Elefant and Kanguru: hardware control panels dedicated to disk servers for slow motion, editing and multiplay applications

The advent of video disk servers has brought solutions to the important limitations of tape recorders which are: replay while recording by use of multi-channel I/O and sharing of storage resources; and virtual editing. The graphics user interfaces (GUI) provided with the video disk servers, if they appear very attractive at first glance, with graphics, pop up menus, dialog boxes etc., become difficult to use in events like sports and news in which a short response time is one of the major characteristics. Thus, the dramatic improvement of productivity in `no delay´ operations such as sports coverage when using video servers, emphasized the absolute necessity to have modern control panels that are able to exploit all virtual edit features, providing fast response time and easy ergonomics. Similarly, virtual editing and sharing of recorded material among multiple outputs allowed the development of clip bank systems (a system in which virtual edits are accessible in any order, at any time on any output). Developed with and for the operators, Elefant and Kanguru provide all slow motion and edit functionalities such as sequence and clip creation, storage of edit decision lists, easy update of these lists as well as change of edit entry points, multi-record capability, and time delay. The authors describe all the major features of modern dedicated control panels such as Elefant. Emphasis is put on user requirements and important productivity tools provided by Elefant. A comprehensive description of typical operating sessions is also included