TUNETRACKER SYSTEM IN ACTION - The ChannelCaster Switcher Interface

Manual Switcher Control Using Configurable Buttons

If you have ChannelCaster, any and all of the configurable buttons in the ButtonPad area along the right edge of Command Center, as well as in the MyShow area across the bottom of the Command Center interface can be configured to control your Broadcast Tools switcher. It's easy and downright fun.

1.   Right-click on any button and select "Edit Configurable Buttons"
   
   
   
2.   Click on the line representing the button you wish to configure
   
   
   
3.   Change the Button Type to "Switcher"
   
   
   
4.   Select the input source you want to open
   
   
   
5.   Select the output you wish to route it to
   
   
   
6.   Type a label for the button that clearly identifies its purpose. You can use up to three lines for the label.
   
   
   
7.   Click Apply. The button is now ready for use. Buttons configured as switcher control buttons are identifiable at a glance by their WHITE text labels.

Using your configured buttons is easier still. To perform the action assigned to a button, just click on it. An event line with a blue button will appear in Command Center's now-playing area in the upper left. It will stay there until you remove it by clicking once on its blue button.

Buttons can be configured to manually accomplish a great many things. Use them to put networks on the air. Phone lines. Mixers. Marti transmitters. The Newsroom. The Sports Desk. The Weather Center. Mic preamps. Your other station, for a simulcast broadcast. The lecture hall. The concert hall. City hall. The church service. If you're not using a mixer, here are some other possible items a switcher can let you use on your station: A tape deck. A CD player. A DAT player. A turntable. A minidisk player. A digital music player such as an iPod. A cassette machine. The output from another computer, such as your production computer.

Since all of the switcher boxes we offer have at least two pairs of stereo outputs, that leaves you with a free pair to wire up as an audition circuit. Send Output Two to an amp and a small set of speakers, and rig up a button that channels the input of your choice to Output Two. When you click it, you can listen to that input without it going over the air. That's a great way to listen to instructions from your play-by-play announcer during commercial breaks, check ahead of time to see if the feed from the church service is ok, or listen to a closed circuit advisory feed from your news network.

You can have as many different switcher routing events active as you like. However, if you have more than four of them active at one time, not all of them will be visible in the Command Center interface, which has a display limit of four simultaneous on-air events. The others beyond four will still be there too, but they won't be accessible to you until events higher in the visible list are removed by clicking their blue buttons.

Switcher events triggered by configurable buttons are not affected by the behavior of Command Center automation. They will not be taken off the air by the conclusion of a song, for example. They stay active and present in the now-playing area until you manually take them off.


THE INVISIBLE SWITCHER CHANNEL!

Bear in mind that there is one switcher channel that will normally always be active, but never visible. It's TuneTracker's permanent switcher channel, as defined (by you) in Command Center System Prefs, under the Switcher tab. The permanent channel is opened by Command Center when you first launch the program. It is held open at all times so your TuneTracker computer's output can always be "heard."

Why use the permanent switcher channel option? Many stations will opt to run their TuneTracker computer's output through the switcher along with any other audio sources they want to switch amongst. It is the approach we recommend for most stations since it is the least complicated. Everything goes through the switcher and straight on to your final audio chain. The TuneTracker channel is held open at all times since TuneTracker handles turning its own audio on and off as necessary.

Use of the permanent switcher channel is not mandatory. For example, you won't need to set a permanent channel if you intend to use a mixer downstream to combine the outputs of the switcher and the TuneTracker computer. However, we believe most stations are likely to want to take the permanent switcher channel approach. It is described in more detail here, in the section near the bottom entitled, Don't Miss This Step. Again, a reminder that your TuneTracker computer's output must be converted to a balanced signal using the provided TwinMatch box, prior to connecting it to the switcher.

While the permanent switcher connection is not visible in the Command Center interface, you'll have a visible indication it is active by looking at the lights on the front of the switcher box.



Table of Contents