Emergency Alert CG

Automatically Crawl CAP/EAS alerts over your Video Channel.

The EAS is a national public warning system that requires broadcasters, cable television systems, wireless cable systems, satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS) providers, and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers to provide the communications capability to the President of the United Status to address the American public during a national emergency. The system also may be used by state and local authorities to deliver important emergency information, such as AMBER alerts and weather information targeted to specific areas.

The FCC, in conjunction with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service (NWS), implements the EAS at the federal level. The President has sole responsibility for determining when the EAS will be activated at the national level, and has delegated this authority to the director of FEMA. FEMA is responsible for implementation of the national-level activation of the EAS, tests, and exercises. The NWS develops emergency weather information to alert the public about imminent dangerous weather conditions.

These Emergency Alert Broadcasts are received by an EAS Decoder such as the Digital Alert Systems DASDEC system. This decoder will decode the headers and determine if the Alert Message is pertinent to the local broadcast area. If it is, the EAS Decoder can send the message to the Emergency Alert CG system where it is used to automatically generate and display a text crawl message to display the Emergency Message.

There are a variety of Emergency Alert Message Types. For example: there are Hurricane Warnings, Flash Flood Watches, Tornado Watches, and over 50 others.

HOW IT WORKS

The EAS CG interfaces the Cayman Graphics' Power CG Live software (that is included with the system) to the Digital Alert Systems DASDEC decoder. The DASDEC decodes the Emergency Alert Tones from the AM/FM or NOAA radio receiver and sends the relevant messages to the EAS CG via an Ethernet connection. The EAS CG determines which Crawl Template to use, formats the Crawl Message text and starts Crawling the Emergency Message on the Output of the Power CG Live. The Emergency Alert Message will continue to crawl the Emergency Message until the DASDEC sends the command to stop, the Crawl has been displayed the specified length of time, or the "End Alert" or "Abort Crawl" buttons are pressed on teh EAS CG Control Screen.

Power CG Live is an extremely Powerful Character Generator and Titling Program designed especially for the Live Broadcast enviroment. It has three separate graphic layers. These are the Main Graphics layer, Snipe layer, and Banner Crawl layer.The Main Graphics layer is a traditional Character Generator that is used to display High Qualilty Titles and Graphics created using the very flexible and easy to use Title Composer that is included with the software. The Snipe layer is used to display Snipes (animated promotional logos) such as many Television stations use to let the viewer know what "Coming up Next". The Bannel Crawl layer is used to Crawl Text messages and images across the screen.

Only the Banner Crawl layer is used to display the Emergency Messages. The Main Graphics and Snipe layers remain free for you to use for any purpose that you see fit.

The system uses Crawl Page Templates to create the Emergency Alert Crawl messages. The Crawl Page Template specifies how the Emergency Message text will appear when it is displayed. This includes things like, Typeface, Text Size, Text Color, Background Color, and Edges. Any attribute that can be assigned to a character in the Title Composer can be assigned to the Emergency Message Text. See the Title Composer Manual for more information.

There is one Crawl Template that is designated as the "Default" Crawl Template. All Emergency Alert Messages will use this Default Template unless the Alert Type has a different Crawl Template assigned to it. The Emergency Alert Control Tab Window (shown below) is used to assign Crawl Template Pages to each Type of Emergency Alert.

This window is divided into 5 sections. These are; (1) Alert Types, (2) Default Crawl Template Assignment, (3) Manual Alert Controls, (4) Crawl Template Assignment List, and (5) Crawl Template Catalog. Use the Alert Type Section (shown below) to select which type of alerts that you want to appear using a Crawl Page Template other than the Default one. When you check an Alert Type in this window it will appear in the Crawl Template Assignment List on the right side of the screen. The Alert will initially be assigned the Default Crawl Template Page. To use a different Crawl Template, Drag the one you want from the "Crawl Template Catalog and drop it onto the Assignment List. The Alert Type entry that it was dropped onto will be assigned the new Template. Unchecking the Alert Type will remove it from the Crawl Template Assignment List.

The Crawl Template Catalog displays all of the Crawl Template Pages that you have created in the "Emergency Alert Crawls" Project. To assign a Crawl Template page to either the Default Template, Manual Template, or one of the Alert Types in the Crawl Assignment List, move the mouse over the Template Page that you want to use, press and hold the left mouse button, then drag the page to where you want to use it. When you release the left mouse button, the selected Crawl Template will be assigned to the type of Alert that the Template was dropped onto. If you drag the Template Page to the Picon in the "Default Crawl Template" section, the selected page will be assigned as the Default Crawl Template. If you select a Template Page from the catalog and drag it to the Picon in the "Manual Alerts" section, the selected page will be assigned as the Manual Alerts Crawl Template. To Assign a Crawl Template to a Alert Type listed in the "Crawl Template Assignment List", drop the desired Crawl Template onto the Alert Type (in the Assignment List) that you want change.

To Edit a Crawl Template Page, select it in the Crawl Template Catalog and press the "Edit Crawl Template Page". This will launch the Title Composer program with the selected Crawl Template Page loaded and ready for editing. Use the Title Composer to edit or create new Crawl Template pages. This is done by creating a crawl page in the "Emergency Alert Crawls" project. Select the Text Style that you want to use and place the Text Variable "EMERGENCY_ALERT_MESSAGE" on the page where you want the text of the Emergency Alert Message to appear. In some cases this "EMERGENCY_ALERT_MESSAGE" Text Variables may be the only thing on this page. However, you can add other things to the crawl as well. For example you might want to do something such as adding the Image of a Tornado at the beginning of the Template page that you will assign to Tornado watches and warnings. Just remember, if the Crawl Page Template does not have the "EMERGENCY_ALERT_MESSAGE" Text Variable on it, the Emergency Alert Message text will not be included in the Crawl Message. See the Title Composer Manual for more information.

Manual Alerts

Emergency Messages can also be triggered manually. When this is done the Message will be crawled using the Template specified in the "Manual Alerts" (shown below) section of this window.

To display a manual alert, enter the text in the "Text To Crawl" window and press the "Start Crawl" button. This will make the specified text appear as a Crawl Message using the selected Crawl Template. This crawl will continue to repeat until you press either the "End Alert" or "Abort Crawl" button. Pressing the "Abort Crawl" button will end the crawl immediately. Pressing "End Alert" will end the crawl after it has finished displaying. You can create a Manual Alert using the text from a text file. To do this, press the "Browse for Text File" button. Find and select the text file that contains the text that you want to crawl, and press the "Start Crawl" button.

Home Page |  Products |  Software Specifications |  Software Downloads |  Software Prices
How To Order |  Contact Us |  About Us |  Privacy Statement

Professional - Character Generator & Video Titling Software.

Copyright 2011 Cayman Graphics, all rights reserved.
All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Site content and product specifications are subject to change.