CA1335838C - News program broadcasting system - Google Patents
News program broadcasting systemInfo
- Publication number
- CA1335838C CA1335838C CA000616692A CA616692A CA1335838C CA 1335838 C CA1335838 C CA 1335838C CA 000616692 A CA000616692 A CA 000616692A CA 616692 A CA616692 A CA 616692A CA 1335838 C CA1335838 C CA 1335838C
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- news
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- transmitted
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Abstract
A news program broadcasting system adapted such that reference codes are assigned to news materials at the times when a cue sheet is prepared and when the news materials are edited and these reference codes are checked with each other at the time when the news materials are transmitted, whereby it is made possible to transmit the news materials under simple and reliable control.
Description
TITLE OF THE INVENTION
NEWS PROGRAM BROADChSTING SYSTEM
BhCKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a news program broadcasting system and, more particularly, to that suitable for application to a television broadcasting system.
Description of the Prior Art The news program in television broadcasting has an aim to transmit a wide variety of news sources to the viewers promptly and accurately, and it i6 made out by compiling news sources such that they are put on the air according to the edited order in units of seconds within a length of time limited by predetermined criteria.
In preparing a news program practically, it is necessary to provide scenes having atmospheres that viewers will accept with interests and, according to the kind of the news to be broadcast, to arrange the scenes to be easy to understand to the degree as required, and ~ 33~38 further, the pro~ram must be accurately contained within a limited length of time. lt is also necessary to have ever occurring news sources included in the news progrsm as soon QS possible.
In order to compile such news sources involving unexpected facts and occurring at unexpected times and places into R news program within a predetermined period of time, it is necessary for the reporters, editors, and other news staff members to be able to compile those materials forming news sources into a news program as simply and accurately as possible and also to have tlle thus compiled news program transmitted sequentially and uninterrupted. If there is provided SUCII a system meeting the above mentioned reguirements and, further, capable of changing order of transmission in each program, as required, when a matter of urgency occurs, it will become possible to broadcast a news program enhancing the reliability of the viewers on it.
In producing a news program, it is necessary that news sources to be broadcast are selected quickly and accurately from the whole of a wide variety of news sources Witll various conditions such as urgency of the news sources and interests of the viewers in them taken into consideration, and therefore, even while a news program iæ on the air or immediately before it, it is desired that the news staff are enabled to manually chec~ the stste of the transmission as required or make necessary changes irl the program.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention was mede in view of the above points and it is an object of the invention to provide a news program broadcssting system ensbling the reporter, editor, snd other news staff to keep collected news materials of a wide variety in good order and, when they consider it necessary to broadcast some of them, to incorporate them into a news program positively and with a simplest possible operation.
In order to solve these problems, the present invention, in a news program broadcasting system (NEWS) for sequentially transmitting a plurality of news materials SMl - SMN according to a cue sheet CUS, comprises the steps of adding first reference codes, at the time of preparing the cue sheet CUS, to each of the news materials SMl - SMN forming the cue sheet CUS, adding second reference codes being the same as the first reference codes, at the time of editing news ~ 33~8 materisls SMl - SMN forming the cue sheet CUS, to these news materials, snd automatically checking, at the time of transmitting the edited news materials SMl - SMN, the first reference codes added to the news materials SMl -SMN specified in the cue sheet CUS with the second reference codes added to the edited news materials SMl -SMN.
According to the present invention, since it is arranged such that the same reference codes as those added to the news materials SMl - SMN when a cue sheet CUS is prepared are added to the news material SMl - SMN
when these are edited and the first and second reference codes are automatically checked with each other when the news materisls SMl - SMN are transmitted, the news material SMl - SMN specified in the cue sheet CUS are ensured to be sequentially transmitted, and further, siDCe the control of the news material SMl - SMN during the course from the edition of the news materials SMl -SMN to the transmission thereof is made possible to be performed based on the reference codes, a news program broadcasting system capable of prompt and positi~e processing of news materials SMl - SMN can be realized.
1 335~38 In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a television program transmission system for sequentially transmitting a plurality of materials for transmission according to a cue sheet, said television program transmission system comprising; ID code assignment means for assigning an ID code to the name of a material for transmission in said cue sheet; material-to-be-transmitted registration means for assigning an ID code to a material for transmission to be actually transmitted and registering it in the system; check means for checking said ID code assigned to the name of a material for transmission with said ID code assigned to the material to be transmitted, and passing said material to be transmitted when said two ID codes are the same; arrangement means for arranging said materials passed by said check means for transmission in the order according to said cue sheet; and display control means for simultaneously displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission on a single display device as they are arranged in the order.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a transmission system of a news program constituted of a plurality of news items, each news item being formed of a plurality of materials for transmission arranged according to a cue sheet, said news program transmission system comprising: ID code assignment means for assigning an ID code to the name of a material for transmission in said cue sheet; material-to-be-transmitted registration means for assigning an ID code to a material for transmission to be actually transmitted and registering it in the system; check means for checking said ID code assigned to 4a ,~
... "~, the name of a material for transmission with said ID code assigned to the material to be transmitted, and passing said material to be transmitted when said two ID codes are the same; arrangement means for arranging said materials passed by said check means for transmission in said news item in the order according to said cue sheet; and display control means for displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission in a first news item to be transmitted in the first place out of said plurality of news items at the upper portion of display means and displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission in a second news item to be transmitted in succession to said first news item at the lower portion of said display means.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
,'` ~
1 37~8~8 FIG. 1 is a system diagram showing a classification of news data used in a news program broadcasting system according to the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a news program broadcasting system according to the present invention;
FIG. ~ is a flow chart showing an ID contro]
procedure at the time of news production;
FIG. 4 is A flowchart showing a procedure for producing a news program;
FIG. 5 to FIG. 10 are schematic diagrams showing display screens of workstations;
FIG. 11 and FIG. 12 are schematic diagrams showing display screens of a material monitor;
FIG. 13 and FIG. 14 are schematic diagrams showing display screens of an item monitor;
FIG. 16 to FIG. 18 are schematic diagrams showing display screens of a material monitor of another embodiment;
FIG. l9 is a schematic diagram showing a further embodiment of the display screen of a material monitor; and FIG. 20 and FIG. 21 are schematic diagrams showing a still further embodiment of a material monitor and an item monitor.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
An embodiment of the preæent invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
News source data to be transmitted in news programs are classified into three levels of "program", "item", and "material" as shown in FIG. 1. All the news materials are assigned, to specify each news material, with reference data (hereinafter, to be called "ID
data") formed in accordance with such classification and the news materials are controlled and processed according to the ID data.
News programs in a broadcasting station for a day are classified into the iirst, second, ... Lth "program" data according to the sequence of the times of day when they are broadcast, and each program is cal]ed by a program name, such as "News/Sports", "The Morning News", ... , "Special Program", and assigned with individual program codes PRl, PR2, ... , PRL.
The first, second, ... , Lth "program" data are each made up of the first, second, ... , Mth "item"
data, and each "item" data is called by an item name 1 335~38 indicating the contents of the news such as "The Strengthenéd Yen Passes ~120-line", "D Air Lines", ... .
"We8ther Report", each being sæsigned with a specific item code ITl, IT2, ... , ITM.
Each "item" contsinæ "materisls" such as "VTR"
video, "Still picture" graphic, "Csmera" video, ... .
"Network" video, snd esch of the "materials" is assigned with a msterial code such as SMl, SM2, SM3, ... SMN and a number code NO.
The material number code is provided to distinguish between data when there are included plursl dsta in the ssme "msterisl".
In practice, esch item dats is msde up of a set of cue sheet data, in which the pertinent materials are arranged according to the order of time, and news scripts to be announced, and each cue sheet data is made up of pieces of material data and switcher data.
Thus, each news material of news programs can be specified by an ID code made up of the program code PRL (L = 1, 2, ... , L), item code ITM (M = 1, 2, ... .
N), material code SMN (N = 1, 2, ... , N), and material number code (NOl, NO2, ... ). In the news program broadcasting system according to the present embodiment, processing of the materials is carried out based on the ID data.
~ eferring to FIG. 2, NEWS denotes the whole of a news progrsm broadcasting system, wherein pieces of "item" data constituting each "program" data are prepared under the control of a host workstation 1 and, at an on-air period, pieces of "material" data included in the prepared "item" data are transmitted one by one by an automatic controller 2 through a program switcher 3 as a main line output BDoUT.
The news program broadcasting system NEWS has workstations 5A, 5B, ... , 5K connected to the host workstation 1 through a local transmission line 4. The reporter in charge of each item processes collected "material" data using the workstation ~A, 5B, ... , 5K
to prepare a cue sheet CUS for each item and stores the data for the cue sheet CUS in the host workstation 1.
