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1.1 How Does Neptune Fit Into My Operation?: Client User Interface
1.1 How Does Neptune Fit Into My Operation?: Client User Interface
1.1 How Does Neptune Fit Into My Operation?: Client User Interface
facility. It helps you ingest material into your broadcast devices, create transmission
schedules, assign resources for playback, run playlists and make changes right up to the last
moment.
Neptune is a multi-channel, frame accurate and easy to use tool. It runs under the industry
standard Windows 2000 and XP operating systems and has an intuitive Windows user
interface.
Neptune controls a broad range of device types such as a video disk server, VTR,
router/matrix, master control switcher, cart machine, archive tape drive or library as well as
slave device types such as a character generator, subtitle and aspect ratio converter.
It is a powerful, expandable and highly versatile product, which is continually being
enhanced to meet customer needs and to integrate new devices.
1.1 How does Neptune fit into my Operation?
Neptune interfaces easily with traffic, newsroom systems, scheduling systems and transmission
devices and is scalable from small to large systems. Figure 1-1 provides an overview of Neptune
interfaces.
Pebble Beach provides an ActiveX plug-in that has a view of the Pebble Beach storage
database. Using this view, users can drag and drop media items from the Pebble Beach
storage database directly into the NCS.
1.2 System Components
Neptune is made up of a number of computers which may be connected on a private local
area automation network. The main components are:
Device Controller
Housekeeper
Client
Figure 1-2 is a simple diagram of a Neptune system, featuring transmission, ingest and
browse functionality. The diagram also includes integration with Pebble Beach‟s Anchor
Media Manager and Transcode Manager. See the document PBSD-5002 Anchor Operator
Manual for more information on this product.
Device Controller
The controller communicates with broadcast devices via RS422 serial and network
connections. GPI contacts may be used for controlling simple devices and to trigger list
control functions within the automation such as cue, play and next.
The controller communicates with other components, such as the housekeeper or
clients by network communication using both TCP/IP and UDP protocols. Each
component is able to issue control commands and receive status information.
Neptune is able to control up to 48 serial devices from a single controller. If more devices
need to be controlled, additional controllers can be added.
device controller. In the example above, there are two clients for ingest and three for
transmission.
Ingest
The ingest client is used to prepare material for playback and for recording material into
broadcast devices. The ingest client allows a user to select source and destination devices to
perform these tasks.
Source devices may be VTRs (standalone or within a robotic tape library), video servers or live
sources. Destinations can be VTRs, video servers or browse encoders (MPEG 1/2/4 or WM9).
Material may be copied from a source device to a number of destination devices. Figure 1-3 shows
an overview of the devices an ingest client is able to control. It also includes interfaces to a scanner
and printer for use of barcodes.
The ingest client also provides a user interface for metadata to be entered into Neptune‟s
SQL database. The metadata includes the SOM, duration, ID, title, user notes and other
information. Barcode ID generation, printing and scanning are also supported.
Transmission
The transmission client provides a user interface to enable the transmission operator to
control the playback of material using playlists. It has a user friendly graphical interface that
enables changes to be made easily.
A playlist is a schedule of events to be played which has a group of resources available to it, such as
video server ports and VTRs. Each event has attributes that dictate how it starts, how it ends,
whether the event is played and so on. As the list is run these attributes are performed in sequence,
using the resources available to it, until an event arises that requires operator input or the operator
intervenes.
4 Transmission
The transmission client provides a user interface to enable the transmission operator to
control the playback of media using playlists. Transmission clients share the same software
as Ingest clients, though the functionality of the client will differ depending on the system
configuration.
4.1 Transmission List Overview
Each channel a broadcaster transmits that is under automation control will have a playlist
associated with it. A playlist is a schedule of events run sequentially by Neptune. An event in
a list is represented by either a media event, such as a program or a commercial, a live
event, a marker event or a comment.
Media events, live events and marker events may have secondary events associated with it.
For example, logos, Keyers, GPI triggers etc. Marker events are list events that have zero
duration but can have secondaries associated with them. Marker Events may be used for
triggering secondary events such as logos, which will be unaffected by the re-ordering of
events between the markers. The events may also be used to trigger regional opt out lists.
Comments are editable text fields that allow the user to make notes, enable list looping or
easily identify important points in the list.
Events are displayed in a grid showing one primary event per row. Figure 4-1 shows a typical
transmission list.
Each event has attributes that dictate how it starts, how it ends and so on. As the list is run these
attributes are performed in sequence using the resources available to the list until an event is
encountered that requires user input, such as the end of a live show or until the user intervenes.
When a list is running, the on air event in a list is displayed in green. The event immediately
after the on air event is displayed in yellow, indicating its cued status. Live events or media
events allocated to a different resource, such as a VTR device or second server port will also
be displayed in yellow if within the list‟s cue time. The list cue time is set to 02:00:00:00 by
default and is configurable.
The order of events within a list can be changed quickly and easily. This can be
accomplished by selecting the event to be moved and dragging it to the required
position within the list. Changes to the order of events within a list can be made
right up to the last moment before an event is due to go on air, the limiting factor
being the cueing time of the resource. This is typically less than one second for most
modern video servers. The minimum clip length supported by a system may also be
a factor to consider. Again, this tends to be defined by the performance of the server
being used for playout. Should a list be unable to cue an event, for example if the server
port associated with the event is experiencing problems, the list will work its way through the
scheduled events until it finds an event that it is able to cue.
Where multiple transmission clients are attached to a device controller, the
possibility may arise where lists may be edited by more than one user at the same
time. If a list is being edited from another transmission client, the control bar is
displayed in a darker shade of red. This does not lock the list but any user may take
control of the list by simply entering edit mode.
Figure 4-2 shows two clients accessing the same list. The control bar for the second
client is shows the list is in edit control mode from another client.
Figure 4-2 Two clients accessing the same transmission list
Double click on the appropriate transmission list. The list is shown by the symbol. Figure 4.2-2 shows
a typical transmission list.
Operators are able to play the list in any sequence desired rather than following regular sequential
ordering. Figure 4-81 shows an example of a typical news list interface.
Figure 4-81 News List Overview