Meet Ol Smokey! I’m relatively new to this forum, but not new to car audio fomokey

[cadaver]

Praise God you didnt get hurt! Hopefully the shop will fix it properly this time and not "fix" it like the last time.

[chad]

you know what I like about you people doing video like that? It means I do not have to

[LumbermanSVO]

you know what I like about you people doing video like that? It means I do not have to

I love it! We do stuff like this on the PGA tour fairly often, but on the ladies tour our client has automated all the content. My main priority is the ladies tour, its a GREAT environment to work in, but on occasion it's nice to jump off and do these crazy PGA shows.

The last "big" PGA show I did was the BMW Championship last year. During tournament week I couldn't step away from the video switching desk for more than 30 seconds or a mistake would go out live. It wasn't uncommon to be working in Photoshop or Keynote creating content at the same time as well. This was my desk:



I had six inputs going out to two screens and I was controlling the content on two if those inputs.

This was a CCTV setup I did at the LPGA CP Open last year:


(Bad iPhone panorama)

The funny thing about me being a video guy is that I know SO much more about audio. My company could really use my talents on other gigs, but I'm doing such a great job on the LPGA tour that they can't really take me off it.

[LumbermanSVO]

And if you are the kind of person who likes the back sides of electronics, this is the back side of the Ascender:



Full size: http://i.imgur.com/KA9Jh8P.jpg

I'll be running three of those...

[chad]

I'm more akin to staring at the back side of a Midas XL4 or similar

[LumbermanSVO]

On Wednesday I got back from my 19 day trip to the Ryder Cup and I’m just now starting to feel normal again after working 10-16 hours every day.


We had 16 HD-SDI inputs coming in from a production truck we’d hired. On top of that we had a couple more inputs from our office trailer. To handle distribution we used a Blackmagic Design Smart Videohub 40x40. When it was all said and done, we only had 3 empty outputs left on the 40x40. The beauty of the 40x40 is that any of the 40 outputs can grab signal from any of the 40 inputs.


From there signal went into three Ascender 48’s, two of those were linked together. Our production truck lives in a 16:9 world, but only two of our screens were actually 16:9. So with the Ascenders I was able to add content to the "unused" parts of the screens.





Six of the screens could be seen by the golfers while playing, so they had to have still content when in sight. The problem is, I couldn’t see the screens from where I was working from and wouldn’t know when they needed to be switched to still content. So to solve this we came up with a brilliant little system.


We had a volunteer stand at each screen and watch the round, and GREAT deal for them. At each screen we had two media players each looping a video, one of a stop signal, and one of a go signal. They were both plugged into an HDMI switch and then fed back to the NeXtage video switcher in my office. But that’s where things get complicated.


The idea is to gather those video feeds, lay them out int he order I needed, then feed them into the Ascenders so they could be placed next to their screens on my monitors for easy identification. The problem is, the NeXtage only had two outputs, and only four layers per output, each input takes up a layer. One of the Ascenders needed five of these signals, and we needed to send this info over to the production truck.


So to solve this problem I was able to take the layers from output 2 and reassign them to output 1, this completely disables output 2. From there I send output 1 to the 40x40 and into each Ascender setup. I was then able to crop them to fit my needs on on the Ascenders. From there I was able to send the monitor output of the NeXtage over to the production truck so they could easily see the red/green signals.








To make all this work, we sent signal to and from the course over fiber. Between video going out, coming in, internet, and coms, we used around 50 fiber runs out of our available 72. After all those cables, media converters, power supplies and whatnot, you end up with quite the rats nest in the corner.











And I controlled this all from two laptops and two iPads. The iPads were setup to quickly pull up presets to change inputs. The laptops were used to make more complex changes whenever needed.
















——————————


Now in to the Bronco, on Thursday i called the shop and they still didn’t have it back together, WTF? Surely it takes less than 20 days to replaced a damaged brake rotor, wheel, missing lug nuts and bolt it all together. But no, these asshats hadn’t done it yet. They told me that Friday they’d send it to the local Discount Tire to have them mount and balance the tire on the new wheel, and do the final assembly.


So Friday afternoon I hadn’t heard anything from them, so I went down to Discount Tire, the Bronco wasn’t there. I spoke to the guy who had checked in my Bronco earlier that day, and he told me he rejected it because the studs were cross threaded. So that answers the question about how this all happened in the first place.


I then explained the entire series of events to the Discount Tire guy and as I went on the look on his face grew more concerned. He assured me that when he gets it back with good studs, he’ll give everything a good look over and make sure it’s safe for the road.


On Saturday I called the original shop and asked them why I hadn’t heard anything from them yet. He said Discount was too busy on Friday and wasn’t able to send it over, I didn’t tell him that I saw the paperwork in person at Discount. He said it’d be done by the end of the day. I haven’t heard anything from them yet.


Once I finally get it back, and the wheels stay on, I’ll be writing some pretty detailed reviews on Yelp, FB and other sites…

[BigAl205]

Wow, that's just amazing.

[LumbermanSVO]

Thanks Al, this was my biggest show yet, both in terms of production size, and audience. This office setup just barely scratches the surface of the creativity that goes into something like this. With 14 screens on the course, we had a LOT of work on our plate. We had 8 LED techs onsite, including myself, and our production team was about 10 people. During the build and teardown we had about 12 locals to help us.

[LumbermanSVO]

Today I woke up way late and didn't feel like doing much, but I knew I had to do something just to start building some momentum. I started by making a to do list, that's scary!


Wire Reverse Lights
Add Tilt Sensor and Wiring
Wire Bed Lights
Wire Dome Light
Install Alarm
Pull Dash for paint
Move EFI wire harness (started this today)
Mount fan
Swap pulleys
Add gauge wiring
Add gauge(s)
Fuel level wiring
Add Power bulkheads
Brace center of dash
Remove parking brake pedal
Add electric parking brake
Wiper switch and wiring
New hood
Paint battery tray
Mount battery tray
Replace starter wires
Add starter switch under hood
Move fuel lines
Patch firewall holes
Add Cruise control
Add heater
Add Oil pressure sensor
replace and wire door switches
Wire Front corner lights
Add Speed sensor
Sound dampen dash.


That's what I need to do to make this a fully functional daily driver. After all that's done I can start making the dash look good. I just now(as in, while I was typing this post) thought of an idea for the midbass drivers, I gotta think it through a bunch more.


After making my list, I started in on the wiring some more. I started moving the EFI harness to the WeatherPack bulkheads. I decided that I wanted to split the wiring up so that any chassis wiring is on one bulkhead under the hood, and the other is for the engine harness only. I had to order a third bulkhead, it'll be here Monday.


This is where I stopped today:








The wires that are twisted together need to be soldered together. There is one under the hood that needs to be grounded. The main EFI power wires will get moved from the battery to the inside of the power/ground bulkheads.


I need to find a weatherproof momentary switch for under the hood for the starter. Once I find one then I'll remove that bulky factory starter relay. Anyone who works on their own cars knows how handy it is to be able to bump the engine over from under the hood. If I can't find something I like, then I'll leave a plug sticking out from the harness so I can plug a pigtail with switch into when needed.


Here is a picture of everything I removed today:

[BigAl205]

She's coming along!