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E4's 'Live' Big Brother Coverage

(June 2001)

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SD
Sam Davis
I take it by the pauses in sound from the house that E4's coverage is slightly delayed (daytime viewers can't really hear swearing I suppose)?  Its very nice to listen to the weather and trains passing by in London though, it actually really is!

Can anyone tell me how these delays actually work - I don't really want to go into Radio banter here, but Talk Radio has an 8 second delay and they bleep the swearing (and also on E4), but how is this done (when LIVE of (course)?

Cheers

(Edited by Sam Davis at 3:03 pm on June 19, 2001)
SE
Square Eyes Founding member
It's not 'LIVE', E4 should be done under the trade descriptions act. It's actually on a ten minute delay, to give them time to edit out the swearing, naughty bits etc. You can tell this because whenever the housemate ask what time it is, they're always say ten minutes before the actual time, if you see what I mean.
AS
Asa Admin
Yeah, it's a 15 minute delay.

They cut out the sound for swearing but also in case one of the housemates say anything defamatory or libellous. I don't think they're even allowed to talk about the producers etc.. of the programme (although they did after a couple of days!)

Cheers, Asa
MM
Matt Morelli
Talk Radio? What's that?
SA
savagegardenkid
It's Talk Sport, not Talk Radio!!!! Where have you been?
MM
Matt Morelli
I know about Talk Sport, I was listening to it this morning. It's just it was referred to above as Talk Radio and I was a bit confused. By what Sam Davis is saying, can I take it BB is on TalkSport? No can't be, can it?
AN
andyrew Founding member
Sam Davis posted:
Can anyone tell me how these delays actually work - I don't really want to go into Radio banter here, but Talk Radio has an 8 second delay and they bleep the swearing (and also on E4), but how is this done (when LIVE of (course)?


Thankfully the days of delaying events (Sport usually) on video tape are gone.  For a delay of 10 mins you would of had to record 10 mins on one VT, put the next into record just a minute or so before you stop the first one, rewind and TX.  Then, 10 mins later start  the 3rd VT recording, wind back the second, try and sync it up during your overlap recording, then hot switch the second VT to air...... and so it goes on.

These days it's easy - it all gets recorded on a server - which is a huge array of computer hard drives - and you can start playing back at any time you like, from frames to hours.  In sport they are used too for slo-mo replays.... you can cue up the start of your replay before the action has finished, because the server is still recording.

And of course in presentation, servers are used to play trails/ads/symbols and occasionally programmes.  Some news operations use them too for stories/stings etc. (N24, World)

I would imagine BB record onto the server, and note the timecodes of anything they need to block, and when that time comes on the playback, an operator just cuts 'live' atmos to air, or the w/s of the house to cover vision, and then switch back to sound/pictures off the server after the offending material has passed.

(Edited by andyrew at 1:30 pm on June 19, 2001)
PE
Pete Founding member
Only thing is, sometimes the odd swearword does get through, sometimes about 2 seconds after the train noises stop!

I hate having those naff sound effects meself. Everyone knows they're not real, so why not just bleep it or mute it...
KA
Karl
I was watching a couple of weeks ago and there was a 30 minute delay as Stuart was telling Bubble to get up as it was 12.15 but it was actually 12.45 by this time.

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