Here, the cue sheet CUS is a sheet in which the times of transmission of the pieces of "material"
data for each "item" are arranged as a schedule, and, dependent on it, the pieces of "material" data included in each item are transmitted at the on-air period.
In practice, the news desk in a news department controls the overa].l organization of the news program, decides the "items" of each "program", and sssigns the reporter in charge and time to each "item".
The reporter assigned to each item makes a plan of material organizatior~ for the "item" and makes out the contents of the item (i.e., news materials, time, news script to be announced) and feeds them back to the news desk.
Generally, the desk decides a final version of the itemwise data allotment after the above described operations have been repeated several times. The reporter prepares a cue sheet based on the final version and, according to the material organization plan, sends requests to an electronic video editing room (ENG
editing room) for edition of electronic video material (ENG material) and a computer graphics editing room (CG
editing room) for producing telops, still pictures, and so on. Thus, materials included in the final version of the itemwise data allotment are edited.
The electronic video material is prepared in editing booths lZA, 12B, 12C by editing material tapes llA, llB, llC gathered at collection of data into a tape for transmission 13, and the tape for transmission 13 is loaded on a tape recorder (VTR) cart system 14 and it is transmitted through the program switcher 3 at the on-air period.
1 3J583~
An urgent tape 15 cnrried in after urgent data gathering is directly loaded on the VTR cart system 14 as a tape for urgent transmission 16.
The telops and still pictures are produced in a still picture manipulator 21 by operating a computer graphics 22, character generator 23, and opaque pro3ector 24 and stored into a still picture master file 26 through a still picture temporary storage 25.
The thus stored still picture material is read by the still picture manipulator 21 out of the still picture master file 26 through the still picture temporary storage 25 at the on-air period, and delivered through a still picture transmission system 27 to the program switcher 3.
The camera video material is put together with information to be announced ANN obtained from an announcement table 31 and delivered through a studio camera system 32 to the program switcher 3.
Further, ~y reading data from a private line 33 through a modem 34 into a weather report camera system 35, and by supplying weather report camera data acquired from a microwave line 37 throug~l a material dividing switcher 36 to the weather report camera system 35, "Weather Report" data is delivered to the program , ~ t 335838 switcher 3.
The "Network" information is supplied from the microwave line 37, network 38, external line 39 directly to the program swi.tcher 3 through the material dividing switcher 36.
In practice, the data from the material dividing switcher 36 is taken in by the control of a line contro]ler 40 responding to line reserve informat.ion Sl supplied from the host workstation 1.
In the present embodiment, urgent information previouæly stored in an urgent transmission system 41 is adapted to be delivered, according to the need, to the program swi.tcher 3 under the control of the automatic controller 2.
The host workstation 1 has a handwriting input tablet IOl, mouse I02, image reader I03, and a printer I04 as its input/output devices lX.
In the news program broadcasting system NEWS, control of news materials in news production is performed according to an ID data control procedure RTO
shown in FIG. 3.
At step RTl, the news desk inputs the name of a news program to be produced and the names of items forming the news program by handwriting using the host workstation 1 and registers these after confirmation.
At the time of the registration, a program code PRl, PR2, ... , PRL iB given to the "program" and the item codes ITl, IT2, ... , ITM sre given to the "items" in the order of their arrangement.
At the next step RT2, the news desk assigns a reporter to each news item, and then, the assigned reporter prepares a news script for each news item and collects news materials such as still pictures and VTR
tapes.
At the next step RT3, the reporter based on the collected news materials contemplates a story to be transmitted in the "item" and, thereupon, determines the "materials" and the effects to be provided at the time of transmission.
As the order of transmission of the "materials" is thus determined, the material codes SMl, SM2, ... , SMN are determined according to their order of transmission, and also, the number codes NO for each "material" are determined.
The reporter, nt the next step RT4, registers material codes and number codes in an ID file provided in the host workstation 1 using the workstation 6A - 5K
and thereby effects the coding.
~ - 1 335838 In the following step RT5, the reporter sends a request for edition of the ~materis1s" to the news room, whereupon the news room edits the "materials". At this time, the editing booths 12A - 12C and the still picture manipulator 21 in the news room are in receipt of code data DCoDE indicating each of the "material"
codes SMl - SMN and the "material number" codes NO sent from the host workstation l, and the news room adds the material code and number code to the "materials" edited thereby and stores them in the VTR cart system 14 and the still picture master file 26.
The reporter, sending out the above request for edition, prepares a cue sheet CUS using a workstation 5A - 5K at step RT6.
The cue sheet CUS is the order of transmission of the materials at the on-air period and the effects to be added to the materials programmed according to the order of time. The reporter selects the program and also selects engineering items constituting the program and thus sequentially inputs the materials constituting the news item.
More particularly, the reporter reads the names of the program and the item, which are already registered in the host workstation l by the news desk, 1 33~838 through the local transmission line 4 from the workstation 5A - ~K, and thereupon sequentially inputs the "materials" constituting the "item" to thereby make out the cue sheet CUS.
Each of the "materials" constituting the thus prepared cue sheet CUS is provided with the program code/item code/material code/number code, and thus, it follows that the cue sheet has material IDs formed of combinations of these codes arranged thereon according to the order of transmission at the on-air period.
The data representative of the thus prepared cue sheet CUS is transferred to the host workstation l to be stored therein, and the host workstation l mskes out from the cue cheet a device control file (wherein the order of control of the devices and effects to be provided at the time of switching of the switcher are stated) and a material ID file (wherein material IDs are arranged according to the order of control) and retains the$e files.
At the period of transmitting the news materials, a news staff member causes the automatic controller 2, by means of the host workstation l, to carry out automatic ID checking of the material IDs in the cue sheet CUS with the material IDs of the edited "materials" and confirms the results of checking by having them displayed on a monitor at step RT7, and thereafter, puts the "materials" on the air at step RT8.
Thus, the procedure for controlling the ID data is ended at step RT9.
In the news program broadcasting system NEWS
of ~IG. 2, the automatic control system centering around the automatic controller 2 installed together with the host workstation 1 in the news sub executes the working procedure shown in FIG. 4, associated with manual operation of the news staff member, and thereby, it automatically executeæ production of the information to be transmitted and processing for putting the information on the air, having the program switcher 3 and instruments connected thereto automatically controlled. Through the course of such automatic control, the news staff member is enabled to easily confirm the production condition of the "materials"
constituting each "item" and the contents of the "materials" being prepared for transmission by having these displayed on a monitor.
First, at step SPl in FIG. 4, the news desk inputs by handwriting "programs" and "items" using the handwriting input tablet IOl (FIG. 7) and a mouse I02 of the host workstation 1.
The inputting is effected by handwriting the name of an item to be registered (for example, "The Strengthened Yen Passes ~120-line 3:00") on the display screen DSIN of the handwriting input tablet I01 as shown in ~IG. 7 and placing the cursor on "Program Register"
input display portion DSl and "Program Display" input portion DS2 (they are displayed on an initial screen) on the display screen DDS of the host workstation 1, and then clicking the button of the mouæe (this will be cslled "click input").
More particularly, on the initial screen (FIG.
5) of the host workstation 1, if the "Program Register"
input display portion is click input, then the name of the program handwritten on the tablet I01 is registered in the host workstation 1, and following such registering procedure, the names of the first, second, ... , Lth "programs" (FIG. 1), i.e., "News/Sports", "The Morning News", ... , "Special Program", and their broadcast times can be registered.
In contrast, if the "Program Display" input diæplay portion DS2 on the display screen DDS is click input, the host workstation 1 displays the registered program names and broadcast times, according to, for example, the order of the times of day as shown in FIG.
6, and also displays "Item Register" input display .
portion DS3, "Item Display" input display portion DS4, and "Quit" display portion DS~.
In FIG. 6, if the "Item Register" input display portion DS3 and the program name are clip input, then the name of the item from the handwriting input tablet I01 (for example, "The Strengthened Yen Passes Y120-line 3:00") constituting the program having that program name is displayed on the display screen DDS and it is also registered (FIG. 7).
The items thus registered in the host workstation 1 can be displayed 811 together on the display screen DDS as shown in FIG. 8 when the "Item Display" input display portion DS4 in FIG. 6 is click input.
If the "Quit" input display portion DS5 in FIG. 6, or DS14 in FIG. 7, is click input, the host workstation 1 is reset to the initial display screen as shown in FIG. 5.
In the case of FIG. 8, it is shown therein that eight "items", i.e., "The Strengthened Yen Pssses Y120-line 3:00", ~n Air Lines, Interview with K 5:00", ... , "Weather Report ~:00", are already registered for , _ 1 3358-~8 the "program" by the name of "The Evening News".
