Moving master control without going off air

The job

Master control had to move to a new building. The channel couldn’t go dark while it did.

What I did

Helped design and plan the master control move, including the physical move itself.
Kept the channel on air during the move through Harmonic VOS cloud playout, driven by Crispin automation.
Set up a monitoring room for cloud master control: four laptops covering viewing, operations, and media file transfers.
Brought the master control systems back online in the new building.

I’m now the primary technical owner for Harmonic VOS and XOS.

Stack

Layer	What we used
Playout	Harmonic XOS (on-prem), VOS360 (cloud)
Automation	Crispin Web RPX
Contribution	IP streams over SRT
File delivery	Azure file uploads
Monitoring	Laptop-based monitoring room during the move

How it flowed

Normal:      Crispin automation → Harmonic XOS (on-prem) → air
During move: Crispin automation → Harmonic VOS360 (cloud) → air
                  ↑ media via Azure uploads, live via SRT
After:       Crispin automation → Harmonic XOS (new building) → air

What I took from it

Cloud playout is a real bridge for a move, as long as the media and schedules are staged before you need them.
The monitoring room matters as much as the playout. If you can’t see air, you aren’t running it.