May 3rd 2009

VERA lives!! I’ve just received this from Tony Carter.


vera09_1Hi Chris – you might remember that some months ago I emailed you to tell you that the name of VERA lives on at BBC Westminster. I took a couple of pictures of it last night for you to see and although it’s not terribly spectacular, it is at least good to know that it’s always referred to as VERA and appears as such on the touchscreen routing panels.

Basically, it constantly records a special feed of News 24 (now called News Channel) at Westminster. It’s recording the TVC studio output with Astons but minus the embedded onscreen clock, so that if News Channel ever have to do an emergency evacuation, the last hour of the News Channel is available to maintain channel output.
There are two recorders, one in Millbank TX and the other in the Millbank Record Bank, hence TX VERA and RB VERA on the router buttons.
vera09_2The machines themselves are both Packard Bell EHR 2080 Hard Drive recorders, and incredibly, even though they record 24/7 with the hard drive thrashing away constantly, they just seem to keep going!
No men in white coats painstakingly adjusting things on VERA 2009 alas, it just sits there unattended year in year out, but on the couple of occasions it has been used in anger, it did keep News 24 running until they could recover!

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