Let's Talk TV Graphics!

So I thought I’d start a fascinating conversation on one of my favorite topics: TV graphics. Now you may be wondering what the heck TV graphics are. Well, I’ll give you a hint. You see them all the time on the news. You see them all the time on sports shows. You see them all the time on gameshows. There are several major manufacturers. Here is a list:

Chyron
Compix
Deko (Avid)
Xpression (Ross Video)
Aston

So you’ve probably seen TV graphics before but you just don’t know what they are. A prime example of this is when you watch interviews on the TV news and they place graphics below the person’s head and shoulders. That’s called “lower-thirds,” because it’s on the lower-third of the screen. Then there are “bugs,” which go on the lower-left hand corner of the screen and the lower-right hand corner of the screen. Those are used to identify the show and the network (or channel). A full-page graphic is one that fills the entire screen.
We in video production used to use actual videotape decks to “roll” video. Well, now it’s all digital. Instead of videotape decks we use video servers to “roll” video, for example the open to a news broadcast. A video server is basically a hard drive that stores video on a computer.