This article covers the various transition methods available on the Ross Video Switcher and walking through the T-Bar (fader transition bar), as well as the cut and auto trans buttons. These transition methods allow you to switch sources on the various screens in a Life.Church auditorium.
Our team recommends one only uses the T-Bar to transition between sources on the video switcher. It allows the option to 'go back' if the preview source is incorrectly set.
To transition means moving from one source, such as ProPresenter, to another source, such as ProTools. The transition effect the T-Bar generates is a dissolve or cross fade and does so at a rate in which you determine. A great creative outlet when running the switcher is to transition at a rate that matches the current mood in the service.
The Ross manual states it as:
"Manual Transition Fader Bar — The fader is used to manually control the rate of a transition."
The two other transition buttons available on the switcher are the "Cut" and "Auto Trans" buttons. Both buttons transition just by pressing 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 as:
"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 set up very simply to transition between sources by dissolving for a duration of one second. There are other options available for this button, but we us it in a way that keeps it simple, as we don't use anything else.
The Ross manual describes a Dissolve as:
"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 realizing the source was not setup correctly. In 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 halfway through or wherever you are in time of the transition. This could be worse than the result of accidentally pressing the cut button.