Re: One more time, Michael...

Mike, your findings are right on. As someone who works in a televison station in a top 30 market I see your problem first hand. Right now, stations are struggling just to air HD.

The variables are to great, not just on tape format, but add the 720p vs. 1080i factor and it makes your head spin.

The way I think it will shake out is the tapeless route. The big push in television is to go tapeless... acquiring, airing and archiving.

Right now we are working on running FlipFactory so that anything edited or that goes through our edit rooms (I am talking commercials) will be exported to a folder in which the software will flip it to the format for air. So the next step I see, is accepting a file from the outside, posting it for the flip factory to flip, and going to air.

Time frame.... who knows... I do think tape is nudging closer and closer to being dead. Especially with tapeless acquisition (P2, Red, etc) being accepted more and more.

Personally, I can't wait until stations will accept data files for air. When that happens, the era of video player/recorder will be 'antique'.