Bug Testing

I work at Aston Broadcast Systems, a little company based in Deepcut, that makes graphic generators for television stations. You know Sky News, and BBC News 24? You know the little ticker thing at the bottom of the screen, and the clock and all that? Well Aston make the equipment that makes that all work.

My job is to look sit in front of it, and make it stop working. A strange job, and it earns me a strange sort of relationship with the software guys I work with. I effectively have to sit and tell them what they are doing wrong.

I find something that doesn’t work, then I call over one of the software guys who either says “its meant to do that” or “that’s a problem, report it in Bugzilla. I won’t comment on how long it takes between me reporting something and them actually doing anything about it… I’m not a programmer, I don’t know how difficult it is… maybe they are working faster than programmers normally work… although I find that hard to believe.

They are a difficult bunch to talk to, and I sometimes wonder if they like me at all. It is understandable if they don’t, I sit in a quiet corner of the room gleefully looking for their mistakes. I’m not too sure what I can and can’t say about the software that Aston is developing, so I am going to quote the website… then I can’t get into trouble!

The Aston 7 Graphics System is a truly ground-breaking new PC-based TV graphics management suite that will change, for ever, the way in which graphics are created and transmitted in the modern world of automated live broadcasting. Aimed at live TV programming such as News, Sports, Business, and Shopping, the A7 brings together an unbeatable package of 3D animated text and graphics, on-screen video clips, built-in support for live content feeds, and with proven connectivity to external automation systems.

So there you go, that’s what I do. Rather dull really.