Because of all the pipelining delays involved in the distribution of digital television, none of the monitors were in sync, which was interesting. On the air at the time was, "So You Think You Can Dance". Notice how each view is at a different point in the show, a variance of several seconds. Some monitors are even on the dance floor while others are in the judges.
The screens on which John Snell appears are showing 8.2, the FOX8 Newschannel rebroadcast.
There was a dubbing workstation in master control that I forgot to take a picture of. On the weekends, the FOX8 Newschannel, 8.2, shows vintage television shows. These old reruns are not transmitted by satellite, or by PathFire or by similar means. They are sent to the station on BetaCam tapes.
At the back of master control there was a dubbing station for dubbing these vintage shows on BetaCam tapes into the video servers for airing. I noticed a "Gomer Pyle" and a "Mission Impossible" in the small stack of tapes waiting to be dubbed.
Below we see a "Showtimer" workstation. This application manages acquiring satellite fed syndicated shows and getting them into the servers.
Here's a picture that I took way too close up! It doesn't show that these 1-inch tape machines are at the back of a storage room. They are completely disconnected. It wasn't that many years ago that this 1-inch video tape was the industry standard. Now, it's a completely obsolete format. Nothing airs directly from tape anymore. Those few programs that come in on video tape (and the ones I saw were on BetaCam) are dubbed to the server before they are aired.
