The Newsroom

Gordon Brown speech on public spending

(December 2009)

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JV
James Vertigan Founding member
Anybody know who was producing the live coverage of this earlier this morning (just after 9:30) from the Royal Society in London - I had to watch/log some of it for work from both Sky News and BBC News - the picture quality and sound were terrible... it first of all looked like it was being filmed on a camcorder, and had loss of picture for a time on Sky News - then when they rejoined it looked much better.

The BBC News channel however seemed to suffer just the sound problems and not picture problems - it was still rather shoddy quality though.

As both broadcasters seemed to have similar problems, it would appear that this was a pool feed, perhaps produced by Reuters, or someone else?
BC
Blake Connolly Founding member
Not sure who produced it, but it was definitely a pool feed, as evidenced by this exchange on Twitter earlier:

JohnPrescott posted:
Watching Gordon's speech and Sky lost sound. Why trust them to do a Leader's Debate. Thank god for the BBC
MirandaSky posted:
BBC had exactly the same feed as Sky. We all lost sound at the same time. As you well know, these events are often pooled.
IS
Inspector Sands
James Vertigan posted:

As both broadcasters seemed to have similar problems, it would appear that this was a pool feed, perhaps produced by Reuters, or someone else?

It would have been pooled by the BBC, ITN or Sky, they take these sort of things in turn. Reuters and AP will often carry them though
JV
James Vertigan Founding member
Just to add to the above - the camera was very wobbly at times like it was constantly being knocked.
NG
noggin Founding member
Inspector Sands posted:
James Vertigan posted:

As both broadcasters seemed to have similar problems, it would appear that this was a pool feed, perhaps produced by Reuters, or someone else?

It would have been pooled by the BBC, ITN or Sky, they take these sort of things in turn. Reuters and AP will often carry them though


For more complex events it isn't unusual for Sky, the BBC and ITN to send a camera operator each, and for one broadcaster to then direct all three for multicamera pool coverage and share the feed locally (so that local commentary and reporter clean-feeds can be handled separately) or by allowing all three broadcasters to downlink, or access the feed via local-ends (the lines between ITN, Sky and the BBC that allow the three broadcasters to feed material to and from each other)
IS
Inspector Sands
James Vertigan posted:
Just to add to the above - the camera was very wobbly at times like it was constantly being knocked.

I didn't see this morning's but I have seen this happen before. Presumably it's a camera right at the back, and zoomed in amplifying the wobblyness.

There have been lots of bad quality pooled and non-pooled events recently. I heard a police press conference on 5 Live a few weeks ago which was so bad that they had to pull out (it probably would have made more sense on TV of course)
BR
Brekkie
Let's just be greatful these are hidden away on the news channels in the morning, unlike the US where the commercial channels role over and gift the president an hour of primetime everything he has something to say.
IS
Inspector Sands
Brekkie posted:
Let's just be greatful these are hidden away on the news channels in the morning, unlike the US where the commercial channels role over and gift the president an hour of primetime everything he has something to say.

Indeed, as happened the other day with Obama and the Charlie Brown Christmas Special:
http://rawstory.com/2009/12/mayor-muslim-obama-peanuts/

(I mean FFS, it's not even Christmas!)

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