Tlle news program producing work (FIG. 4) from the above step, attained by the news desk inputting the "items" by handwriting using the host workstation 1, proceeds to the next step SPZ.
In the step SP2, the reporter who was assigned to each "item" prepares the news script for the "item"
and also selects "materials" for it and sends requests for editing the "materials" in the next step SP3, whereupon the news room edits the "materials" and then, in step SP4, adds ID codes to the "materials". Thus, the edited "materials" are brought into a registered state in the news program broadcasting system.
In succession thereto, the reporter prepares a cue sheet CUS in step SP5 for each allotted item using the workstation 5A, 5B, ... , 5K.
This work is started, as described above with reference to FIG. 6 and FIG. 8, by reading out the "item", registered in the host workstation 1 by the news desk, from the workstation 5A, 5B, ... , 5K through the local transmission line 4. Then, the same list of items as described above with reference to FIG. 8 is displayed on the display screen DDSX of the workstation 5A, 5B, ... , 5K. Then, the reporter c]ick inputs the name of the item, for example, "The Strengthened Yen Passes ~120-line 3:00" wllich is now intended to be produced and alsD click inputs the "Cue Sheet" input display portion DS21.
Then, on the display screen DDSX of the workstation 5A - 5K is displayed an image of a cue sheet CUS as shown in FIG. 9.
The image of the cue sheet CUS has displays of the program name "Tlle Evening News" and the item name "The Strengthened Yen Passes Y120-line 3:00" and, additionally, a display of vertically arranged several horizontally-elongated spaces each thereof indicating the allotted period of time to each material, i.e., "Studio Camera", "VTR", "Still Picture", "Network", "Telop", and "Switcher". Namely, in this cue sheet CUS
is given an arrangement according to the time of the "materials" used in the "item".
In preparing the cue sheet CUS, the reporter, according to the need, click operates "Insert", "Move", "Delete", "Change", "~ ", and "Print" input display portions DS31, DS32, DS33, DS34, DS35, DS36, and DS37.
When the "Insert" input display portion DS31 is click input, a window is opened on the right-hand ' ~ 1 335838 side of the cue sheet CUS as shown in FIG. 10, whereby the reporter is enabled to select "materials" or "switcher effects".
In the present embodiment, four studio cameras Cl - C4, four VTRs Vl - V4, four still pictures Sl - S4, two network pictures NETl and NETZ, two telops FPUl and FPU2 are arranged for selection as the "msterials" and 12 effects sre arranged to be selected. Since selecting marks of these "materials" and "switcher effects" are arranged in the window WD, when the reporter click inputs a selected "material" or "switcher effect", the cursor moves to the period-of-time space for the selected "material" or "switcher effect", so that it becomes possible to click input the starting time and ending time of the "material" or "switcher effect".
In the csse of the embodiment shown in FIG.
10, the item "The Strengthened Yen Passes ~120-line 3:00" is formed of an arrangement of 3 minutes of materials, of which use of the studio camera Cl is registered for the period from "0:00" to 1 minute 10 seconds ("1:10") within the period of time for "Studio Camera", use of the VT~ Vl is registered for the period of 1 minute 10 seconds ("1:10") from the end of the use of the studio camera C] at "1:10", and use of the relay 1 335~38 network NETl is registered from the end of the use of the YTR Vl at 2 minutes 20 seconds ("2:20") to the ending time of the item at "3:00", and in the meantime, interrupting insertions of 10 seconds of the still picture Sl and 5 seconds of the telop Tl together with the relative "switcher effects" are registered.
The registered data of the arrangement according to the time of the "materials" expressed on the cue sheet CUS are represented by time codes indicating the arrangement according to the time and material codes allotted to each of the "materials" and "switcher effects". When the preparation of the cue sheet CUS is finished, the cue sheet data are transmitted from the workstation 5A - 5K through the local transmission line 4 to the host workstation 1 and stored therein.
In FIG. 9 and FIG. 10, if the "Move" input display portion DS32 is click input and also a click input action is made after the cursor has moved onto the display of a "material" or "switcher effect" which is already input, then the "material" or "switcher effect"
is rendered movable along the time axis (i.e., to the left or right) on the screen. By making a click input action after moving the display to a desired position, Zl the movement of the "material" or "æwitcher effect"
along the time axis is effected.
By click inputting the "Delete" input display portion DS33 and making a click input action after moving the cursor onto the display of a "material" or "switcher effect" which is desired to be deleted, the "material" or "Switcher effect" can be deleted.
If the "Change" input display portion DS34 is click input and, then, a first and second "material"
displays or "switcher effect" displays which are desired to be exchanged are successively click input, the "materials" or "switcher effects" can be changed for each other.
The " " and "-~" input display portion DS35 and DS36 make it possib]e to move the cursor forward or backward along the time RXiS during the click inputting operation.
When the "Print" input display portion DS37 is click inpu-, the cue sheet CUS on the display screen DDSX can be printed out as it is.
When the preparation of the cue sheet CUS is finished through the above operations and the "Quit"
input display portion DS38 is click input, the display screen DDSX is reset to the initial picture as shown in `- 1 3 3 5 8 3 8 FIG. 5.
When the thus prepared cue sheets CUS8 using the workstation 5A - 5K are registered snd stored in tbe host workstation 1, the host workststion 1, at step SP6 (FIG. 4), sutomatically checks the ID codes of the "materials" constituting the cue sheet CUS prepared for each "item" with the ID codes added to the "materials"
edited at the steps SP3 and SP4 for any disagreement therebetween.
If they are in sgreement, it means that the "materials" used in the cue sheet CUS are being registered in their edited states, and this further means that the "msterials" are in a stand-by state so that they can be successively transmitted according to the cue sheet CUS.
Whether the "materials" on the cue sheets CUSs for each "item" are in the stand-by state or not is confirmed in the steps at and after the step SP7.
More particularly, at the step SP7 and following steps (which correspond to steps during the on-air period), the news staff member according to the need is enabled to confirm whether the "materials" to be transmitted according to the cue sheets CUSs are in stand-by states or not for each "material" and "item", and, taking the possibility of occurrence of a change in the "item" in an urgent case into consideration, transmits the "materials" constituting each "item" one by one by operating a take key TAKE (a switch for transmission) according to the order indicated in the cue sheet CUS.
In the case of the present embodiment, the automatic controller 2 has sn item monitor MRl and a material monitor MR2, and it is thereby made possible to confirm at the step SP7 whether tlle "materials" included in each "item" are already in stand-by states or not by having index images formed of still pictures displayed by taking the following procedure.
In the case of the present embodiment, if, in the state of the host workstation 1 with the item images as shown in FIG. 8 displayed thereon, the display of an item, for example "Chairman H of Committee on the Budget, the House of Representatives 1:30" is click input and also the "Material Monitor" input display portion DS26 is click input, then an image of a table of materials as shown in FIG. 11 or FIG. 12 is displayed on the material monitor MR2.
The image of the table of materials as shown in FIG. 11 includes a display of the item "Chairman H of Committee on the Budget, the House of Representatives 1:30" and meterial name displays of the "materials"
arranged as a table of the "materials" used according to the cue sheet CUS prepared ~or that item, i.e., "Camera l", "Still Picture l", "Still Picture 2", and "VTRl".
At this time, for the material of which the material code on the cue sheet CUS hss not agreed with the material code of tlle edited material as the result of the automatic checking of the ID codes at the above step SP6, the display for the material name is left as a display of characters as shown in FIG. 12 (this image will be called "material name image") In contrast, when those materials which have agreed at the sutomatic checking are generated, each time one of these appears, a material index image INDlX, IND2X, IND3X is displayed, as the material display, at the position where the material name image INDl, IND2, IND3 was displayed, whereas if there still is a material which does not agree at the automatic ID checking, it is left as a material name image IND4.
Here, as the material index images INDlX, IND2X, IND3X, those images simply and plainly indicating the contents of the "item", such as still pictures formed of a first picture are used so that the news item can be known st a glance.
By so doing, the state of the production in progress of the msterisls forming the item, i.e., whether they sre completed snd in a stand-by state or not, can be easily checked by watching the materisl monitor MR2 of the automatic controller 2.
Such confirmation is attained at step SP8 by observing that the material images for all the items are in the stand-by state.
Such processing at the step SP8 is performed in the host workstation 1, with the item image as shown in FIG. 8 displayed on its display screen, by successively click inputting the displays of the items.
Then, the displays on the material display MR2 sre switched from one to another.
At the same time, the sutomatic controller 2, st step SP9, monitors using the item monitor MRl as to whether or not each "item" is brought into a stand-by state by using sn index image to eacll "item", for example the index image of the first msterial.
