Friday, February 02, 2007

Super Bowl, Day 10

Remember, we both got finished around 9pm last night.

2:50am (This morning) - Wake up
3:20am - Meet my father for a ride to Dolphins Stadium
4:00am - Arrive at Stadium
The bad part about arriving early to be ready for an early news hit from South Beach Florida, through Miami Dolphins' Stadium, to CBS-NY was they weren't here when they were supposed to be. The good news about being here early is that we actually had a breakfast! Yippee! It was the best breakfast we've had in a very long time. Typically we've arrived to find bagels and sweet breads. Don't get me wrong, I like bagels and sweet breads. But, after almost 3 weeks, it's getting old, and I've gained 10 pounds. We ate like Kings! Maybe, we felt like Kings. OK, I felt like a King. The truth is we drove by a Burger King, and it was closed. Gosh, am I tired!
4:30am - Check all the transmission paths, as it is my job.
7:00am - On the air, with news or something.
9:00am - News is off the air. Now we can get back to sports.
12:00pm - Lunch time.
1:00pm - Check all of our transmission paths, inside the compound.
4:00pm- Start dialy transmission test.
This can be very difficult to describe, but I'll do my best. We are transmitting in High Definition with Dolby E Surround Sound. What this means is that we're trying to give the viewer at home the best quality experience we can. The high definition is the best quality image we can give, and the 5.1 surround gives the viewer at home the best audio quality we can to make him or her feel like they are in the stands. In this day and age, the newest technology comes down to ones and zeroes. The video and audio have become streams of data. The music on your iPod, your cellphone's ringtone or even video on a DVD is just data now. Just like on a computer, you can take that raw data and compress it. The old adage of, "Time is money" is still true, but now it's more like "Space is money". To pass all this information down a thin, long piece of glass, or up to a satellite over 50 miles away the video and audio needs to be compressed.
The biggest reason for the testing between us and NY is to make sure what we are sending to them is what they are actually receiving. CBS-NY checks the color of our video, the level of our audio, that what they should be hearing on the left channel is there. This takes a long time. Remember: We have 5 paths going out. Each need to be checked. And, we're sending 8 channels of audio with the video.
7:00pm - Finish daily transmission test.
9:00pm - We finish. Except for my father and the Graphics operators.
11:00pm - My father's done. We drive half an hour back to our hotel, have dinner, go to bed.

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