Multi-Channel Applications of Cart Machines

Increased industry interest in programming multiple output channels from a single location led Odetics engineers to investigate an economical solution to feeding different commercials to each feed. Implementation without duplicating the cart library or dedicating a cart machine to each feed were the basic design criteria. — This paper will describe the design of a Break Tape Manager (BTM) to meet these requirements and its integration with the Cart Machine using a Local Area Network. This approach minimizes the number of VTRs required for each additional channel. The system can manage programming and commercial replay for several independent feeds as well as for split feeds, where the programming is common and only the commercials are regionalized. The BTM also accommodates late changes to the regional schedules. — Such operation is now commonly required for superstation or network operation and is becoming an important issue to local broadcasters as they look for additional revenue streams for their product. — The introduction of the BTM highlights the importance of being able to share database information between several automated systems. An expandable network based system architecture is therefore an important aspect of system design and is vital when multiple cart machines and workstations are in use. This paper also describes the implementation of the LAN for managing multiple cart machines and integrating their operation.

Published

1991-02

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/M00900

ISBN

978-1-61482-919-5