Tascon
The so called “Television Automatic Sequence Control” device has the duty to control the programme playout of a TV station. Usually the planning of a TV programme starts months before that programme will be transmitted. The programme planning officer opens time-slots within a daily schedule for movies, daily series, news, advertisements etc. Most broadcasters have very specialised applications for this. At this time there is little information about length, content and other properties of each programme element. Therefore those time slots, each dedicated to a single programme element are usually linked to real or virtual content items with the content database and the license database of the broadcaster. The nearer a certain day is coming, the more information on programme elements is available because producers have already finished certain magazines, tapes of movies have been received and were edited, advertising spots have been sold so the length of programme breaks can now be estimated. Until that certain day the programme plan is updated and overworked several times to assure that each programme element is starting on time and that all elements within a day do not exceed the length of 24 hours. As soon as this has been achieved the programme plan usually is exported to the play out centre of the TV station. This plan is table containing rows where a certain time, a unique content ID, and a content title of each event are listed. A broadcast technician now adds additional rows for e.g. the insertion of a station corner logo, the insertion of some seconds black frame etc. Then each event is linked to a certain device from which the related audio and/or video has to be played back. The result of this work is a much more detailed list where hundreds of command events are listed with detailed time information down to frames. This list is forwarded to (or already created within) the TASCON management console which is more or less a PC running a realtime application which is controlling ALL devices relevant for the programme playout. The TASCON sometimes has dozens of interfaces connected to tape recorders, video server, edit consoles, graphic generators, etc. There are multiple TASCON systems offered by several broadcast suppliers.
The TASCON is as well the responsible device for forwarding programme information which is inserted as EPG data within the broadcast stream. Beside the above mentioned specialised interfaces to various devices the TASCON is providing very frequently updated lists of upcoming programme and command events.
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