A transmission control room (TCR), transmission suite, Tx room, or presentation suite is a room at broadcast facilities and

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

s around the world. Compared to a master control room, it is usually smaller in size and is a scaled-down version of

centralcasting In terrestrial radio and television broadcasting, centralcasting refers to the use of systems automation by which customised signals for broadcast by multiple individual stations may be created at one central facility. Definition Centralcastin ...

. A TX room or presentation suite will be staffed 24/7 by presentation coordinators and tape operators and will be fitted out with video play-out systems often using server based

broadcast automation Broadcast automation incorporates the use of broadcast programming technology to automate broadcasting operations. Used either at a broadcast network, radio station or a television station, it can run a facility in the absence of a human opera ...

. For operational and content qualitative reasons, not more than two

television channels A television channel is a terrestrial frequency or virtual number over which a television station or television network is distributed. For example, in North America, "channel 2" refers to the terrestrial or cable band of 54 to 60 MHz, with ...

are managed from one TCR. Channels with live content and production switching requirements like sports channels have their own dedicated TCRs. A television station may have several TCRs depending on the number of channels they broadcast.

Presentation suite

The presentation suite is staffed 24/7 by on-air presentation coordinators who are responsible for the continuity and punctual play out of scheduled

broadcast programming Broadcast programming is the practice of organizing or ordering (scheduling) of broadcast media shows, typically radio and television, in a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or season-long schedule. Modern broadcasters use broadcast automatio ...

. Programming may be live from the

television studio A television studio, also called a television production studio, is an installation room in which video productions take place, either for the production of live television and its recording onto video tape or other media such as SSDs, or for t ...

or played from

video tape Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette ...

or from

video server {{refimprove, date=September 2014 A video server is a computer-based device that is dedicated to delivering video. Video servers are used in a number of applications, and often have additional functions and capabilities that address the needs of p ...

playout In broadcasting, channel playout is the generation of the source signal of a radio or television channel produced by a broadcaster, coupled with the transmission of this signal for primary distribution or direct-to-audience distribution via any ...

. When

is 'live' the presentation coordinator will override the broadcast automation system and manually switch

television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, e ...

ming. The presentation coordinator will directly coordinate

live television Live television is a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. In a secondary meaning, it may refer to streaming television over the Internet when content or programming is played continuously (not on demand) ...

programming going to air in consultation with master control and the production assistant (PA) or the director's assistant (DA). The presentation coordinator will arrange program source to be allocated by master control and advise the DA as to the start time and count the production in from 10 seconds to first-frame of picture and the DA will count the production out to the

television commercial A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

break and so on it continues to the end of the program. Live programming is unpredictable and will affect the scheduled timing of scheduled programing events; the presentation coordinator adjusts programming to bring the schedule back on time by adding or removing fill content from the playout schedule.

Common TCR equipment

* Broadcast control desk *

Broadcast automation Broadcast automation incorporates the use of broadcast programming technology to automate broadcasting operations. Used either at a broadcast network, radio station or a television station, it can run a facility in the absence of a human opera ...

control computers *

Production switcher A vision mixer is a device used to select between several different live video sources and, in some cases, compositing live video sources together to create visual effects. In most of the world, both the equipment and its operator are called ...

Talkback (recording) In sound recording, a talkback system is the intercom used in recording studios and production control rooms (PCRs) in television studios to enable personnel to communicate with people in the recording area or booth. While the control room can hea ...

Broadcast quality Broadcast quality is a term stemming from quad videotape to denote the quality achieved by professional video cameras and time base correctors (TBC) used for broadcast television, usually in standard definition. As the standards for commercial tel ...

video monitor A display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form (the latter used for example in tactile electronic displays for blind people). When the input information that is supplied has an electrical signal the ...

Waveform monitor A waveform monitor is a special type of oscilloscope used in television production applications. It is typically used to measure and display the level, or voltage, of a video signal with respect to time. The level of a video signal usually corre ...

* SDI audio de-embedder * Video play-out automation *

Character generator A character generator, often abbreviated as CG, is a device or software that produces static or animated text (such as news crawls and credits rolls) for keying into a video stream. Modern character generators are computer-based, and they can g ...

(CG) titles generator

References

Broadcasting Broadcast engineering Rooms Television terminology {{bcast-stub

Presentation suite

Common TCR equipment

See also

References