Facility Control

We are using Overdrive for News production automation, with a Vision switcher, Xpression CGs, Blackstorm servers etc. We also use Bit Central playout servers for News clips under Overdrive VDCP control. We are planning a small control room for a web delivered News product and the budget does not support an additional installation of Overdrive to control it. We had thought to break away two channels of the Bit Central playout servers and use the Dashboard VDCP panel to control them. I seem to have intermittent IP comms from Dashboard VDCP to a Comtrol serial converter that cause the Dashboard panel to say "Connection refused" and other comms errors. Overdrive VDCP to the same model/firmware/config Comtrol serial converter controlling the same Bit Central players works great. I know that the disclaimer on this panel is that it supports Blackstorm servers and other implementations of VDCP may not work reliably. Is the Overdrive VDCP implementation more developed than the example Dashboard VDCP panel? Any advice on how to troubleshoot the Dashboard panel? Thanks.

Dave Robertson
Chief Engineer
Denali Media/KTVA

I know DB and Overdrive have different implementations of VDCP since they don't share the same code in the backed. But they will be very similar. I don't know whether one is more "developed" than the other .

As for troubleshooting, I would use WireShark to monitor the communication coming from both Overdrive and DashBoard to see what the differences are when sending commands (and what is sent back).
#DashBoard