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Shifted sources, Mix/effects (m/e) – Grass Valley Zodiak v.6.0 Mar 15 2006 User Manual

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Zodiak — User Manual

41

Signal Routing

Shifted Sources

An operator may need to quickly access many sources during a produc-
tion. However, a control panel has size limitations, since all the source
selection buttons must remain within reach. The Zodiak system provides
shifted buttons to allow access to more input sources from the control
panel.

On a 2.5- or 3-M/E Zodiak system, up to 46 sources can be mapped at one
time, 23 to the unshifted source selection, and 23 to the shifted buttons. A
dedicated

Shift

button is provided as the farthest right crosspoint button

(Crosspoint 24) for every bus. Two shift modes are available: Normal and
Latched.

In Normal mode, shifted or unshifted status of the bus is indicated by the
state of the

Shift

button light. Holding down the

Shift

button while pressing

a source button always selects the shifted source for that bus. The

Shift

button will light when the row of buttons to its left are shifted.

In Latched mode, the

Shift

button toggles on and off in a manner similar to

the Caps Lock button on a standard keyboard. When on, it lights to indicate
that the subsequent selection(s) on the crosspoint selector row will be made
from the shifted set of sources (24 through 46). When off, the subsequent
selection(s) come from the unshifted set (1 through 23). If the user toggles
the

Shift

button to the state that is opposite from the shift state for the cur-

rently selected input, then the crosspoint selector button blinks to indicate
an Out of Sync condition.

A useful configuration is to have sources normally used for backgrounds
(e.g. VTRs) mapped to unshifted buttons, and sources normally used as
keys (e.g. character generators) mapped to shifted buttons. Then you can
then set all the background buses to an unshifted preference, and all the
key buses to a shifted preference. All normal source selections can then be
made without having to use the shift modifier buttons.

Mix/Effects (M/E)

An M/E is a subsystem of a video production switcher that can create a
composite of two or more pictures. An M/E includes multiple source selec-
tion buses and provides transition (mix and wipe) and keying capabilities
on the selected signals. An M/E can be organized with the keying circuitry
separate from the mixing circuitry, which permits Effect Send capabilities
(see Effects Send

on page 43

for more information).

A simple basic M/E used in a typical switcher will be used as an example
in the following discussion. A Zodiak M/E has added capabilities, but the
basic principles described here will apply. See

Figure 7 on page 32

for a

simplified diagram of the actual Zodiak M/E architecture.