Elections 2020

Elections 2020
Genre:	Events Coverage
First Broadcast:	22/02/20
Producer(s):	Cal Cooke, Olivia Gibbs, Joe Radford, Ben Allen, Thomas Schubert

60 Second Manifestos

Credits

• Produced by: Ben Allen, Thomas Schubert, Cal Cooke
• Crew: Ben Allen, Cal Cooke, Alize Akturk

• Graphics and post production: Ben Allen
• Gaffer: Andrew Waddle

Event

The yearly 60 sms production went fairly without a hitch, with fewer candidates than Elections 2019 the process was a lot smoother and faster in run-through. With Ben Allen at the helm of the shoot days, and the post work, the process was refined and new production methods implemented (mainly using DaVinci Resolve to do the keying). The videos included one sent in remotely, and the rules have been adapted both on YSTV's end and from YUSU to allow for this in future. (The candidate records their video under the normal conditions while being watched over skype by a YSTV producer). The response both from YUSU and from candidates was very positive.

Technical Issues

EncodeSrv

During the same time period as 60 sms the computing team had finally swapped away from their old transcoders to their new transcoders, the bytemarks. Whilst this was an upgrade since it provided extra space in the studio, the software however was not completely installed on them. Where they were only capable of transcoding livestreams not completing encoding jobs. So in order to ensure that the videos would be available to watch on the website, the computing team setup EncodeSrv, the software that handles all our rendering, the issue being was a lack of documentation and the software was based on Python 2.7. So over a period of a week the software was brought up to use Python 3.8. However, during the haste of development there ended up being 4 different variants of the software being deployed for the 60 sms due to the encoding jobs failing and patches were made to the software on the fly. Luckily, all the videos were able to be processed in time to be released to the public.

Uploading to the website

Due to an issue with how the YSTV website processes videos it was generating incorrect encode jobs for the videos that Ben had produced through DaVinci Resolve. Likely caused by the YSTV website not being "familiar" with the files generated by Resolve, Ben transcoded the video files with AME so the website could generate the correct jobs. This issue is currently still under investigation.

Debate Night

Credits

• Produced by: Joe Radford
• Directed by: Joe Radford

• Technical Lead: Andrew Waddle
• Technical team: Andrew Waddle, Will Stirk, Rhys Milling, Ben Allen
• Computing: Rhys Milling

• Vision Mixer: Thomas Schubert
• Sound: Andrew Waddle
• Graphics Op: Joe Radford

• Camera ops: Adam Hilton, Wilfred Hodder, Sophie Bolwell-Davies, Will Stirk

Event

The show was run primarily by Joe Radford with a minimal crew, working to the YUSU event plan in D bar. The show stream was almost a total success from the YSTV side, with only 1 footage issue in the recorded version. The livestream was, as so often, held together by literal gaffer tape; with the Ethernet cable for the stream up-link held in with tape. No massive failures occurred, and the only real issue was the Derwent technical staff (running the stage sound) causing a whole load of reverb every time new people would speak. Another issue was that their wireless mic system ran on the exact same frequency as our comms. Combined with their insistence on leaving faders up this lead to Joe's voice being occasionally broadcast across their speakers until Ben got sick of waiting for them to realize this and unplugged their other microphone from their desk. This fixed the issue on a more permanent basis for the rest of the event.

Owing to some new lighting equipment from the Electronic Engineering Department, the stream looked somewhat better than years previously with the AC90 cameras working far better when aimed at a stage flooded with 2000 Watts of light.

This show was only 3 days before the NASTA 2020 submission deadline for new work, so many of those involved and much of the rest of YSTV was busy in editing crunch.

Election Results Night

Credits

• Produced by: Thomas Schubert, Cal Cooke, Joe Radford, Olivia Gibbs
• Directed by: Ben Allen
• Presenters: Louis Dickson, Thomas Schubert

• Technical Lead: Andrew Waddle
• Technical team: Andrew Waddle, Will Stirk, Rhys Milling
• Computing: Rhys Milling, Marks Polakovs

• Vision Mixers: Morgan McKay, Jonathan Hughes
• Sound: Jacob Boyle
• Graphics Op: Marks Polakovs
• Live highlights: Marta Vitola

• Floor managers: Zoë Dickinson, Joe Radford
• Camera ops: Alize Akturk, Wilfred Hodder, Karinna Hollins, Caroline Preynat-Viero, Joseph Wharfe, Sophie Bolwell-Davies
• Social Media: Jack Carter

#Chillandmingle

This was a special OB since it involved two OB units being used, a lot more cameras than a regular OB, and the VideoHub two to a lack of capacity on the ATEM. OB2 handled our main stream whilst OB1 handled the YUSU stream which played out graphics in The Lounge.

