Please tell us what a Production Director does in a TV station?

My work consists of coordinating and supervising 26 people at the production department. I'm responsible for planning all our productions and ensuring that we can create them to budget.

What led you to choose the VT[4] Live!?

One of the main objectives of the technological reorganisation of Teletutto was to be able to get rid of tapes for the broadcasting of programmes, and move to an all-digital system. We were therefore looking for an editing system that could also be an output tool inside our broadcast suite. The VT[4] is an ideal system for editing and edited projects or programmes can be shared over a network. Also, the broadcasting tools it has are intuitive and powerful to use.

What do you use it for at Teletutto?

We installed three systems dedicated to editing and two in the broadcast suite for broadcasting. Thanks to the SX-8 mixer, we've been able to link these systems and data without the need for a patch or external video mixer. These VT[4]'s are all installed in 3GHz Pentium 4 machines with two SATA hard drives at 250 GB each with 1GB of ram

How does the VT[4] integrate with the rest of the equipment at Teletutto?

Every machine is linked through SDI (with analogue audio ) to the host machine. This way all the machines are capable of gathering any data, but can also be used for broadcasting the subject. The VT[4] machines are part of our Gigabit network.

Data is acquired on the VT[4] and we edit the video and audio (we record spoken commentary directly to the VT[4]), plus create any graphics needed. Finally, we send everything through SDI to the broadcast server.

What has been the VT[4]'s impact on productivity?

At Teletutto, we used to edit linearly on analogue equipment. Formats used were mainly Betacam SP, DVCPro and BVU. Changing over to digital editing changed everything! We completely redefined our production pipeline, and this has undeniably had a positive effect on the quality of our productions. The three editing suites equipped with VT[4]s can still do non-linear editing so we use the VT[4]s for video mixing and titles. Thanks to this we've managed to reduce our productions times a lot. End-to-end edits of a production in an editing suite sent straight to broadcast - what a revolution!

Have you had any difficulty training the technicians in how to use the VT[4]?

The user interface is truly intuitive, so we only spent a couple of days in teaching the team how to use the editing tool (VT-Edit). The most difficult thing was actually using a computer at all. We trained almost ten people who were so embedded in traditional editing techniques, that only a few of them were familiar with using computers or digital editing.

How many hours of production would you say that Teletutto makes every year, and how much of that is attributable to the VT[4]?

We produce a lot. I would say not far off 2,500 hours of live TV and 1,500 hours of edited TV programmes, which is mainly put together using the VT[4].

We next spoke to Ugo Ragnoli and Massimo Tanghetti from Teletutto.

What is your job?

We are responsible for content. For live programmes we look after the broadcast suite, the logistics and the styling of programmes. In addition, we also coordinate studio filming. We organise edited programmes and often edit them ourselves too.

How has your work in the studio changed since the VT[4] arrived?

It's changed almost completely. No longer any need to wander around with armloads of cables or remotes for the tape decks, all our projects are available for broadcast at the click of a button and there's no more pre-roll or broken video tape to worry about.

Which of the VT[4] tools do you use most?

Undoubtedly VT-Edit and VT-CG for production and the DDR for the broadcast suite.

What would you like to see in future versions of the VT[4]?

We would really like to push the VT[4] for commenting on football matches and we would love to have a really good tool for doing slow motion in a live setting. VT-Edit's slow motion is very good quality, but controlling it live is a bit tricky - a hardware jog/shuttle dial would be a great solution. We would also like to be able to de-interlace or interpolate the field when the clip is in pause or stop mode.

To end this profile of Teletutto we have some last questions for Federico Bertani, the coordinator of Teletutto's News department.

What are the links between Sony's News system and the VT[4]?

Sony's News system is based on the DV25 format and we've installed our network on a NAS server that means we can share and swap data between the VT[4] and Sony environments painlessly.

What do you use the VT[4] for in the news department?

All editing of segments, programmes and short sponsored programmes is done using the VT[4]. The journalists, helped by technicians, edit their own footage on the VT[4].

Thanks Paolo, Ugo, Massimo and Federico for talking to us. You can find out more information about Teletutto at their site.