The Newsroom

BBC World News from New Broadcasting House

14th January 2013 - The Worlds Newsroom (January 2013)

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HA
harshy Founding member
Well I did an Impact comparison in Studio B/C, I'm sure if we did the same comparison for Focus on Africa, I'd say it looks better in Studio C for the reasons Charles has stated. BBC World News certainly does because in Studio C you get the virtual London backdrop, on B you just get the BBC News backdrop with frosty blue more prominent.
DE
deejay
To be fair, there are only a few regular BBC World News bulletins from Studio B, on Friday afternoons and occasional weekends and holiday periods when Global is off air. The whole point of using Studio B was for the branded programmes to make them look totally different to the news bulletins in C. Branded programmes in B were meant to be sellable to other broadcasters, and that's why alternate shows use the different ends of the set. If they all looked the same, the thinking was broadcasters wouldn't buy individual programmes. Things have evolved a bit, but (in the main) GMT uses the hard set, Impact the soft, Global hard etc. I wouldn't agree that all shows look much better in C. They look different, but not better or worse. There are big constraints to using Studio C which don't apply in B. You can't have more than two guests, it's harder to involve props, items like a studio guest and a dtl guest at the same time and so on. In Studio B you have a camera crew, flexibility and space. You can do music, performance, items standing up, move from one end to the other in vision. Within reason and with some planning, anything goes.
BR
Brekkie
Perhaps you're only used to seeing studio B lit in the Victoria Derbyshire or Newsnight styles, which are predominantly blue.

Which IMO look far better than the reds and oranges used elsewhere.
DE
deejay
I've long said that Studio B is a really unpleasant environment for television. Just take a look here (screengrab thanks to ginnyfan):u




You just described what I was thinking.

On an unrelated note why are the astons on recorded programs such as those on Reporters, Africa Business Report and the weekly compilation of Newsnight not flush with the ticker? Some recorded programs have it where it is properly slighted where others are a several pixels higher where it is visibly noticeable.

Also a while back I asked how are commercial breaks and other things handled by Ericsson's playout. I'm wondering if the brief bumper between the bottom of the hour headlines and World Business Report that where the announcer says "Now on BBC World News your daily briefing on business and economics from the worlds financial centers. From New Broadcasting House in London World Business Report." is played out by the gallery or Ericsson? It seems like it would be easiest if it came from the gallery.


The only things coming from the news gallery are the news programmes themselves, everything else is handled by Ericsson. The bumpers are (I think) to enable the splitting of the various advertising regions, also handled by Ericsson, to be done more smoothly than chopping out of the news gallery output directly.

The only exception to this is the This Week in History breakfiller which is played out by the news gallery in xx:15 breaks. This is so that any broadcaster taking that news bulletin and rebroadcasting it gets a clean 26' programme. Apart from overnight, when BBC One / News Channel is taking the joint output, there are no broadcasters that take back half hour bulletins, so breaks at xx:45 aren't filled by the gallery.
PE
peterrocket Founding member
The bumpers are now run with quite clever technology that enables their length to be dynamic. You select the 'key shots' and times, and it will cut together the sequence for the exact duration you need.

It maintains editorial control of the content, but allows a presentation or playout person to adjust duration and enable things to be hit exact to schedule.
HA
harshy Founding member
Has anyone noticed anything out of studio b now has a 1px white border around the picture, the lower thirds must be added later on in the stream as it appears above the white border. You won't be able to see it unless you got your TV set to output all 1920x1080 pixels.
RK
Rkolsen
Has anyone noticed anything out of studio b now has a 1px white border around the picture, the lower thirds must be added later on in the stream as it appears above the white border. You won't be able to see it unless you got your TV set to output all 1920x1080 pixels.


Almost sounds like the video output is keyed on top of a full screen graphic. I've noticed the same thing when a local station here gets ready to do a credit squeeze to tease the upcoming newscasts. I see it during the last block of the program when I assume the playout server is routed through the news switcher. All of the sudden you see a tiny blue border around the picture that moves.
EL
elmarko
The bumpers are now run with quite clever technology that enables their length to be dynamic. You select the 'key shots' and times, and it will cut together the sequence for the exact duration you need.

It maintains editorial control of the content, but allows a presentation or playout person to adjust duration and enable things to be hit exact to schedule.

That'll be tied in with the object-based broadcasting thing BBC R&D are doing. Re-versioning shows from their constituent parts.

Maybe, I'm just guessing...
RK
Rkolsen
Has anyone noticed anything out of studio b now has a 1px white border around the picture, the lower thirds must be added later on in the stream as it appears above the white border. You won't be able to see it unless you got your TV set to output all 1920x1080 pixels.

It looks like the border is now gone.

I mentioned a while back regarding the lack of closed captioning (subtitling I think you call it) on World News in the US. Well it appears that many of the prerecorded programs such as Hardtalk and their documentaries (not sure how to classify the weekend program's) are now captioned. It's not much but it's a start.

I did notice there was one flub when Hardtalk (the 0430 GMT airing 2330 ET) was airing around the first week of the year aired the captions for a different program. I believe the program was about one of the women who exposed the Russian doping. It wasn't a big deal compared to when a CBS programs closed captions were replaced with ones from a live broadcast of Real Time with Bill Maher where F bombs were flying.

I do not have any hearing impairments but having closed captioning is nice especially on an international channel where some people have heavy accents. Additionally it's helpful when your watching late at night and don't want to disturb anyone else.
Last edited by Rkolsen on 11 January 2017 8:30am
L8
L89
Brief look around of Studio C from Aaron. Don't touch anything. Laughing

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1MnxnrZREMkxO
MA
Markymark
L89 posted:
Brief look around of Studio C from Aaron. Don't touch anything. Laughing

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1MnxnrZREMkxO


Looks really great shot in portrait...............
WO
Worzel
L89 posted:
Brief look around of Studio C from Aaron. Don't touch anything. Laughing

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1MnxnrZREMkxO


Looks really great shot in portrait...............


I liked the 'how do I turn it off' at end. I find it hard to believe Aaron didn't know what OS stood for, especially as there's a show on the channel called Outside Source, abbreviated as OS. Laughing

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