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Stolen from kusports's 13hawk.
#1971413 - Sat Mar 05 2011 05:16 PM Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
I know NONE of you want to hear this (and I'm not trying to piss you off OR defend anyone for screwing up) but the "sunspot" story is entirely feasible.
CBS has multiple feeds up at any one time - you all know this - especially after today. NOT all of those feeds come off of the same satellite. It's entirely possible that the satellite WIBW in topeka (and a few others that did NOT get switched were watching) was affected by some sort of technical difficulty. The feed we were watching in topeka had all sorts of audio and video problems, even going off the air a couple times.
The way CBS sets their network feeds up - they'll have NetA, NetB, and NetC ALL playing the same thing at the same time. NetA may be coming off of "Telstar 6" which is in one quadrant of sky, and NetB and NetC coming off of "Galaxy 6" which is in another quadrant altogether. They do this for obvious reasons... if there is a severe storm over a certain area stations can use the alternate to continue to receive programming. The same thing applies in reverse, in case of some kind of catastrophe in space (satellites getting hit by debris, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, little green men, giant fµcking spaceships, etc.)
If all the networks are streaming the same thing and you have to switch... no problem! However... there are times when CBS will have different programming up on different channels (think about march madness). MOST of the time CBS will warn stations ahead of time that they are going to be switching streams... and IF the master control operator is paying attention - he can switch to a backup (possibly even coming off of another satellite altogether) and try to stay with the local game. When I worked at 13 I'd do this all the time during the NCAAs... that way we could stay with KU and NOT watch bµllshit like today.
Where we run into trouble is if CBS announces a switch (or maybe they didn't even warn the local affiliates) and noone notices. CBS is fully capable of switching what stream the sat receivers are playing from new york without ANY intervention whatsoever from the local affiliate.
It gets even more complicated when you find out that - not only can CBS national production switch streams - but engineering can as well. If engineering switched streams and didn't inform production... you might end up with some receivers getting cartoons (like the west coast did) some receivers staying on the KU game till they normally tossed (greg gumble) to another game, and some operators (WIBW) being on the original channel on another satellite that is being impacted by tech issues.
The channel we were watching was OBVIOUSLY fµcked up by something, and it is a completely clear day here in topukea. The primary receiving dish at WIBW cannot be steered off of the main satellite for CBS, so THAT wasn't the cause of the interference, and other affiliates in differing locations in the country saw the same thing the topeka market did... so it CAN'T be something locally defined. It wasn't a problem at CBS in new york causing the interference (on the KU game and NOT on the michigan crap) so the only other viable option is something going on after the uplink, but before the downlink. The only other stop in the chain are the satellites that the signal bounces off of.
So ... blah blah blah... it's COMPLETELY possible that one of the satellites was having an issue, CBS engineering remotely switched the feed to the other satellite, and then CBS production did "normal" cutaways to other local games without realizing that their net streams had been changed. Some of the more enterprising and awake master control ops switched off of whatever was CBS primary and got stuck on the bird that was having issues and NOT being switched by either CBS engineering or CBS production.
Does it excuse it? No. Does it make it all better? No. Does SOMEBODY need to seriously knock some heads together and figure out where the major malfunction was? Yes.
Does that give carte blanche to some of you "rocket scientists" around here to summarily decree that they all the sudden understand a system that takes REAL rocket scientists to run, and to pronounce their best effort at an explanation a falsehood? NO!
For Christsake this isn't the WHITEHOUSE!
But all of you who will take offense to what I've just put together are the SAME dumbasses that think they coach better than HCBS... and unfortunately, you're all still theoretically jayhawks... so I guess that means I STILL love you!
#1971413 - Sat Mar 05 2011 05:16 PM Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
I know NONE of you want to hear this (and I'm not trying to piss you off OR defend anyone for screwing up) but the "sunspot" story is entirely feasible.
CBS has multiple feeds up at any one time - you all know this - especially after today. NOT all of those feeds come off of the same satellite. It's entirely possible that the satellite WIBW in topeka (and a few others that did NOT get switched were watching) was affected by some sort of technical difficulty. The feed we were watching in topeka had all sorts of audio and video problems, even going off the air a couple times.
The way CBS sets their network feeds up - they'll have NetA, NetB, and NetC ALL playing the same thing at the same time. NetA may be coming off of "Telstar 6" which is in one quadrant of sky, and NetB and NetC coming off of "Galaxy 6" which is in another quadrant altogether. They do this for obvious reasons... if there is a severe storm over a certain area stations can use the alternate to continue to receive programming. The same thing applies in reverse, in case of some kind of catastrophe in space (satellites getting hit by debris, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, little green men, giant fµcking spaceships, etc.)
If all the networks are streaming the same thing and you have to switch... no problem! However... there are times when CBS will have different programming up on different channels (think about march madness). MOST of the time CBS will warn stations ahead of time that they are going to be switching streams... and IF the master control operator is paying attention - he can switch to a backup (possibly even coming off of another satellite altogether) and try to stay with the local game. When I worked at 13 I'd do this all the time during the NCAAs... that way we could stay with KU and NOT watch bµllshit like today.
Where we run into trouble is if CBS announces a switch (or maybe they didn't even warn the local affiliates) and noone notices. CBS is fully capable of switching what stream the sat receivers are playing from new york without ANY intervention whatsoever from the local affiliate.
It gets even more complicated when you find out that - not only can CBS national production switch streams - but engineering can as well. If engineering switched streams and didn't inform production... you might end up with some receivers getting cartoons (like the west coast did) some receivers staying on the KU game till they normally tossed (greg gumble) to another game, and some operators (WIBW) being on the original channel on another satellite that is being impacted by tech issues.
The channel we were watching was OBVIOUSLY fµcked up by something, and it is a completely clear day here in topukea. The primary receiving dish at WIBW cannot be steered off of the main satellite for CBS, so THAT wasn't the cause of the interference, and other affiliates in differing locations in the country saw the same thing the topeka market did... so it CAN'T be something locally defined. It wasn't a problem at CBS in new york causing the interference (on the KU game and NOT on the michigan crap) so the only other viable option is something going on after the uplink, but before the downlink. The only other stop in the chain are the satellites that the signal bounces off of.
So ... blah blah blah... it's COMPLETELY possible that one of the satellites was having an issue, CBS engineering remotely switched the feed to the other satellite, and then CBS production did "normal" cutaways to other local games without realizing that their net streams had been changed. Some of the more enterprising and awake master control ops switched off of whatever was CBS primary and got stuck on the bird that was having issues and NOT being switched by either CBS engineering or CBS production.
Does it excuse it? No. Does it make it all better? No. Does SOMEBODY need to seriously knock some heads together and figure out where the major malfunction was? Yes.
Does that give carte blanche to some of you "rocket scientists" around here to summarily decree that they all the sudden understand a system that takes REAL rocket scientists to run, and to pronounce their best effort at an explanation a falsehood? NO!
For Christsake this isn't the WHITEHOUSE!
But all of you who will take offense to what I've just put together are the SAME dumbasses that think they coach better than HCBS... and unfortunately, you're all still theoretically jayhawks... so I guess that means I STILL love you!
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