VDS provided the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs with a complete system for the display of its in-house television-programming schedule.
The VDS system consists of VidInfo software operating on standard PCs controlling five Chyron graphics systems, one for each channel of programming. All programming schedule and information is extracted from a Meyers Information Systems ProTrack scheduling system running on an Informix database.
As part of VidInfo, the VDS Scheduler application reads the programming schedule from ProTrack and then creates graphic playlists for each of the output channels. It also periodically updates the current schedule information from ProTrack for each of the five channels along with the program titles and descriptions. The update process can also be initiated manually from the user interface allowing last minute changes to be displayed.
The playlists, schedules, titles and descriptions for each channel are all stored locally on a standard SQL server. This allows the system to continue to display programs and information in the event of communications failure. The Scheduler also provides the ability to create graphic text pages that can positioned anywhere in the playlist as well as “up next” lower third promo displays.
For more information, visit www.videodesignsoftware.com.
