In the early days of video production, studios and control rooms were filled with single use pieces of equipment that were extremly expensive and were only used for one particular task. However, now in the past few years, those old single-use pieces of equipment are being replaced with computers that can do a particular job but can also do other things as well. This is mainly because computers have become much more powerful and can handle full HD video without any trouble. Now instead of having a special piece of equipment for the character generator, you can, as my college does use a standard off the shelf computer with a special card and some special software for a lot less money. We use the chiron system which is used in about 80% of control rooms in the industry. The other, and probably most important computerized piece of equipment is the swtchee which controls what is either recorded or broadcasted. Hardware switchers, which are still the norm in the industry, cost tens of thousands of dollars. However if you have a powerful enough computer, and the right inputs for your computer, then it can replace the hardware switcher for a fraction of the cost. There are a few software solutions for this, the most common is the Tricaster which Leo Laporte uses for his TWIT Live stream. The other common piece of software that can serve this is Boinx TV which I reviewed in an earlier article. Although this sound appealing, it is still new technology and requires a very powerful computer. However, if you have a powerful laptop it alllows you to have a switcher that you can take with you anywhere and do multi-camera shoots anywhere.

I think as time goes on more and more equipment will go computerized and will further decrease the cost of building studios which will allow more people to afford building a studio. Computers also allow flexibility and allows you to easily change the arrangement of the studio based on the program and th director’s preferences. I was able to see thus first hand when I toured Dallas Cowboys Stadium and saw their control room. The control room screens are all connected to KVM (Keyboard, video and monitor) switches so that the director can decide how they want people arranged in the control room and rearrange the control room just by pressing a few buttons.