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WDAY

Customer: WDAY, Fargo North Dakota

Application: Chameleon & Community  (under Ross Tick-It)

Platform: RossVideo XPression Studio and BlueBox

Printable Version

Bannister Lake provided an automated broadcast ticker solution for WDAY to support regional school closures.

  • North Dakota regional schools provide school closure information and status through their Community Content Editor Account.
  • Community Closing data is automatically pushed to WDAY’s instance of Chameleon and presented on air
  • Ticker information automatically is displayed on-air without intervention from Master Control.

 

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TVA – TVA Nouvelles TVA Sports

Customer: Quebecor TVA Sports/Nouvelles

Application: Chameleon (Ross Tick-It)

Platform: RossVideo XPression Studio

Printable Version

Bannister Lake delivered a fully automated redundant broadcast ticker solution for TVA Nouvelles 2 channels and TVA Sports 1/2

  • 4 channels of Chameleon on 4 Xpression BlueBoxes (+1 Backup), pulling data from a central Chameleon server.
  • Chameleon Server is configured as a primary and backup for fail over. (redundancy)
  • Weather feed data driven by WSI
  • Lottery results from Loto Quebec
  • Live sports data is provided by Stats
  • Backup player is a hot spare for any of the 4 on air channels.

 

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News 12 – Traffic and Weather

Customer: News 12 Traffic and Weather (New York)

Application: Chameleon (under Ross Tick-It)

Platform: RossVideo XPression Studio

Printable Version

Bannister Lake delivered an automated broadcast ticker solution for News 12 to display weather and traffic for the 5 regional stations.

  • 5 channels of Chameleon running on 5 Xpression BlueBoxes, pulling data from a central Chameleon server.
  • Weather is a combination of WSI data feed and manual input from their Meteorologist.
  • Data from National Weather Alerts is filtered and prioritized to show only weather data for the regions with a severity of 2 or higher with specific weather conditions.
  • Inrix GeoID app is programmed to read traffic information from coordinate specific regions.
  • Blade is used to populate News12’s website feeds with the same data used on air.

 

 

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CPAC 2015 Canadian Federal Election

Customer: CPAC (Canadian Public Affairs Channel)
Application: Bannister Lake Software – BL Elector
Platform: RossVideo XPression Studio

Printable Version

Bannister Lake delivered a complete Election package for CPAC’s coverage of the 2015 Canadian Federal Election.

  • Project involved initial consultation with CPAC producers, editorial staff and graphics.
  • Producers developed a rundown and playlist structure for pre-production planning and rehearsals. This helped determine the type of graphics required for the telecast.
  • 2D and 3D Graphics were created for Candidates, Ridings, Popular and Historical Vote. New or modified layouts were pushed to the Elector database for Playlist creation.
  • BL Elector Headshot importer streamlined the ingest of Candidate headshots into Elector database.
  • Bannister Lake’s Election simulator application enabled producers and staff to create and save a wide variety of real time Election rehearsal scenarios prior to Election Day.
  • On Election night, the CP Election Reader populated Elector with real time results from Elections Canada.
  • The Producer and Elector Player operator had immediate access to pre-defined Playlists and graphic elements running on 2 separate channels.

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Rogers Cable – Super Sports Pak

Customer: Rogers Cable (York Mills)
Application: Super Sports Pak (SSP) Application
Platform: RossVideo XPression Studio

Printable Version

Bannister Lake provided an automated broadcast display solution to generate league and game schedules for Rogers Cable Super Sports Pak subscription channel lineup on Rogers, Cogeco, Eastlink and Videotron.

  • Main SSP schedule file is updated daily with game schedules for each subscription sports channel.
  • SSP application reads current date on schedule file, then generates a sequence of league games with output channel assignment, service provider and channel number.
  • To ensure proper timing, each page duration is calculated on the default event duration multiplied by the number of records.
  • Preferences to enable and set the display order for each service provider and league.
  • App automatically substitutes Background images for blank (scratches) in the schedule.
  • Drop down dialog to select ‘end of sequence’ Promos images.
  • SSP logs all application activity, sequence generation and output.
  • Schedule switches over to next day at 2 am ET and removes old sequence.

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YAHOO! Sports Fantasy Football

YAHOO! Sports broadcasts a weekly Fantasy Football show reviewing all aspects of the NFL current season.

Printable Version

The show is an interactive show which lets viewers call in, web conference or tweet their comments and opinions on their favorite players and teams. As an interactive show YAHOO needed a solution that could deliver player and team statistics quickly and easily with the most up to date statistics in a reliable fashion.

A customized solution was developed to meet the requirements of Yahoo. The solution incorporated the reading of 3 different data feeds to compile the most up to date statistics possible. Data feeds automatically provide the current injury reports, player and team statistics. Using a client-server workflow the custom graphic application can be run from a laptop on the network to drive the Xpression graphic system. This workflow allows a second operator to use Xpression at the same time for any additional needs such as lower thirds.

