rkolsen 1678 Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 I've wondered how does the out put work in weather systems in relation to the clicker. I have heard that stations frequently have multiple weather computers that are live during any given show. What I'm wondering say during a preset show and the meteorologist is away from the computer and needs to switch to the other computer during the rundown. It appears that it is effortless and immediate from the press of a button. I know some technical directors are good but they would have to have instantaneous reflexes. How does the weather computer can simultaneously change the output on the fly? Does the computer automatically change the output or does the clicker control something at the switcher? Also anyone got links to different manuals either old Weather Central or WSI systems? The only WSI manual I could find is about 15 years out of date. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProButtonPusher 230 Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 I know in cases that I have seen, the weather computer has an HD-SDI input, and they simply switch to a "slide" with that would display that input. That's how they can go from another system, like VIPIR or their tower cam right into their graphics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WXmanTim 88 Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 It all depends on the set up. WeatherCentral (now part of WSI) has slides built into it that can pull a video feed (as mentioned, either from tower cams, Baron - which offers Vipir & Omni graphics systems - or from the internet). The only WSI-native system I have experience with was a terribly outdated model used during my summer internship in Nashville. That WSI setup required a manual switch between Baron and WSI in the control room. After it was replaced by a WeatherCentral computer midway through the summer of 2008, the two sources were integrated. At KRIV everything was integrated through the aforementioned video scenes. Interestingly enough, the Mets there generally used Baron's clicker, rather than WeatherCentral's, even though WeatherCentral was the primary on air computer. Baron's clicker had more buttons, which could be set up to control both the Omni and WXC boxes independently. The only drawback was the "draw" and "place" functions on WXC were not supported. The process of switching between the sources is not always perfect. Occasionally on the wxc system, the previous scene will flicker or appear to jump during the transition between slides. Some transition effects smooth this out better than others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkolsen 1678 Posted March 8, 2015 Author Share Posted March 8, 2015 From what both of you have said it sounds like the weather computers have HD-SDI outputs that can go directly into the master switcher but then also into a master computer or weather switcher that can be triggered by the clicker during a show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCAUTVNBC10 408 Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 Correct. WPVI for example has WSI running their overall weather presentation but uses a Baron live radar and they have to use its software to display it so they tie their Baron box into the WSI system. WCAU has four WSI machines. One's their master, they have two other terminals and they just added a 4th as they switched to their traffic suite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weeters 1811 Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 WSI's standard setup is for each machine to have 6 input/output channels, plus web streams. Inputs 1-4 are connected to video sources or a router (which WSI systems can control) making the number of sources being able to be fed into the computer limited only by how many inputs the router has. The system is then set up to create presets that reference these sources (maybe "VIPIR" is just on Input 3 and "Downtown Camera" tells the router to select source 114 and the computer to use Input 4) and those are what are referenced in the slides. Output 5 is the output to the control room and Input 6 is supposed to be a feed from the camera for MagicTrak (the system that tracks where the meteorologist is pointing) but could be anything if the station doesn't use that option. Switching between router shots is always asking for trouble because they tend to blank out momentarily. I think this is a genlock issue but I'm not 100% sure. The input setup is independent to each computer. So if the primary on-air computer went down and they had to use the secondary system, they might not have any sources because engineering never bothered to hook it up to anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WXmanTim 88 Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 Even beyond the on air computer, there is usually 3 or 4 different boxes running various systems. When I was in Great Falls, there was the on air computer, the create computer (there's a specific name, but I can't recall it) where you can build maps and flythrough graphics, that are then pushed to the on air computer. There's also the warning computer, that runs the weather crawl. Finally, there an ingest computer that downloads the satellite, radar & information about current conditions, weather model data, and also allows the mets to easily update the forecast and 7 day scenes without going into the on air box. Additionally, if they had an ESP radar system, that would be housed in a different box and linked to the on air computer in the same way a barons box is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkolsen 1678 Posted March 10, 2015 Author Share Posted March 10, 2015 Thanks for the info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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