The item monitor MRl constantly holds on the display screen thereo the item name images HEDl - HED8 srranged in a table as shown in FIG. 13 and FIG. 14 from when the item names were registered by handwriting input in the host workstation 1 (FIG. 13).
When all of the "materials" for an "item" are brought into the stand-by state, the item name image HEDl which has heen displayed up to that time is exchanged, at the same position, with ao item index image HEDlX, which is, for example, formed of the first index image INDlX out of the index images INDlX, IND2X, IND3X for sll the "materials" included in the item, in the same way as described with reference to FIG. 12.
Thus, the news staff member can easily grasp the state of production of the overall news program in progress by watching the item monitor MRl.
In this way, when all the images forming the table of the items on the item monitor MRl have been exchanged with the item index images, it is meant thereby that the "materials" for the "item" are all in the stand-by state. Then, the news staff member, at step SP10, operates the take key TAKE provided on the automatic controller 2, whereby the "materials" included in the "item" constituting the cue sheet are transmitted through the program switcher 3 as the main line output BDoUT one by one from the first "material" each time the take key TAKE is operated.
In such an on-air state, if, for example, an 1 335~38 urgeot tspe 1~ is brought in, then, as described with reference to FIG. 2, the tape is mounted on the VTR cart system 14 as a tape 16 for urgent transmission withoùt any ID data given, and it is thereby urgently registered in the news program broadcasting system NEWS.
Then, the news staff member, according to the need, operates the host workstation 1 at step SPll to carry out item exchanging work.
More particularly, in the host workstation 1 with the item images read out thereon as described with reference to FIG. 8, the "Change" input display portion DS22 is click input, and then, the items that are desired to be exchanged are click input in succession.
By making such an exchange operation, the materials included in the item, having the IDs designated to be exchanged, of the material IDs written in the material ID file in the host workstation 1 are exchanged all together with the urgent file.
Thus, when an urgent news item is carried in at an on-air period, it can be specially transmitted by replacing the "materials", which have already been registered and given certain IDs, with such an urgent material.
According to the above described arrangement, a reporter gives material IDs to the "materials" prior to the edition and then prepares a cue sheet CUS using the material IDs, and, thereafter, the "materials", of which material IDs in the cue sheet CUS and the material IDs of the edited materials have been determined to be in agreement at the automatic ID checking, are transmitted as the main line output BDoUT. Thus, the news program broadcasting system NEWS as a whole allows easier control of "materials".
As a result, confirmation as to whether the production of the materials to be transmitted have been completed or not, replacing normally prepared materials with an urgent material, etc. can be performed based on the material IDs added to the "materials". Tllus, processing of news materials can be promptly and accurately executed by the news program broadcasting system, combined with decision made as reguired by the new$ staff member through the manual monitoring operations.
In the above embodiment, the news materials whose order of transmission is specified in the cue sheet CUS are adapted to be displayed on the material monitor MR2 as an image of a table of materials arranged in the order of transmission, and hence, the state of the production in progress of the news materials constituting each item can be firmly grasped frnm the material monitor MR2.
Further, in the above embodiment, in displaying the "materials" as an image of a table of materials on the material monitor MR2, it is adapted such that index images are displayed at the positions of the "materials" which have been determined to be in agreement at the automatic ID checking. Hence, the news materials which are brought into a stand-bay state can be positively observed at a glance. In such arrangement, for a news material not in agreement at the ID checking, ttle fact that it has not yet passed in the ID checking is adapted to be indicated by some way (in the case of the above described embodiment, for example, the character display as input by handwriting is left displayed as a material name image IND4 (FIG. 12)), and therefore, the "materials" which are in the stand-by state can be confirmed much easier.
In the sbove described embodiment, there is provided an item monitor MRl, and the news items used in a news program are adapted to be displayed thereon in an arrangement to indicate their order of transmission, and further, the displays at the positions indicating the news items whose production has slready been completed are adapted to be replaced with index i~ages such as the index image HEDlX (FIG. 14), and therefore, the state of production in progress of the pertinent news program can be easily and certainly observed, and thus the news program can be put on the air without fear.
Although the case where only one material monitor MR2 was used for the material monitor was described above with reference to FIG. 11 and FIG. 12, two material monitors MRll and MR12 can be provided, instead, as shown in FIG. 1~ and FIG. 16, wherein a first material monitor MRll is arranged to display those "materials" of the news item to be currently put on the air, i.e., the on-air item ONAIR as an image of a table of materials, and, in addition thereto, to display the "materials" constituting the news item to be transmitted in the next place, i.e., the next item NEXT as an image of another table. The second mPterial monitor MR12 is arranged to display the "materials" constituting the news item to be transmitted as the next item but one, i.e., the second item SECOND as an image of a table of materials.
Then, as shown in FIG. 17 and FIG. 18 corresponding to FIG. 1~ and FIG. 16, images of the tables of "materials" for the on-air item ONAIR, next item NEXT, and second item SECOND are arranged to be observable at a glance. Thus, the stand-by states of not only the news items to be currently put on the air but also the news items to be successively transmitted in the "next" turn as well as in the "next turn but one"
can be visuolly confirmed, and the transmission of the news program can be carried out with a much secured feeling.
In so doing, if there arises a need for changing the order of transmission of news items while putting an item on the a.ir, the material table image for the replacing "materials" can be displayed as that for the second item SECOND, and thuæ, their stand-by state can be easily confirmed and, further, this exchange of itemæ is prevented from affecting the display of the item currently put on the air, the on-air item ONAIR.
In the above described embodiment, it W85 arranged, as shown in FIG. 11 and FIG. 12, such that, for the materials determined to be in agreement at the automatic ID checking, the index images INDlX - IND3X
were displayed at: the same posi.tions as those of the material name images INDl - INn3 to supersede them, and further, as shown in FIG. 13 and FIG. 14, the item index image HEDlX was displayed at the same position -as that of the item name image HEDl to supersede it. However, the wsy of display of the material index image and item index image is not limited to such but various changes can be made.
For example, in displaying a materisl table image and an item table image on the material monitor MR2 and the item monitor MRl as shown in FIG. 20 and FIG. 21, image display areas ARAl and ARAll can be provided snd, additionally, in the vicinity of them, for example below them, there can be provided a material name display area ARAZ and an item name display area ARAl2, so that, in the first place, there are displayed the material name images and the item name images in the image display areas ARAl and ARAll, respectively, and in the next place, the material index images and the item index images appear on the display.
By so arranging, the displayed po~itions in the material name display area ARA2 and item name display area ARA12 are not changed even if the contents of the displayed images are changed, and therefore, the materials and items can be confirmed much easier.
In this embodiment, such an arrangement may also be possible to have the material index images and item index images displAyed as blank images until agreement is determined in the automatic ID checking.
As to inputting "programs" snd "items", thè
case where they were input from a tablet by handwriting was described in the embodiment shown in FIG. 6 and FIG.
8, but a keyboard or character recognition means may be used for the inputting to obtain similar effects as obtained in the above described case.
According to the present invention as described so far, ID codes the same as ID codes assigned to the materials constituting a cue sheet are given to the edited "materials" and production of the news materials is controlled bssed on the ID codes, and thus, a news program broadcasting system, in which news materials are automatically processed until they are put on the air, combined with confirmation of the states of the progreæs manually made by news staff members as required, can be easily embodied.
NEWS PROGRAM BROADChSTING SYSTEM
BhCKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a news program broadcasting system and, more particularly, to that suitable for application to a television broadcasting system.
Description of the Prior Art The news program in television broadcasting has an aim to transmit a wide variety of news sources to the viewers promptly and accurately, and it i6 made out by compiling news sources such that they are put on the air according to the edited order in units of seconds within a length of time limited by predetermined criteria.
In preparing a news program practically, it is necessary to provide scenes having atmospheres that viewers will accept with interests and, according to the kind of the news to be broadcast, to arrange the scenes to be easy to understand to the degree as required, and ~ 33~38 further, the pro~ram must be accurately contained within a limited length of time. lt is also necessary to have ever occurring news sources included in the news progrsm as soon QS possible.
In order to compile such news sources involving unexpected facts and occurring at unexpected times and places into R news program within a predetermined period of time, it is necessary for the reporters, editors, and other news staff members to be able to compile those materials forming news sources into a news program as simply and accurately as possible and also to have tlle thus compiled news program transmitted sequentially and uninterrupted. If there is provided SUCII a system meeting the above mentioned reguirements and, further, capable of changing order of transmission in each program, as required, when a matter of urgency occurs, it will become possible to broadcast a news program enhancing the reliability of the viewers on it.
