BBC Scotland is in the middle of installing something called VCS Dira, which is basically a piece of software for taking in, editing and playing out everything from news to music.
I hope I'm not letting any digital cats out of pixellated bags here, but the only effect on my work at the BBC has been (1) I can't play my own CDs on the show, as VCS uses digital files rather than CD tracks, and I haven't been trained on how to operate it; (2) Computers in Aberdeen and especially Shetland, where the system is being pioneered, are now running painfully slowly, to the extent that it's far more efficient for me to work from the Radiocroft, using my own computer and a 64k ISDN computer connection.
(3) VCS, from my broadcast-face experience, is a clunky, inflexible system that chops off record fades, messes up intros and won't let you change running orders at the last minute.
Apart from that, it's wonderful. Of course.
I'm only mentioning this as I'm in Aberdeen and the desktop PCs are running at half speed. Left Glasgow at 7.30 am, the Maverick behaving in an exemplary fashion and the exhaust not too noisy. Delays at Cumbernauld and expecially at the Broxden roundabout outside Perth, but despite the Tay bridge being shut due to high winds, Dundee was OK. Stopped at the Kingsway Tesco for a stupidly high-fry breakfast, then a thrash up the road to Aberdeen, where the Maverick was finally switched off in the bowels of the Travelodge's underground car park, part of the secret underwharf of Union Street, the UK's first elevated city-centre roadway. Maybe I'll leave the Burgundy Beast there for ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment