Haven't noticed the old Northern Ireland News Thread for a while.
Big news day here in NI today with the political mess at Stormont.
UTV Live on air with a special programme at 5pm, running into UTV Live at Six. Although they are currently missing the First Minister's resignation speech.
BBC Newsline has finally dropped that dreadful award graphic from the end of their programmes.
And, the programme logo and BBC NEWS NI logo box featured in the programme titles has been converted to HD. The logo box seems to have been coloured correctly this time. However, the map animations still seem to be SD.
Hopefully, this will be the year that the programme finally gets a decent set. Something that even remotely resembles the standard for BBC news sets would be good.
You may also have noticed that the BBC Newsline set has been moved to a different studio since the New Year (black glossy floor instead of the usual grey, and a slightly different acoustic character too).
You may also have noticed that the BBC Newsline set has been moved to a different studio since the New Year (black glossy floor instead of the usual grey, and a slightly different acoustic character too).
Ah, interesting! I did wonder why the Saturday bulletin was in the small CSO studio.
So, can we read between the lines here and suggest that a new set may be on its way very soon?
Hopefully, this will be the year that the programme finally gets a decent set. Something that even remotely resembles the standard for BBC news sets would be good.
If BBC Northern Ireland are getting a new set I expect it'll look just like Scotland or Wales's set which are both pretty much the same bar a few differences. Hopefully a flexible set would mean an end to their ghastly Sunday Politics set. I suspect it would be done by May in time for the Stormont elections.
As long as they finally upgrade their graphics to HD. That Newsline logo on screen permanently, 4:3 safe and jagged edges is an eyesore, and a relic of the past. We don't need it on screen, so please, do away with it. Have it come up where it is now when the aston appears to give a name or something, but have it disappear again. Also, that News Programme of the Year graphic was shockingly bad. It was almost sub-par SD. I have no idea sometimes how things get approved for making it on screen when they look so shockingly bad.
I also wonder if we keep getting continued shots of Belfast City Centre on the TV's will they upgrade that footage to HD or if it will just remain a blurry SD feed.
Looks like they're got a CSO area - they showed a very VR-looking sport area during the headlines and you can see the green reflection on the main set.
Oooh, a very dodgy green screen set! Proper motion tracking though rather than a locked shot. As for the main set, it looks quite nice and is good to see something finally in keeping with the national set, but it does seem a bit big and empty. Lovely skyline on the screens.