This article covers the various transition methods available on the Ross Video Switcher. We will talk about the T-Bar (fader transition bar) and also the cut and auto trans buttons. These transition methods allow you to switch sources on the various screens at Life.Church
Our team recommends one only uses the T-Bar to transition between sources on the video switcher. Use the T-bar (fader bar) only! It allows the option to 'go back' if the preview source was incorrectly set.
To transition means to move from one source such as ProPresenter to another source such as ProTools. The transition effect that the T-Bar generates is a dissolve or cross fade and does so at a rate that you determine. A great creative outlet when running the switcher is to transition at such a rate that matches the current scenario in the service.
The Ross manual says it this way
"Manual Transition Fader Bar — The fader is used to manually control the rate of a transition."
The two other transition buttons that are available on the switcher are the Cut and Auto Trans button. Both of these buttons transition just by pressing down the button.
CUT Button
Best Practice: We don't recommend using the Cut button. The Cut button is harsh and quick. There is more possibility of error by using it.
The Ross manual describes the Cut transition this way
"A Cut is an instantaneous transition between video sources. Unlike all the other transition types, there are no intermediate steps between the video source that is on-air, and the video source you are transitioning to. A cut is performed, pressing a CUT button"
Auto Trans Button
The Auto Trans at Life.Church is setup very simply to transition between sources by dissolving for a duration of one second. Yes, there are other options available for this button but we'll keep it simple and not discuss as we don't use anything else.
The Ross manual describe a Dissolve this way,
"A Dissolve is a gradual fade between video sources. For a Background transition, the video signal on the Background (preview) bus and the video signal on the Preset (program) bus are mixed together until the Preset bus video signal completely replaces the Background bus video signal."
The error possible with the auto trans button is similar to the cut button. If pressed once it will immediately start transitioning and likely finish before you realize the source was not setup correctly. During a stressful situation, if pressed and realized an error was about to occur, pressing the auto trans button again quickly, will not return to the previous source, rather it will pause the transition half way through or wherever you are in time of the transition. Being paused half way would be worse than cut button results.