In producing a news program, it is necessary that news sources to be broadcast are selected quickly and accurately from the whole of a wide variety of news sources Witll various conditions such as urgency of the news sources and interests of the viewers in them taken into consideration, and therefore, even while a news program iæ on the air or immediately before it, it is desired that the news staff are enabled to manually chec~ the stste of the transmission as required or make necessary changes irl the program.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention was mede in view of the above points and it is an object of the invention to provide a news program broadcssting system ensbling the reporter, editor, snd other news staff to keep collected news materials of a wide variety in good order and, when they consider it necessary to broadcast some of them, to incorporate them into a news program positively and with a simplest possible operation.
In order to solve these problems, the present invention, in a news program broadcasting system (NEWS) for sequentially transmitting a plurality of news materials SMl - SMN according to a cue sheet CUS, comprises the steps of adding first reference codes, at the time of preparing the cue sheet CUS, to each of the news materials SMl - SMN forming the cue sheet CUS, adding second reference codes being the same as the first reference codes, at the time of editing news ~ 33~8 materisls SMl - SMN forming the cue sheet CUS, to these news materials, snd automatically checking, at the time of transmitting the edited news materials SMl - SMN, the first reference codes added to the news materials SMl -SMN specified in the cue sheet CUS with the second reference codes added to the edited news materials SMl -SMN.
According to the present invention, since it is arranged such that the same reference codes as those added to the news materials SMl - SMN when a cue sheet CUS is prepared are added to the news material SMl - SMN
when these are edited and the first and second reference codes are automatically checked with each other when the news materisls SMl - SMN are transmitted, the news material SMl - SMN specified in the cue sheet CUS are ensured to be sequentially transmitted, and further, siDCe the control of the news material SMl - SMN during the course from the edition of the news materials SMl -SMN to the transmission thereof is made possible to be performed based on the reference codes, a news program broadcasting system capable of prompt and positi~e processing of news materials SMl - SMN can be realized.
1 335~38 In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a television program transmission system for sequentially transmitting a plurality of materials for transmission according to a cue sheet, said television program transmission system comprising; ID code assignment means for assigning an ID code to the name of a material for transmission in said cue sheet; material-to-be-transmitted registration means for assigning an ID code to a material for transmission to be actually transmitted and registering it in the system; check means for checking said ID code assigned to the name of a material for transmission with said ID code assigned to the material to be transmitted, and passing said material to be transmitted when said two ID codes are the same; arrangement means for arranging said materials passed by said check means for transmission in the order according to said cue sheet; and display control means for simultaneously displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission on a single display device as they are arranged in the order.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a transmission system of a news program constituted of a plurality of news items, each news item being formed of a plurality of materials for transmission arranged according to a cue sheet, said news program transmission system comprising: ID code assignment means for assigning an ID code to the name of a material for transmission in said cue sheet; material-to-be-transmitted registration means for assigning an ID code to a material for transmission to be actually transmitted and registering it in the system; check means for checking said ID code assigned to 4a ,~
... "~, the name of a material for transmission with said ID code assigned to the material to be transmitted, and passing said material to be transmitted when said two ID codes are the same; arrangement means for arranging said materials passed by said check means for transmission in said news item in the order according to said cue sheet; and display control means for displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission in a first news item to be transmitted in the first place out of said plurality of news items at the upper portion of display means and displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission in a second news item to be transmitted in succession to said first news item at the lower portion of said display means.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
,'` ~
1 37~8~8 FIG. 1 is a system diagram showing a classification of news data used in a news program broadcasting system according to the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a news program broadcasting system according to the present invention;
FIG. ~ is a flow chart showing an ID contro]
procedure at the time of news production;
FIG. 4 is A flowchart showing a procedure for producing a news program;
FIG. 5 to FIG. 10 are schematic diagrams showing display screens of workstations;
FIG. 11 and FIG. 12 are schematic diagrams showing display screens of a material monitor;
FIG. 13 and FIG. 14 are schematic diagrams showing display screens of an item monitor;
FIG. 16 to FIG. 18 are schematic diagrams showing display screens of a material monitor of another embodiment;
FIG. l9 is a schematic diagram showing a further embodiment of the display screen of a material monitor; and FIG. 20 and FIG. 21 are schematic diagrams showing a still further embodiment of a material monitor and an item monitor.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
An embodiment of the preæent invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
News source data to be transmitted in news programs are classified into three levels of "program", "item", and "material" as shown in FIG. 1. All the news materials are assigned, to specify each news material, with reference data (hereinafter, to be called "ID
data") formed in accordance with such classification and the news materials are controlled and processed according to the ID data.
News programs in a broadcasting station for a day are classified into the iirst, second, ... Lth "program" data according to the sequence of the times of day when they are broadcast, and each program is cal]ed by a program name, such as "News/Sports", "The Morning News", ... , "Special Program", and assigned with individual program codes PRl, PR2, ... , PRL.
The first, second, ... , Lth "program" data are each made up of the first, second, ... , Mth "item"
data, and each "item" data is called by an item name 1 335~38 indicating the contents of the news such as "The Strengthenéd Yen Passes ~120-line", "D Air Lines", ... .
"We8ther Report", each being sæsigned with a specific item code ITl, IT2, ... , ITM.
Each "item" contsinæ "materisls" such as "VTR"
video, "Still picture" graphic, "Csmera" video, ... .
"Network" video, snd esch of the "materials" is assigned with a msterial code such as SMl, SM2, SM3, ... SMN and a number code NO.
The material number code is provided to distinguish between data when there are included plursl dsta in the ssme "msterisl".
In practice, esch item dats is msde up of a set of cue sheet data, in which the pertinent materials are arranged according to the order of time, and news scripts to be announced, and each cue sheet data is made up of pieces of material data and switcher data.
Thus, each news material of news programs can be specified by an ID code made up of the program code PRL (L = 1, 2, ... , L), item code ITM (M = 1, 2, ... .
N), material code SMN (N = 1, 2, ... , N), and material number code (NOl, NO2, ... ). In the news program broadcasting system according to the present embodiment, processing of the materials is carried out based on the ID data.
~ eferring to FIG. 2, NEWS denotes the whole of a news progrsm broadcasting system, wherein pieces of "item" data constituting each "program" data are prepared under the control of a host workstation 1 and, at an on-air period, pieces of "material" data included in the prepared "item" data are transmitted one by one by an automatic controller 2 through a program switcher 3 as a main line output BDoUT.
The news program broadcasting system NEWS has workstations 5A, 5B, ... , 5K connected to the host workstation 1 through a local transmission line 4. The reporter in charge of each item processes collected "material" data using the workstation ~A, 5B, ... , 5K
to prepare a cue sheet CUS for each item and stores the data for the cue sheet CUS in the host workstation 1.
Here, the cue sheet CUS is a sheet in which the times of transmission of the pieces of "material"
data for each "item" are arranged as a schedule, and, dependent on it, the pieces of "material" data included in each item are transmitted at the on-air period.
In practice, the news desk in a news department controls the overa].l organization of the news program, decides the "items" of each "program", and sssigns the reporter in charge and time to each "item".
The reporter assigned to each item makes a plan of material organizatior~ for the "item" and makes out the contents of the item (i.e., news materials, time, news script to be announced) and feeds them back to the news desk.
Generally, the desk decides a final version of the itemwise data allotment after the above described operations have been repeated several times. The reporter prepares a cue sheet based on the final version and, according to the material organization plan, sends requests to an electronic video editing room (ENG
editing room) for edition of electronic video material (ENG material) and a computer graphics editing room (CG
editing room) for producing telops, still pictures, and so on. Thus, materials included in the final version of the itemwise data allotment are edited.
The electronic video material is prepared in editing booths lZA, 12B, 12C by editing material tapes llA, llB, llC gathered at collection of data into a tape for transmission 13, and the tape for transmission 13 is loaded on a tape recorder (VTR) cart system 14 and it is transmitted through the program switcher 3 at the on-air period.
1 3J583~
An urgent tape 15 cnrried in after urgent data gathering is directly loaded on the VTR cart system 14 as a tape for urgent transmission 16.
The telops and still pictures are produced in a still picture manipulator 21 by operating a computer graphics 22, character generator 23, and opaque pro3ector 24 and stored into a still picture master file 26 through a still picture temporary storage 25.
The thus stored still picture material is read by the still picture manipulator 21 out of the still picture master file 26 through the still picture temporary storage 25 at the on-air period, and delivered through a still picture transmission system 27 to the program switcher 3.
The camera video material is put together with information to be announced ANN obtained from an announcement table 31 and delivered through a studio camera system 32 to the program switcher 3.
Further, ~y reading data from a private line 33 through a modem 34 into a weather report camera system 35, and by supplying weather report camera data acquired from a microwave line 37 throug~l a material dividing switcher 36 to the weather report camera system 35, "Weather Report" data is delivered to the program , ~ t 335838 switcher 3.
