I spent a lot of time working on, over and around master control switchers. Generally a television broadcast facility will have one of these, in which all the available signals to put on the air go through.
Whether automated or operated manually, they are the last line before the signal goes to transmission. Here are a few I have played with. I do mean play with as they can be fun...when operated correctly!
Your control panel operated the switcher, which was really a set of electronics in a nearby rack.
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| Me and the Utah Scientific MC-500 master control switcher panel at KPBS, San Diego |
So let's start with Utah Scientific. Many stations in the 80's had these models. Above, I am manually operating the stereo version. The picture depicted below is the one that adds "Secondary Audio Program" capability for a total of three audio channels. This device had a couple of degress of automation capability. A simple event stacker to automatically select your sources, or more sophisticated total automated control. I operated one manually, mostly. The big red buttons at the bottom got the given source; studio feed, satellite feed, videotape machine, etc. It gave us capability to roll a machine and take it to air with one button push. You never forget your first!
Of course there are SEVERAL manufacturers of these things, but the next several I got my hands on were all Grass Valley (Group) devices. Let's start with UNCTV's GVG 1600 4s
On the face of it, it does not look as sophisticated, but the truth is that people RARELY hit the "Big Red" TAKE button. This device was the switcher AND automation system. Manual control was possible. It controlled all machines and had a Graphical User Interface for programming. We typed in times and events, and it just ran them; provided you had the times correct. There was this crazily wildly smart fellow at UNCTV in the engineering department that helped develop some of this with Grass Valley Group to make this system happen. Despite the seemingly old control panel.
Now at one point UNCTV had to retire their 1600 4S master control switcher, but they had a new one waiting in the wings.....
This is the Grass Valley Group Master-21 system. Though slicker looking, it DID NOT have it's own degree of automation. Sure you could switch sources and control machines manually, but in the end it was a "dumber" device than the 1600 4S. You can see similar audio-only sources in yellow like the Utah Scientific had in the upper-left. Lots of sources you could get from your house router; hence those windows above some of the buttons.
In this case, I did not just operate this; I helped configure it to work with a Louth (now Harris) automation system. Nowadays any station has a big external computer system to operate every device needed to make automated switching happen. This differs from the 1600 4S; as it WAS the automation system. In today's world of multiple channels, external automation systems control perhaps several of these switchers (pick your make and model). Everything here is analog television. But of course digital is coming.....
Here are large AND small control panels for the Digital grass Valley group M-2100 switching system (NOT to be confused with the Master-21 above. Brilliant). Now we have digital switchers, even for HDTV and these control panels can control several (often up to 8) separate master control switchers.
The electronics in the racks are a lot smaller than the analog days. This system had control of 5 SD and 1 HD switcher in this case. Of course you can't manually operate all of them at once; that is what the automation is for. But you can select which switcher you want the control panel to look at, and all the source names would show up in the little windows above the busses, or rows of buttons.
The days of watching the clock, waiting for a satellite feed to show up on time, or "pre-rolling" a machine (making it roll a few seconds before going to air so that the picture locked up correctly) are long over now. Automation takes control, and you only manually intervene if something goes wrong or you just want to make a small change.
....but the automation has to be programmed correctly! So we still have somebody watching that watcher. But they are watching 5,6,7,8,9,10, who knows how many channels go by!
