NG
I seem to remember someone telling me that UTV, when using Morpheus (GV ICE) in their new Belfast play-out facility before it moved to England, actually had a 5 second delay! They had cleanish feeds to work off, so it wasn't too bad for them.
I can't honestly remember the exact reason for the delays in the Morpheus system... but it's not to do with cut price versions... I think it might be more a side effect of having additional functionality. There's also an additional complication for the network announcers, who have to start speaking a few seconds early in order to stop speaking a few seconds early... their voice is delayed. If they didn't do that, and only stopped speaking just before the programme started... the delay would result in their voice crashing in over the top of the programme. Luckily the Nations announcers don't have that setup.
I have to ask who at Grass Valley thought that was acceptable? I realize master control switching is designed to be more redundant and smaller than regular switchers used for news and sport which may have a few frame delay when cutting sources.
It wasn't really anyone at Grass Valley, they were with Snell / SAM at the time... Morpheus ICE is a former SAM product that GVG acquired with their merger/take-over of SAM. (In fact it's a ProBel heritage product AIUI)
The Morpheus ICE system is a 'channel-in-a-box' system based around IP, rather than HD-SDI, video, and it integrates server Playout, DVE, graphics, voice over etc. into a single unit (though some re-enter video+VO half-way through). AIUI the latency is related to how much processing you want to do 'in the box'...
You can run with lower latency if you do less AIUI... For a non-reactive Playout solution the economics more than justify the latency. Whether it's the right product for a reactive network - that's for others to say.
noggin
Founding member
Crikey. Someone was recently telling me that the market for playout systems ain't what it used to be, and Grass Valley ICE is about as good as it gets - but I'm sure that other broadcasters who use it don't have a three second delay when pressing a 'take next' button. Did the BBC procure a particularly low-budget version?
I seem to remember someone telling me that UTV, when using Morpheus (GV ICE) in their new Belfast play-out facility before it moved to England, actually had a 5 second delay! They had cleanish feeds to work off, so it wasn't too bad for them.
I can't honestly remember the exact reason for the delays in the Morpheus system... but it's not to do with cut price versions... I think it might be more a side effect of having additional functionality. There's also an additional complication for the network announcers, who have to start speaking a few seconds early in order to stop speaking a few seconds early... their voice is delayed. If they didn't do that, and only stopped speaking just before the programme started... the delay would result in their voice crashing in over the top of the programme. Luckily the Nations announcers don't have that setup.
I have to ask who at Grass Valley thought that was acceptable? I realize master control switching is designed to be more redundant and smaller than regular switchers used for news and sport which may have a few frame delay when cutting sources.
It wasn't really anyone at Grass Valley, they were with Snell / SAM at the time... Morpheus ICE is a former SAM product that GVG acquired with their merger/take-over of SAM. (In fact it's a ProBel heritage product AIUI)
The Morpheus ICE system is a 'channel-in-a-box' system based around IP, rather than HD-SDI, video, and it integrates server Playout, DVE, graphics, voice over etc. into a single unit (though some re-enter video+VO half-way through). AIUI the latency is related to how much processing you want to do 'in the box'...
You can run with lower latency if you do less AIUI... For a non-reactive Playout solution the economics more than justify the latency. Whether it's the right product for a reactive network - that's for others to say.