The "Network" information is supplied from the microwave line 37, network 38, external line 39 directly to the program swi.tcher 3 through the material dividing switcher 36.
In practice, the data from the material dividing switcher 36 is taken in by the control of a line contro]ler 40 responding to line reserve informat.ion Sl supplied from the host workstation 1.
In the present embodiment, urgent information previouæly stored in an urgent transmission system 41 is adapted to be delivered, according to the need, to the program swi.tcher 3 under the control of the automatic controller 2.
The host workstation 1 has a handwriting input tablet IOl, mouse I02, image reader I03, and a printer I04 as its input/output devices lX.
In the news program broadcasting system NEWS, control of news materials in news production is performed according to an ID data control procedure RTO
shown in FIG. 3.
At step RTl, the news desk inputs the name of a news program to be produced and the names of items forming the news program by handwriting using the host workstation 1 and registers these after confirmation.
At the time of the registration, a program code PRl, PR2, ... , PRL iB given to the "program" and the item codes ITl, IT2, ... , ITM sre given to the "items" in the order of their arrangement.
At the next step RT2, the news desk assigns a reporter to each news item, and then, the assigned reporter prepares a news script for each news item and collects news materials such as still pictures and VTR
tapes.
At the next step RT3, the reporter based on the collected news materials contemplates a story to be transmitted in the "item" and, thereupon, determines the "materials" and the effects to be provided at the time of transmission.
As the order of transmission of the "materials" is thus determined, the material codes SMl, SM2, ... , SMN are determined according to their order of transmission, and also, the number codes NO for each "material" are determined.
The reporter, nt the next step RT4, registers material codes and number codes in an ID file provided in the host workstation 1 using the workstation 6A - 5K
and thereby effects the coding.
~ - 1 335838 In the following step RT5, the reporter sends a request for edition of the ~materis1s" to the news room, whereupon the news room edits the "materials". At this time, the editing booths 12A - 12C and the still picture manipulator 21 in the news room are in receipt of code data DCoDE indicating each of the "material"
codes SMl - SMN and the "material number" codes NO sent from the host workstation l, and the news room adds the material code and number code to the "materials" edited thereby and stores them in the VTR cart system 14 and the still picture master file 26.
The reporter, sending out the above request for edition, prepares a cue sheet CUS using a workstation 5A - 5K at step RT6.
The cue sheet CUS is the order of transmission of the materials at the on-air period and the effects to be added to the materials programmed according to the order of time. The reporter selects the program and also selects engineering items constituting the program and thus sequentially inputs the materials constituting the news item.
More particularly, the reporter reads the names of the program and the item, which are already registered in the host workstation l by the news desk, 1 33~838 through the local transmission line 4 from the workstation 5A - ~K, and thereupon sequentially inputs the "materials" constituting the "item" to thereby make out the cue sheet CUS.
Each of the "materials" constituting the thus prepared cue sheet CUS is provided with the program code/item code/material code/number code, and thus, it follows that the cue sheet has material IDs formed of combinations of these codes arranged thereon according to the order of transmission at the on-air period.
The data representative of the thus prepared cue sheet CUS is transferred to the host workstation l to be stored therein, and the host workstation l mskes out from the cue cheet a device control file (wherein the order of control of the devices and effects to be provided at the time of switching of the switcher are stated) and a material ID file (wherein material IDs are arranged according to the order of control) and retains the$e files.
At the period of transmitting the news materials, a news staff member causes the automatic controller 2, by means of the host workstation l, to carry out automatic ID checking of the material IDs in the cue sheet CUS with the material IDs of the edited "materials" and confirms the results of checking by having them displayed on a monitor at step RT7, and thereafter, puts the "materials" on the air at step RT8.
Thus, the procedure for controlling the ID data is ended at step RT9.
In the news program broadcasting system NEWS
of ~IG. 2, the automatic control system centering around the automatic controller 2 installed together with the host workstation 1 in the news sub executes the working procedure shown in FIG. 4, associated with manual operation of the news staff member, and thereby, it automatically executeæ production of the information to be transmitted and processing for putting the information on the air, having the program switcher 3 and instruments connected thereto automatically controlled. Through the course of such automatic control, the news staff member is enabled to easily confirm the production condition of the "materials"
constituting each "item" and the contents of the "materials" being prepared for transmission by having these displayed on a monitor.
First, at step SPl in FIG. 4, the news desk inputs by handwriting "programs" and "items" using the handwriting input tablet IOl (FIG. 7) and a mouse I02 of the host workstation 1.
The inputting is effected by handwriting the name of an item to be registered (for example, "The Strengthened Yen Passes ~120-line 3:00") on the display screen DSIN of the handwriting input tablet I01 as shown in ~IG. 7 and placing the cursor on "Program Register"
input display portion DSl and "Program Display" input portion DS2 (they are displayed on an initial screen) on the display screen DDS of the host workstation 1, and then clicking the button of the mouæe (this will be cslled "click input").
More particularly, on the initial screen (FIG.
5) of the host workstation 1, if the "Program Register"
input display portion is click input, then the name of the program handwritten on the tablet I01 is registered in the host workstation 1, and following such registering procedure, the names of the first, second, ... , Lth "programs" (FIG. 1), i.e., "News/Sports", "The Morning News", ... , "Special Program", and their broadcast times can be registered.
In contrast, if the "Program Display" input diæplay portion DS2 on the display screen DDS is click input, the host workstation 1 displays the registered program names and broadcast times, according to, for example, the order of the times of day as shown in FIG.
6, and also displays "Item Register" input display .
portion DS3, "Item Display" input display portion DS4, and "Quit" display portion DS~.
In FIG. 6, if the "Item Register" input display portion DS3 and the program name are clip input, then the name of the item from the handwriting input tablet I01 (for example, "The Strengthened Yen Passes Y120-line 3:00") constituting the program having that program name is displayed on the display screen DDS and it is also registered (FIG. 7).
The items thus registered in the host workstation 1 can be displayed 811 together on the display screen DDS as shown in FIG. 8 when the "Item Display" input display portion DS4 in FIG. 6 is click input.
If the "Quit" input display portion DS5 in FIG. 6, or DS14 in FIG. 7, is click input, the host workstation 1 is reset to the initial display screen as shown in FIG. 5.
In the case of FIG. 8, it is shown therein that eight "items", i.e., "The Strengthened Yen Pssses Y120-line 3:00", ~n Air Lines, Interview with K 5:00", ... , "Weather Report ~:00", are already registered for , _ 1 3358-~8 the "program" by the name of "The Evening News".
Tlle news program producing work (FIG. 4) from the above step, attained by the news desk inputting the "items" by handwriting using the host workstation 1, proceeds to the next step SPZ.
In the step SP2, the reporter who was assigned to each "item" prepares the news script for the "item"
and also selects "materials" for it and sends requests for editing the "materials" in the next step SP3, whereupon the news room edits the "materials" and then, in step SP4, adds ID codes to the "materials". Thus, the edited "materials" are brought into a registered state in the news program broadcasting system.
In succession thereto, the reporter prepares a cue sheet CUS in step SP5 for each allotted item using the workstation 5A, 5B, ... , 5K.
This work is started, as described above with reference to FIG. 6 and FIG. 8, by reading out the "item", registered in the host workstation 1 by the news desk, from the workstation 5A, 5B, ... , 5K through the local transmission line 4. Then, the same list of items as described above with reference to FIG. 8 is displayed on the display screen DDSX of the workstation 5A, 5B, ... , 5K. Then, the reporter c]ick inputs the name of the item, for example, "The Strengthened Yen Passes ~120-line 3:00" wllich is now intended to be produced and alsD click inputs the "Cue Sheet" input display portion DS21.
Then, on the display screen DDSX of the workstation 5A - 5K is displayed an image of a cue sheet CUS as shown in FIG. 9.
The image of the cue sheet CUS has displays of the program name "Tlle Evening News" and the item name "The Strengthened Yen Passes Y120-line 3:00" and, additionally, a display of vertically arranged several horizontally-elongated spaces each thereof indicating the allotted period of time to each material, i.e., "Studio Camera", "VTR", "Still Picture", "Network", "Telop", and "Switcher". Namely, in this cue sheet CUS
is given an arrangement according to the time of the "materials" used in the "item".
In preparing the cue sheet CUS, the reporter, according to the need, click operates "Insert", "Move", "Delete", "Change", "~ ", and "Print" input display portions DS31, DS32, DS33, DS34, DS35, DS36, and DS37.
When the "Insert" input display portion DS31 is click input, a window is opened on the right-hand ' ~ 1 335838 side of the cue sheet CUS as shown in FIG. 10, whereby the reporter is enabled to select "materials" or "switcher effects".
