Working with Story Segments and Timing Blocks
As you work, MediaCentral Cloud UX maintains synchronization between the story segments in your script and the timing blocks in your news sequence. As you create new story segments, new timing blocks are created. As you expand your script, or add media, the timing displays are updated. If you change the order of the story segments, the order of the timing blocks is also changed.
This synchronization gives you the flexibility to focus on the script, the sequence, or both together. Following are two approaches you can take:
• For a current news story, you might start by drafting a script. As you write, you can break the script into segments, which creates associated timing blocks in the sequence. Later, you can fill in the timing blocks with media that comes in from the field, and use the timing displays to fine-tune the script and the sequence before recording a voice-over.
• For a feature story, you might start by opening a new story, and creating a rough cut using clips from a media library. By dragging clips to the end of the default “New” timing block, you create both a new timing block and a new story segment (see
Editing Media into Timing Blocks). You can then work on the script, using the timing displays and timing blocks to help you match the script to the media.
The following list describes the basic functions when working with story segments and timing blocks:
• When you highlight a story segment, the corresponding timing block is highlighted. When you highlight a timing block, the corresponding story segment is highlighted.
• If you add a story segment to a script, a corresponding timing block is added to the sequence.
• You can only reorder by moving segments in the story, not by moving timing blocks in the sequence.If you reorder story segments, the corresponding timing blocks are automatically reordered and media segments are moved with their timing blocks.
• If you split a story segment, a new timing block is inserted after the selected timing block. Any media remains in the selected timing block.
• Presenter instructions (red) and closed-captioning text (green) do not affect how the Newsroom Management system calculates the text duration. If a story segment contains only presenter text or only closed-caption text, the text duration is shown as 0:00. A corresponding timing block is created, but you have the option of hiding it. See
Showing and Hiding Empty Timing Blocks.
• If you are working on a script and a sequence together, the same set of Undo/Redo actions applies to both the Rundown app and the Asset Editor Timeline. If you load a new sequence or close the Asset Editor Timeline, the Undo actions are lost in the Rundown app.
• For some news stories, you might need to create a story segment that is not associated with video in the story. For example, a story might include presenter text before the video starts. MediaCentral Cloud UX lets you create a story segment that does not display a corresponding timing block in the sequence. See
Creating a Text-Only Story Segment