Problem: With so much data available the operator is overwhelmed trying to retrieve it fast enough to keep up with a live program.

Solution: By building a custom software application Bannister was able to present all the NFL data in an organized fashion in a single screen. From here the operator can quickly select a player or team and display any or all of the statistics available within seconds.

Problem: Viewers that call into the show are pre-screened so it is known what topics they wish to discuss just before they are on air. During this very short period of time the operator needs to prepare as many statistics as possible which could come out of the callers dialog.

Solution: The application allows the operator to start typing, “man” for example, and it automatically filters the names. Using a ‘;’ separator the operator can quickly type multiple names resulting in a much more condense list of NFL players for that call.

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US Democratic Senate – In-House Channel

The United States Democratic Senate broadcasts an in-house channel of the floor proceedings and needed a reliable solution to include upcoming vote information, bills in discussion, and general information on proceedings and schedules. The BL Flow solution provided a simple web interface for the input of new items, schedules and even control over the broadcast output.

Printable Version

  • Runners need to quickly input or update information on upcoming bills, votes and general proceedings from various sources (email, web, printed documents and hand written notes).
  • Runners do not have direct access to broadcast systems or have graphical knowledge/training to modify templates.
  • Graphic changes based on a number of different triggers: operator driven through BL Flow, votes triggered externally via GPI from Senate floor clock
  • All content changes or modifications are logged providing a complete audit of the entire system at any time
  • User groups allow administrator to control which groups have access rights to add or change different types of information

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US Navy – Pentagon

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense. The US Navy is one of 3 agencies that run operations and communications from this massive facility. In addition to using traditional forms of communication like radio and news wires the Office of Information for the Navy also uses the web and social media like Facebook and Twitter to communicate to sailors as well as the public.

Printable Version

The US Navy wanted a way to manage and combine many of these sources of information to create an in- house channel. BL Super Ticker on the XPression graphic platform provided the US Navy with a solution that fit for today and could expand to fit their growing needs.

 

Problem: A television or video broadcast will be seen by a wide range of personnel. How to efficiently aggregate and manage all of the US Navy’s data sources of approved communications.

Solution: BL Super Ticker provided a simple and intuitive interface to moderate automated content as well as input and edit news manually. RSS feeds, Twitter and Facebook posts would automatically be available to the moderator and output playlist.

Problem: The only constant is change and the US Navy needed to be able to dynamically change what information goes to air and where on the screen.
Solution: Super Ticker supports dynamic reassignment of content organized into topics. For each zone or area of the screen an operator only needs to drag available content to the assigned column. Drag out to remove, it’s that simple.

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US Senate Republican Policy Committee – In-House Channel

The Senate Republican Policy Committee broadcasts an in-house channel of the floor proceedings and needed a reliable solution to include upcoming vote information, bills in discussion, and general information on proceedings and schedules.

Printable Version

BL Super Ticker (ST) provided the foundation for the solution; a simple and intuitive interface which is accessed through a browser rather than a dedicated application. This allows multiple users to access the system from any workstation on the network. Content is entered either directly into the ST interface or automatically through BL TweetOut, a Twitter filter following the Senator’s tweets.

Problem: Previous system used basic text files to store content making formatting and spacing unpredictable. Trial and error was required to get content displayed correctly i.e. word wrap issues, text cut off and spell checking are some examples.

Solution: ST interface provides simple forms for text to be entered thus clearly separating titles from text and automatically formatting text properties like word wrap and next page. Content can be reviewed and edited at any time. A preview of the content as formatted is shown.

Problem: Generate additional content of specific interest or relevance to the Senators.

Solution: BL TweetOut provided a simple way to filter and follow Senators tweets while still controlling the content through moderation and the automatic removal of retweets or links.

 

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Rogers Sportsnet – Inscriber G3 HD/SD with SMS, Voting and PUPman.

Customer: Rogers Sportsnet
Application: Bannister Lake display engine with SMS and PupMan (Pop Up promotions)
Solution: Gscribe with RTX ports, Bannister Lake display engine with MyThum SMS system.
Platform: Dual Channel HD/SD Inscriber G3 system.

Printable Version

Rogers Sportsnet required a dual-channel CG for their master control to display trouble slides, insert programming changes and manage the display of SMS and Voting messages for their prime time interactive sports programs.

  • MyThum solution aggregates SMS and Voting messages from viewers, then forwards them to SMS/POP server.
  • Bannister Lake SMS/Chicker interface manages and moderates display of incoming MyThum SMS and voting messages sent from POP (email) server.
  • SMS/Chicker application inserts current scores, SMS sponsor logos and taglines.
  • BLSoft PUPman application allows TD’s to manually enter and display messages for program changes and special announcements.
  • GScribe Character Generator is used for trouble slides and custom boards.
  • Using independent output layers, the Gscribe CG, SMS and PUPman applications output concurrently to both channels.
  • System supports HD and SD output.