In the present embodiment, four studio cameras Cl - C4, four VTRs Vl - V4, four still pictures Sl - S4, two network pictures NETl and NETZ, two telops FPUl and FPU2 are arranged for selection as the "msterials" and 12 effects sre arranged to be selected. Since selecting marks of these "materials" and "switcher effects" are arranged in the window WD, when the reporter click inputs a selected "material" or "switcher effect", the cursor moves to the period-of-time space for the selected "material" or "switcher effect", so that it becomes possible to click input the starting time and ending time of the "material" or "switcher effect".
In the csse of the embodiment shown in FIG.
10, the item "The Strengthened Yen Passes ~120-line 3:00" is formed of an arrangement of 3 minutes of materials, of which use of the studio camera Cl is registered for the period from "0:00" to 1 minute 10 seconds ("1:10") within the period of time for "Studio Camera", use of the VT~ Vl is registered for the period of 1 minute 10 seconds ("1:10") from the end of the use of the studio camera C] at "1:10", and use of the relay 1 335~38 network NETl is registered from the end of the use of the YTR Vl at 2 minutes 20 seconds ("2:20") to the ending time of the item at "3:00", and in the meantime, interrupting insertions of 10 seconds of the still picture Sl and 5 seconds of the telop Tl together with the relative "switcher effects" are registered.
The registered data of the arrangement according to the time of the "materials" expressed on the cue sheet CUS are represented by time codes indicating the arrangement according to the time and material codes allotted to each of the "materials" and "switcher effects". When the preparation of the cue sheet CUS is finished, the cue sheet data are transmitted from the workstation 5A - 5K through the local transmission line 4 to the host workstation 1 and stored therein.
In FIG. 9 and FIG. 10, if the "Move" input display portion DS32 is click input and also a click input action is made after the cursor has moved onto the display of a "material" or "switcher effect" which is already input, then the "material" or "switcher effect"
is rendered movable along the time axis (i.e., to the left or right) on the screen. By making a click input action after moving the display to a desired position, Zl the movement of the "material" or "æwitcher effect"
along the time axis is effected.
By click inputting the "Delete" input display portion DS33 and making a click input action after moving the cursor onto the display of a "material" or "switcher effect" which is desired to be deleted, the "material" or "Switcher effect" can be deleted.
If the "Change" input display portion DS34 is click input and, then, a first and second "material"
displays or "switcher effect" displays which are desired to be exchanged are successively click input, the "materials" or "switcher effects" can be changed for each other.
The " " and "-~" input display portion DS35 and DS36 make it possib]e to move the cursor forward or backward along the time RXiS during the click inputting operation.
When the "Print" input display portion DS37 is click inpu-, the cue sheet CUS on the display screen DDSX can be printed out as it is.
When the preparation of the cue sheet CUS is finished through the above operations and the "Quit"
input display portion DS38 is click input, the display screen DDSX is reset to the initial picture as shown in `- 1 3 3 5 8 3 8 FIG. 5.
When the thus prepared cue sheets CUS8 using the workstation 5A - 5K are registered snd stored in tbe host workstation 1, the host workststion 1, at step SP6 (FIG. 4), sutomatically checks the ID codes of the "materials" constituting the cue sheet CUS prepared for each "item" with the ID codes added to the "materials"
edited at the steps SP3 and SP4 for any disagreement therebetween.
If they are in sgreement, it means that the "materials" used in the cue sheet CUS are being registered in their edited states, and this further means that the "msterials" are in a stand-by state so that they can be successively transmitted according to the cue sheet CUS.
Whether the "materials" on the cue sheets CUSs for each "item" are in the stand-by state or not is confirmed in the steps at and after the step SP7.
More particularly, at the step SP7 and following steps (which correspond to steps during the on-air period), the news staff member according to the need is enabled to confirm whether the "materials" to be transmitted according to the cue sheets CUSs are in stand-by states or not for each "material" and "item", and, taking the possibility of occurrence of a change in the "item" in an urgent case into consideration, transmits the "materials" constituting each "item" one by one by operating a take key TAKE (a switch for transmission) according to the order indicated in the cue sheet CUS.
In the case of the present embodiment, the automatic controller 2 has sn item monitor MRl and a material monitor MR2, and it is thereby made possible to confirm at the step SP7 whether tlle "materials" included in each "item" are already in stand-by states or not by having index images formed of still pictures displayed by taking the following procedure.
In the case of the present embodiment, if, in the state of the host workstation 1 with the item images as shown in FIG. 8 displayed thereon, the display of an item, for example "Chairman H of Committee on the Budget, the House of Representatives 1:30" is click input and also the "Material Monitor" input display portion DS26 is click input, then an image of a table of materials as shown in FIG. 11 or FIG. 12 is displayed on the material monitor MR2.
The image of the table of materials as shown in FIG. 11 includes a display of the item "Chairman H of Committee on the Budget, the House of Representatives 1:30" and meterial name displays of the "materials"
arranged as a table of the "materials" used according to the cue sheet CUS prepared ~or that item, i.e., "Camera l", "Still Picture l", "Still Picture 2", and "VTRl".
At this time, for the material of which the material code on the cue sheet CUS hss not agreed with the material code of tlle edited material as the result of the automatic checking of the ID codes at the above step SP6, the display for the material name is left as a display of characters as shown in FIG. 12 (this image will be called "material name image") In contrast, when those materials which have agreed at the sutomatic checking are generated, each time one of these appears, a material index image INDlX, IND2X, IND3X is displayed, as the material display, at the position where the material name image INDl, IND2, IND3 was displayed, whereas if there still is a material which does not agree at the automatic ID checking, it is left as a material name image IND4.
Here, as the material index images INDlX, IND2X, IND3X, those images simply and plainly indicating the contents of the "item", such as still pictures formed of a first picture are used so that the news item can be known st a glance.
By so doing, the state of the production in progress of the msterisls forming the item, i.e., whether they sre completed snd in a stand-by state or not, can be easily checked by watching the materisl monitor MR2 of the automatic controller 2.
Such confirmation is attained at step SP8 by observing that the material images for all the items are in the stand-by state.
Such processing at the step SP8 is performed in the host workstation 1, with the item image as shown in FIG. 8 displayed on its display screen, by successively click inputting the displays of the items.
Then, the displays on the material display MR2 sre switched from one to another.
At the same time, the sutomatic controller 2, st step SP9, monitors using the item monitor MRl as to whether or not each "item" is brought into a stand-by state by using sn index image to eacll "item", for example the index image of the first msterial.
The item monitor MRl constantly holds on the display screen thereo the item name images HEDl - HED8 srranged in a table as shown in FIG. 13 and FIG. 14 from when the item names were registered by handwriting input in the host workstation 1 (FIG. 13).
When all of the "materials" for an "item" are brought into the stand-by state, the item name image HEDl which has heen displayed up to that time is exchanged, at the same position, with ao item index image HEDlX, which is, for example, formed of the first index image INDlX out of the index images INDlX, IND2X, IND3X for sll the "materials" included in the item, in the same way as described with reference to FIG. 12.
Thus, the news staff member can easily grasp the state of production of the overall news program in progress by watching the item monitor MRl.
In this way, when all the images forming the table of the items on the item monitor MRl have been exchanged with the item index images, it is meant thereby that the "materials" for the "item" are all in the stand-by state. Then, the news staff member, at step SP10, operates the take key TAKE provided on the automatic controller 2, whereby the "materials" included in the "item" constituting the cue sheet are transmitted through the program switcher 3 as the main line output BDoUT one by one from the first "material" each time the take key TAKE is operated.
In such an on-air state, if, for example, an 1 335~38 urgeot tspe 1~ is brought in, then, as described with reference to FIG. 2, the tape is mounted on the VTR cart system 14 as a tape 16 for urgent transmission withoùt any ID data given, and it is thereby urgently registered in the news program broadcasting system NEWS.
Then, the news staff member, according to the need, operates the host workstation 1 at step SPll to carry out item exchanging work.
More particularly, in the host workstation 1 with the item images read out thereon as described with reference to FIG. 8, the "Change" input display portion DS22 is click input, and then, the items that are desired to be exchanged are click input in succession.
By making such an exchange operation, the materials included in the item, having the IDs designated to be exchanged, of the material IDs written in the material ID file in the host workstation 1 are exchanged all together with the urgent file.
Thus, when an urgent news item is carried in at an on-air period, it can be specially transmitted by replacing the "materials", which have already been registered and given certain IDs, with such an urgent material.
According to the above described arrangement, a reporter gives material IDs to the "materials" prior to the edition and then prepares a cue sheet CUS using the material IDs, and, thereafter, the "materials", of which material IDs in the cue sheet CUS and the material IDs of the edited materials have been determined to be in agreement at the automatic ID checking, are transmitted as the main line output BDoUT. Thus, the news program broadcasting system NEWS as a whole allows easier control of "materials".
