Brexit Dramarama

The 2 newer ones are Q Balls sprayed a gold to match the wood, they are either side of the speakers chair.

The ones up by the speaker are also noticeably lower resolution than the other cameras. There are currently 10 cameras in the commons, 2 at the back, 6 along the sides, 3 each side, and the 2 q-balls each side of the speakers chair.

From the pictures I've seen it looks like the main cameras were upgraded not too long ago, but the existing ptz's were reused. The cameras and associated equipment are these days owned by Parliament, and controlled, to their requirements, from Millbank. Because of the amount of use they get, I suspect they'd tender for reliability over compactness. Especially since the precedent of the larger cameras was set many years ago, there's no need to try to hide the current cameras.

Still seems strange to think until 1989 there were no cameras in parliament, it's become such a standard thing we expect now.

So who controls the cameras as you mentioned Milbank?

'Millbank' refers to a building that the broadcasters use (named after the road it's in called Millbank). The coverage of Parliament is done by a company called Bowtie

I presume there is no technical reason why the feed from both houses of Parliament couldn't be in HD if they wanted it to be (or is it already HD and BBC Parliament just doesn't do HD? When Sky News and BBC News dip in and out of Parliament coverage it is sharper than what's going out on BBC Parliament but was never sure whether that was due to upscaling).

I think that might be possible. However I think new galleries for HoC and HoL are being built this summer, so all should be in native HD later this year ?

Yes - and Bowtie is now owned by NEP.

I think quite a lot of the parliamentary estate is still SD. It's quite noticeable on the State Openings on the switch between the regular cameras inside each chamber etc and the switch to HD on the extra cameras brought in to areas such as the Sovereign's Entrance and Royal Gallery.

Parliament cameras were still 4:3 until 2002, so hardly suprising if they're slow to upgrade to HD.

Radio 4 have rescheduled their recording of The News Quiz next week from Thursday evening to Friday morning, so it's as up to date as possible.

Last weeks Now Show was too, but still before May's third defeat which was happening that day. They did the credits later and added a reference to it in them


These days the only way to make it topical is to do it like I suspect