| MTV2 (website) wanted an automated solution for a
nightly hour-long show in which viewers could log on to the MTV2 website and vote for the next video to
be aired. The winning video would play automatically, and the next round would begin.
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Control Freak on MTV2 |
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On-Air Graphics |
The system would display a frame that includes these elements: The currently played video (squeezed down),
a still image with the artist-title crawls for each of the three next video choices ,and a countdown timer.
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Polling System |
It would create and execute calls to MTV2.com's web server to create polls dynamically, make them
active (triggering appropriate graphics on the web site), monitor results for display on-air and, after
the current video has completed, shut down and archive the poll.
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Automation Interface |
The system must be able to interface with an existing Harris
Automation system and must be able to schedule the next video on Harris within seconds on the fly as a result
of the Internet polls.
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Authoring System |
The system must include distributed authoring software for MTV2 programming staff
to schedule shows each night. The authoring system must be able to interface to MTV's databases of all
available music videos as well as a database of still images to be used on both the web site and on-air.
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Our Solution |
We built a software and hardware solution for MTV2 based on the Chyron Duet platform for graphics,
the Miranda ImageStore2 for DVE / squeezeback, Fwith
the Gecko playout module for overall system control.
Control Freak Authoring
The Gecko playout system monitors the Harris Automation system for the next show to start.
Once the start of program is detected, the control PC synchronizes the playout of the videos, triggers
the fly-in of the graphics frame on the Duet, triggers the squeezeback of the program video on the
Miranda and programs and monitors the web polling engine.
At the end of each round, the appropriate
changes are made to the Harris playlist to ensure that the proper video is played, the frame is flown
out on the Duet, the video is made full-screen on the Oxtel and the poll is shut down and archived.
Video Design Interactive also created a custom authoring tool for MTV2's programming staff to create shows
from available videos. The authoring tool allows for distributed creation of shows from multiple locations.
It also has multiple review tools for ensuring that the schedules are accurate and video stills are available.
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