Take Delay, Jump, Load, Cue, Length: Explained

Hey all,

Some info is being passed around and I thought I'd attempt to take some of the guess work out of all of the lengths/times that Cablecast uses to calculate when it should execute commands.

First thing to know is: The length of a show reel is its time on the air. Do not subtract or ad the cue field to this value. How long is your program? 31 minutes 23 seconds and 95 seconds into the tape? Then your length is 31:23 and your cue time is 1:35 (which you may type as 95, btw).

Second: Take delay is not the same as the cue field found in a show record's reel. It is not a default or minimum value either. The take delay is the amount of time that the device takes between receiving>rolling the tape (or reading data in the case of DVD). Therefore, Cablecast always adds the cue time of your show's reel to the take delay value. You want it to behave this way! :) Imagine you're using a creaky old 3/4 deck that takes 7 seconds to thread the tape and roll. Your show begins 32 seconds into the tape. If Cablecast pressed play 32 seconds before air, you'd get 7 seconds of black and cut the end of the show off by the same value. By adding the 7 seconds, everything is fine.

The jump value refers to different things on different devices. On DVD players/changers, it means "jump to this title and chapter". On serial decks, it means "seek to the value entered into the show's reel's cue field".

Load only appears on changers. It means load the disk (tape, in the case of MicroCarts).

I hope all of this proves hellpful! FYI: It's all covered in the Cablecast Guide, which you can find here:

http://www.trms.com/main/contacts/doc...


Andrew Alan Starks
Co-Founder, Tightrope Media Systems
(866) 866-4118, 201
www.trms.com