BBC Scotland thread

At the end of Escape To The Country today, BBC Scotland went into their " coming next " sequence, but by mistake showed a picture of Call My Bluff featuring Bob Holness, Sandi Toksvig and Alan Coren. Strange that that is hanging around in their " machine " seeing as it hasn't been on or repeated for a good long time.

Looks like that episode is kicking around in iPlayer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02mbgs3

Wonder if my mock generating slides on the fly from the pictures in iPlayer isn't too far from what actually happens?

A little fault happened during the eggheads where there a still picture with no sound during the middle of show also the picture had some interference during the final round

The announcer did not apologize at the end of the show for some reason

Recent discussions about BBC Scotland in the BBC One thread reminded me of this. I’ve also noticed there is often an audible “glitch” a few seconds into the EastEnders titles on BBC Scotland - the titles/music seem to jump back (or forward) a fraction of a second. Is this linked to the fact it follows a manual junction, and something to do with putting the desk back into auto mode? It’s not unlike the genlocking “blip” we used to see when the regions performed a soft-opt.

There isn't an auto "mode" to go in and out of, it's more that there are different types of events in a schedule - most items automatically follow on from the previous one but some are manual so they need to be taken into by the playout director. These manual events would usually be things like the first trail in the junction following a live programme or a bumper at the start of a commercial break in a live programme. A manual event at the start of a junction wouldn't have the kind of effect you describe on a programme several items down the playlist.

Perhaps it was a switch from the clean feed to the dirty Net1 feed?

I didn’t think the nations took the Net 1 feed except in cases of fallback, Steve - this sound glitch happens pretty regularly.

EastEnders is one of the few programmes I record off BBC1 Scotland, so - as Blake says - it’s more than likely unrelated to whether or not the previous junction was fired manually, and possibly happens on other programmes too.

It would be fooolhardy NOT to, if a particular nation is packing up and going home for the night ?

Nations take a clean feed normally, and only when going 'out of circuit' is NET 1 routed to Coding & Mux. However, the ins and outs of news programmes have NET 1 fed via the local studio to the Presentation Mixer, and if they are a little bit out of step you can sometimes see a glitch - most often coming off Easteders and going into the 8pm Headlines.

Ah. thanks Tony. So a blip during the EastEnders opening titles (particularly on a Monday or Friday, when it follows the news summary) would be the switch back from NET1 to a clean feed?

Is that the same for regions? Deejay’s bbc Oxford videos and the live stream from the NWT gallery seemed to show the opt in and the Network feed going through the mixer.

I think anyway. May be a false memory

It's actually the opposite to that.

The glitch you've noticed on the EastEnders titles has absolutely nothing to do with the previous news summary.

EastEnders, like all network programmes, is joined (and left) using a clean feed (which is generated by a clean feed enabling flag being put on that event in the London schedule).

The glitch you sometimes notice is at the point the Nation switches from the clean feed, back to the sustaining network (dirty) feed. This is done so that the director/announcer in that Nation can get on with other tasks (writing, previewing, line-up, going to the loo, etc) without having to worry about monitoring the network programme constantly.

In ideal circumstances there shouldn't be a noticeable glitch. However the clean feed and dirty feed can drift apart, for various reasons... e.g. if there are any changes to the many bits of kit the circuit is travelling through, or if one feed is on the main circuit and the other is on the reserve.

EastEnders titles make this particularly noticeable due to the rotation and pull-out from the river. It can be minimised by waiting until the end of the titles. Glitches are less noticeable on a nice static shot.