The Sport Thread

Not sure what you mean. The BBC don't have any HD OB trucks in England any more - so there is no kit to be deployed. The BBC sold their OB facilities to SISLive a few years ago.

However whilst Queens tennis is, I think, a BBC Sport in-house production, ISTR that the BBC does no horse racing production in-house now, so the facilities won't be a BBC issue anyway.

The name supers on the racing are looking very soft - presumably worse on HD when it's upscaled?

UTV apparently caught unawares by the break taken before kick-off in the England match - after a rare showing of the ITV1 break bumper, they quickly cut from the first advert to their own ad break, and then crashed into the game with nearly a minute gone.

Whoops. Any chance of a grab from UTV+1?

Err..
HD Trucks would be at Wembley for the England - Switzerland match. As SISLive now provide OB for ITV Sport, I guess unit HD1, which would normally be at Epsom was there today.
I would guess Oshener Sport would also need a HD unit for sending local coverage back to the Alps.

Sky are also using HD OB's at Bolton for the Darts (Arena Mobiles), and Lords at the Test Cricket (CTV).

I doubt the BBC / Sunset & Vine have a specific truck(s) they always use for coverage, and even if they did I'm confident that in the event of the inavailability of that truck, they wouldn't just go "oh well, SD it is then". SIS have more than a couple of HD scanners*, although the Derby does put some restrictions on choice simply due to numbers of cameras. The last time it was on C4 there were 36 camera sources, requiring a submixer.




Both of which have several HD trucks, then there's Visions as well, along with many other smaller companies across the company. What is for certain is that it is very unlikely that they were all in use today, and mainly because the reason we have so many is for the coverage of premiership football, which wasn't in action. If it was, then a lack of HD facitlities would be a real possibilty, but not today.

I would guess it was either a budgetary decision, or there are issues with actually getting HD facitities into the racecourse (suitability of existing cables, available cable routes and time to install new ones were required, camera positions).

I know this has been discussed previously but what are the exact rules governing in-programme sponsor logos?

I ask as throughout coverage of the French Open final on EuroSport HD, a large white box containing the Peugeot logo, independent from the other graphics (ie not "sponsoring" the scoreboard, etc), has been popping up in the top left corner of the screen for around 5s every 10-15 mins or so.

I'm aware of small company logos being permitted next to in-match graphics (eg EA sponsoring possession info on Sky) but thought separate bugs like this were banned in the UK? Aren't such logos usually blurred or covered in some way by UK channels taking "dirty" feeds from host broadcasters (IPL coverage on ITV4 springs to mind)?

Are there exemptions to do with time and prominence on screen? Although its appearances are brief, it is extremely prominent, taking up more of the screen than the ES DOG opposite.

Is ESHD localised at all or a Europe-wide service? If the latter, do different rules apply?

Sky have done this on the cricket (only putting the coverage sponsor logo on the score bar at the corner of the screen, only to fade it out when the bowler starts the run up).
Makes me think the logo is allowed, but not when any 'action' is taking place.

France Televisions employ the box on the screen device for the Tour De France coverage - only the box stays on screen for longer and is slap bang top centre rather than top left inside the 4:3 safe area.

As far as I know there is no local version for Eurosport HD. All the commentators when plugging a forthcoming attraction give out the time in CET first, then knock a hour off for viewers in the UK and Ireland. There is also a Eurosport2 HD, only it hasn't arrived on these shores yet.

Re. the sponsor logo, I remember C4 cricket (and I think Sky do this too) putting up the sponsor's name when returning from a short advert break between overs, in lieu of the full bumper, but presumably that's allowed because the bumper itself can't be used because there simply isn't time. Is this what you are referring to, Hatton Cross?

I remember Sky's cricket coverage getting a couple of slaps on the wrist from Ofcom over sponsorship stuff. The first was when David Lloyd did an interval with two "npower girls" who were selling the matchday programmes. As npower were also sponsoring the coverage itself, as well as the test match, Ofcom adjudged this to be in breach of the code, which I thought rather harsh, as Bumble was clearly talking about npower in the capacity of them sponsoring the event, rather than the coverage, not least because the npower girls have become a part of the test match experience, but there we are.

The second was when Specsavers (IIRC) sponsored the Hawk-Eye graphics. This was simply not allowed, and although Sky claimed that they were "event" graphics rather than a segment of the coverage, I can see why that one was judged as in breach.

The sponsorship point is interesting, as the creator of HotSpot went on record during last winter's Ashes series to say that HotSpot's days might be numbered on Test matches in England, as the equipment cost a lot to set up, and the ICC aren't willing to pay for its use for the referral system. In Australia they can get a sponsor to pay for the equipment (I think it was Vodafone for the Ashes series), but they're not allowed to in England, so the cost of transporting/installing the equipment could be prohibitive.

That leads to another can of worms with the review system, as at the moment the broadcaster pays for all of the technology, but Virtual Eye who did the ball tracking in the last Ashes series, said that their graphics were originally designed merely as "entertainment" for the broadcaster and weren't accurate enough to actually alter the events of the match itself. The problem is that the broadcaster is currently having to pay for this increased accuracy for referral purposes, whilst they themselves get little gain. It's something that the ICC have to sort out soon, as the problem could come to a head. I also think that it's ridiculous that the Indian cricket team can request not to have it used in their matches. I definitely think that either it should be used in all test cricket, or none at all. It's stupid to have it in the England-Sri Lanka series but not the England-India one.

Sorry about that lengthy stream-of-consciousness post. Perhaps it's of interest to someone...?!

Think this is the first time the BBC have used the new graphics on their tennis coverage - gone is the green, we've now got a yellow and black scorebox in the bottom left.

Wonder whether it'll be the same for Wimbledon? They'll probably move it up to the top of the screen like they usually do though.

They probably will but why I don't know - all other tournaments have it at the bottom and for very obvious reasons - it is far less intrusive.

Considering though the BBC graphics are the host graphics I wonder if we'll see a tweak to the black and yellow as that isn't exactly Wimbledon's colour scheme. I think switching the black to a dark purple would work rather well myself.

Also no reason why BBC2 coverage couldn't continue until 8pm as on the red button - it's all repeats bar half an hour of Springwatch on Wednesday and according to Digiguide tonights Eggheads. Seemed ridiculous to crash out of the coverage tonight in favour of a repeat of Celebrity Cash in the Attic.

Rights Brekkie .... BBC are severely restricted as Queen's is an ATP event which usually would be wholly covered on Pay platforms.