in there and because we could not always hear each other there were some raised voices. This was not the calmed gallery we are used to and resulted in us all being very stressed. The problems were solved and Justina made the great decsion of pulling the sports graphic before we went live in air.

I recorded on the usual tape and recorded on the Tricaster too meaning we had a back up recording. In future I have to press record as soon as Justina says roll VT because this week on the Tricaster's recording there was about a minute of black where I had been recording too soon. This is one of the points I want to concentrate on next week.

This week was very hectic, some people did not know what they were doing, some were too confused and others work was not fitted in on time on Tuesday and so ran over on to the Wednesday morning when we were busier than normal anyway. Despite many things going wrong throughout the day, we still recorded on time. The tape recorded version of the show did not go on to WINOL at 4 as there were problems uploading it and it had to be compressed but we did have the Tricaster recording on there with the black hole at the beginning.

Next week is our last week and we hope to make the bulletin as near as perfect as the production team can. I have put my team on the areas that they excel in as well as cancelling the entertainment show; giving us more time to work on the bulletin. We do hope to have an entertainment show at some point but want to fully concentrate on WINOL at the moment; especially for our last bulletin before our Easter Break.

Good Luck, Let's make this the best bulletin of this semester.