As a result, confirmation as to whether the production of the materials to be transmitted have been completed or not, replacing normally prepared materials with an urgent material, etc. can be performed based on the material IDs added to the "materials". Tllus, processing of news materials can be promptly and accurately executed by the news program broadcasting system, combined with decision made as reguired by the new$ staff member through the manual monitoring operations.
In the above embodiment, the news materials whose order of transmission is specified in the cue sheet CUS are adapted to be displayed on the material monitor MR2 as an image of a table of materials arranged in the order of transmission, and hence, the state of the production in progress of the news materials constituting each item can be firmly grasped frnm the material monitor MR2.
Further, in the above embodiment, in displaying the "materials" as an image of a table of materials on the material monitor MR2, it is adapted such that index images are displayed at the positions of the "materials" which have been determined to be in agreement at the automatic ID checking. Hence, the news materials which are brought into a stand-bay state can be positively observed at a glance. In such arrangement, for a news material not in agreement at the ID checking, ttle fact that it has not yet passed in the ID checking is adapted to be indicated by some way (in the case of the above described embodiment, for example, the character display as input by handwriting is left displayed as a material name image IND4 (FIG. 12)), and therefore, the "materials" which are in the stand-by state can be confirmed much easier.
In the sbove described embodiment, there is provided an item monitor MRl, and the news items used in a news program are adapted to be displayed thereon in an arrangement to indicate their order of transmission, and further, the displays at the positions indicating the news items whose production has slready been completed are adapted to be replaced with index i~ages such as the index image HEDlX (FIG. 14), and therefore, the state of production in progress of the pertinent news program can be easily and certainly observed, and thus the news program can be put on the air without fear.
Although the case where only one material monitor MR2 was used for the material monitor was described above with reference to FIG. 11 and FIG. 12, two material monitors MRll and MR12 can be provided, instead, as shown in FIG. 1~ and FIG. 16, wherein a first material monitor MRll is arranged to display those "materials" of the news item to be currently put on the air, i.e., the on-air item ONAIR as an image of a table of materials, and, in addition thereto, to display the "materials" constituting the news item to be transmitted in the next place, i.e., the next item NEXT as an image of another table. The second mPterial monitor MR12 is arranged to display the "materials" constituting the news item to be transmitted as the next item but one, i.e., the second item SECOND as an image of a table of materials.
Then, as shown in FIG. 17 and FIG. 18 corresponding to FIG. 1~ and FIG. 16, images of the tables of "materials" for the on-air item ONAIR, next item NEXT, and second item SECOND are arranged to be observable at a glance. Thus, the stand-by states of not only the news items to be currently put on the air but also the news items to be successively transmitted in the "next" turn as well as in the "next turn but one"
can be visuolly confirmed, and the transmission of the news program can be carried out with a much secured feeling.
In so doing, if there arises a need for changing the order of transmission of news items while putting an item on the a.ir, the material table image for the replacing "materials" can be displayed as that for the second item SECOND, and thuæ, their stand-by state can be easily confirmed and, further, this exchange of itemæ is prevented from affecting the display of the item currently put on the air, the on-air item ONAIR.
In the above described embodiment, it W85 arranged, as shown in FIG. 11 and FIG. 12, such that, for the materials determined to be in agreement at the automatic ID checking, the index images INDlX - IND3X
were displayed at: the same posi.tions as those of the material name images INDl - INn3 to supersede them, and further, as shown in FIG. 13 and FIG. 14, the item index image HEDlX was displayed at the same position -as that of the item name image HEDl to supersede it. However, the wsy of display of the material index image and item index image is not limited to such but various changes can be made.
For example, in displaying a materisl table image and an item table image on the material monitor MR2 and the item monitor MRl as shown in FIG. 20 and FIG. 21, image display areas ARAl and ARAll can be provided snd, additionally, in the vicinity of them, for example below them, there can be provided a material name display area ARAZ and an item name display area ARAl2, so that, in the first place, there are displayed the material name images and the item name images in the image display areas ARAl and ARAll, respectively, and in the next place, the material index images and the item index images appear on the display.
By so arranging, the displayed po~itions in the material name display area ARA2 and item name display area ARA12 are not changed even if the contents of the displayed images are changed, and therefore, the materials and items can be confirmed much easier.
In this embodiment, such an arrangement may also be possible to have the material index images and item index images displAyed as blank images until agreement is determined in the automatic ID checking.
As to inputting "programs" snd "items", thè
case where they were input from a tablet by handwriting was described in the embodiment shown in FIG. 6 and FIG.
8, but a keyboard or character recognition means may be used for the inputting to obtain similar effects as obtained in the above described case.
According to the present invention as described so far, ID codes the same as ID codes assigned to the materials constituting a cue sheet are given to the edited "materials" and production of the news materials is controlled bssed on the ID codes, and thus, a news program broadcasting system, in which news materials are automatically processed until they are put on the air, combined with confirmation of the states of the progreæs manually made by news staff members as required, can be easily embodied.
Claims (2)
1. In a television program transmission system for sequentially transmitting a plurality of materials for transmission according to a cue sheet, said television program transmission system comprising;
ID code assignment means for assigning an ID code to the name of a material for transmission in said cue sheet;
material-to-be-transmitted registration means for assigning an ID code to a material for transmission to be actually transmitted and registering it in the system;
check means for checking said ID code assigned to the name of a material for transmission with said ID code assigned to the material to be transmitted, and passing said material to be transmitted when said two ID codes are the same;
arrangement means for arranging said materials passed by said check means for transmission in the order according to said cue sheet; and display control means for simultaneously displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission on a single display device as they are arranged in the order.
ID code assignment means for assigning an ID code to the name of a material for transmission in said cue sheet;
material-to-be-transmitted registration means for assigning an ID code to a material for transmission to be actually transmitted and registering it in the system;
check means for checking said ID code assigned to the name of a material for transmission with said ID code assigned to the material to be transmitted, and passing said material to be transmitted when said two ID codes are the same;
arrangement means for arranging said materials passed by said check means for transmission in the order according to said cue sheet; and display control means for simultaneously displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission on a single display device as they are arranged in the order.
2. In a transmission system of a news program constituted of a plurality of news items, each news item being formed of a plurality of materials for transmission arranged according to a cue sheet, said news program transmission system comprising:
ID code assignment means for assigning an ID code to the name of a material for transmission in said cue sheet;
material-to-be-transmitted registration means for assigning an ID code to a material for transmission to be actually transmitted and registering it in the system;
check means for checking said ID code assigned to the name of a material for transmission with said ID code assigned to the material to be transmitted, and passing said material to be transmitted when said two ID codes are the same;
arrangement means for arranging said materials passed by said check means for transmission in said news item in the order according to said cue sheet; anddisplay control means for displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission in a first news item to be transmitted in the first place out of said plurality of news items at the upper portion of display means and displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission in a second news item to be transmitted in succession to said first news item at the lower portion of said display means.
ID code assignment means for assigning an ID code to the name of a material for transmission in said cue sheet;
material-to-be-transmitted registration means for assigning an ID code to a material for transmission to be actually transmitted and registering it in the system;
check means for checking said ID code assigned to the name of a material for transmission with said ID code assigned to the material to be transmitted, and passing said material to be transmitted when said two ID codes are the same;
arrangement means for arranging said materials passed by said check means for transmission in said news item in the order according to said cue sheet; anddisplay control means for displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission in a first news item to be transmitted in the first place out of said plurality of news items at the upper portion of display means and displaying said arranged plurality of materials for transmission in a second news item to be transmitted in succession to said first news item at the lower portion of said display means.
Applications Claiming Priority (3)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| JP63094156A JP2629802B2 (en) | 1988-04-16 | 1988-04-16 | News program broadcasting system |
| JP094156/88 | 1988-04-16 | ||
| CA000596716A CA1330238C (en) | 1988-04-16 | 1989-04-14 | News program broadcasting system |
Related Parent Applications (1)
| Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA000596716A Division CA1330238C (en) | 1988-04-16 | 1989-04-14 | News program broadcasting system |
Publications (1)
| Publication Number | Publication Date |
|---|---|
| CA1335838C true CA1335838C (en) | 1995-06-06 |
Family
ID=25672617
Family Applications (1)
| Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA000616692A Expired - Lifetime CA1335838C (en) | 1988-04-16 | 1993-08-04 | News program broadcasting system |
Country Status (1)
| Country | Link |
|---|---|
| CA (1) | CA1335838C (en) |
-
1993
- 1993-08-04 CA CA000616692A patent/CA1335838C/en not_active Expired - Lifetime
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