Sofie: open-source web based system for automating live TV news production

As a live television newscast director in a major market, I would be very interested to see a feature comparison between this product and its main competitors: Ross OverDrive, Sony ELC, and Grass Valley Ignite.<p>Due to the substantial complexity of these automation systems, they tend to have a lot of inertia. But if anything could drive a station group to make a change, the &quot;free&quot; part can be effective.<p>I did take a look at the supported hardware (1). I think that&#x27;s the pain point for many shops. Free open source production software is great, but being forced to choose form hardware products you don&#x27;t prefer is a pretty tough tradeoff.<p>Historically, I suppose that&#x27;s been one of FOSS&#x27; big challenges.<p>(1) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nrkno.github.io&#x2F;sofie-core&#x2F;docs&#x2F;user-guide&#x2F;supported-devices" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nrkno.github.io&#x2F;sofie-core&#x2F;docs&#x2F;user-guide&#x2F;supported...</a>

Very cool they decided to build this and release it to the world instead of just buying an extremely expensive commercial system. The backend play out server is CasparCG which is also open-source [1] (they run their own fork, for stability reasons I expect).<p>Another similar related automation system (shares some parts and libraries) is SuperConductor [2].<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;CasparCG&#x2F;server">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;CasparCG&#x2F;server</a><p>2. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;SuperFlyTV&#x2F;SuperConductor">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;SuperFlyTV&#x2F;SuperConductor</a>

Has anyone tried it? I tried to set up a simple livestream a year ago and it was far from simple. It felt very hackish and documentation was lacking. I guess putting more time I would succeed in the end. Did ask if I could hire the developers to do setup for me, but didn&#x27;t really get anywhere with it :&#x2F;

<i>Very</i> cool. You can even control the prompter using a Joycon!<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nrkno.github.io&#x2F;sofie-core&#x2F;docs&#x2F;user-guide&#x2F;features&#x2F;prompter#control-using-nintendo-joycon-modejoycon" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nrkno.github.io&#x2F;sofie-core&#x2F;docs&#x2F;user-guide&#x2F;features&#x2F;...</a>

How does one break into this industry? I recently started playing the video game Not For Broadcast and have fallen in love. I’m sure it’s a very romanticized and simplified experience but I’ve been having a blast at perfecting the “art.”<p>Very cool coincidence to see this on the front page right after a sesh with the game.

If anyone happen to pass by Hudiksvall in Sweden, you’ll be able to get a live demo of this (ping me!). One of the core developers sits in the same office house as me. :)

May seem a bit niche but man I wished we had this 20 years ago when trying to start a student TV station on a budget. The pro tools at the time were ridiculously expensive.

Any recommendations to what similar FOSS could be used for a radio station?

Would Sofie work for producing live streams a la twitch? I&#x27;ve noticed most bigger streamers end up with a hodge podge of automations and integrations built around OBS which they have grown organically ever since they were small and built everything themselves. I wonder if this would be suitable upgrade.

How does this handle things like replays that are queued dynamically during airing? For instance on a talk show there may be occasions where the host wishes to replay a section of a guest interview or to pull up a clip to play while talking over it. Would the operator override an existing Part or updating a piece in a part? Typically this is handled live with EVS.

Can you write real-time shaders in it?

Ruby code is always a joi to read.

meteorjs&#x27; an interesting choice ...

Cool, going to create my ai tv station.