Event

The ERN show is always one of the largest productions of a typical YSTV year, with normally upwards of 20 people involved on the crew just from YSTV. It is also an occasion to work with both TechSoc (Technical theatre) and URY on the technical end, and YUSU on the planning and delivery end.

The 2020 show was fairly bodged together at the last minute, owing to it falling in the middle of 3rd year assessments and 2nd year TFTV films. This took a lot of the normal YSTV team out as they were either planning their own films or helping on someone else's. The planning was done with YUSU about 48 hours before live which was a tad bit difficult and rather stressful. With 2 OB units being required to service the different feeds of the internal (venue) stream, playing out YUSU graphics etc, and the online live stream (YUSU graphics combined with camera feeds). With TecSoc handling the venue install, our setup was mainly the twin galleries and our studio. Despite a number of issues during the setup and rehearsal, including a total power failure and very painful electric shocks, the show was ready on time and went off mainly without a fault.

Note The decision was taken not to push the stream to either Facebook or YouTube on the off-chance that back-ground music would cause a take-down (YUSU events tend to have licence music played during and YSTV is not included in said licence). The stream was instead pushed just to the YSTV website.

Technical Issues

Power delivery

Upon arrival of The Lounge with the OB units the tech team made the discovery that the outlet in the wall we had connected the OB unit to lacked any electricity. So we then proceeded to swap to the other outlet on the other side of the wall, this one did work and until the moment when we had planned to go live everything was going well until we managed to blow a fuse in one of the sockets. It turned out that it was not a good idea to run nearly all of our equipment on two outlets, we were able to quickly resolve this issue by swapping the fuse and Tech Soc providing us one of their 16A outlets. This had also sadly caused the stream to die, which required Rhys to jog all the way to courtyard where it had been playing out but had died to the connection loss. In addition, when the OB units were switched back on we were struck with an OS not found screen on our graphics computer for OB2, this caused great distress, but it turned out that a USB had been left in the computer that was originally being used to transfer the embargoed graphics but it had also been used previously to boot an OS which we didn't realise at first. Upon discovery, a quick unplug, a power-on and we were back in action.

Networking

There was significant issues that occurred in regards to networking. Firstly, the laptops were connected through WiFi which displeased Matthew and Andrew greatly. This was likely caused by the fact the A/V control software kept on disconnecting, a better WiFi AP would probably have resolved this slight issue. Rhys attempted to resolve this by connecting them all to OB2's switch but this resulted in the laptop's unable to get IP addresses. This was not ideal. It appeared that none of the laptop's could discover the DHCP server, reasons are still unknown to this day, although it was likely a faulty config file made by Rhys and a DNS server issue. So in order to resolve this issue we had to setup each laptop to use a static IP address instead which thankfully resolved the lack of connectivity and allowed us to vision mix to our hearts content.

The OB unit that wasn't grounded

During setup of the computing infrastructure Rhys had first noticed this issue when plugging in equipment into OB1 but didn't let it phase him thinking it was just a static shock. That happened early during the setup, so after all the extra equipment had been plugged in it had caused this shock to be left a little bit more. Rhys was attempting to plug an SDI cable in from OB1 complaining that there was an issue with it but sadly his cries were disregarded by Andrew and Ben saying that they experience it all the time in the studio! After enough complaining by Rhys, Andrew attempted the final connection of the SDI cable, thinking it was fine at first then ZAP! He reeled in pain and then the tech team decided it wasn't a good idea to use that OB unit anymore so we had to quickly deploy Marty the third OB unit which up until now was reserved until emergencies. So it was quickly prepped for graphics playout where it was then discovered it didn't have any graphics software installed, so Rhys and Ben worked against the clock to get it ready to playout graphics! Luckily it was setup and did its job without fault.