MrStrawsonsSheep's posts, page 17

Flipping Wimbledon

Does anyone know when the planned move to Radio Jersey is?

Have to agree with you Steve, it should be possible to insert into both BBC1 and BBC2, I'd imagine that this is a condition of local emergency planning. In this case though, the entire BBC audience on the islands would probably have welcomed tennis over Spotlight

The Yorkshire & Lincolnshire Thread

No, the noisy tantrums are in Sydney, Canberra, Perth etc ... and South London.

Flipping Wimbledon

Going by the language that Phillipousos is using, perhaps they should delay the tennis untill after 2100. It's a pity that they didn't get McEnroe to commentate

Flipping Wimbledon

Yes - sorry I can't confirm but ony speculate.

The ability to do a local analogue opt-out probably persists, if only for emergency planning purposes. This would therefore apply to both BBC1 and BBC2. But, the logistics would be dire; having done your 8 minutes or so there being no Spotlight to go back to, they'd have to opt back into BBC2 LDN mid sentence and with a picture-roll

Flipping Wimbledon

Wonderful stuff.

BBC2 East opt-out on analogue, at the precise moment that Suzy Fowler-Watt comes up on BBC2, BBC1 digital switches from the tennis to nice colour bars with the legend "BBC Norwich".

Anyone for tennis?

The Yorkshire & Lincolnshire Thread

So no BBC regional news tonight in England at all in digital households then.

The on air-message that you need to switch back to analogue for any additional service does nothing to help digital take-up. I hope that this isn't true, if it is then IMHO it contributes to the myth of an arrogant BBC.

National Grid Confirms Takeover

Its probably fair to say Crown Castle's (CCI) weren't that interested in being multiplex operators either. It was just that needs must. CCI were left as unsecured creditors when ITV Digital liquidated, holding the financing burden of OnDigital's set-up costs. CCI were a nice neutral party that could get involved in areas of licensing where the BBC and Sky would have been disallowed, and were desperate for the DTT broadcast infrastructure to have some, albeit small, revenue stream.

Confident though NGT are about working in a regulated environment, it will be interesting to see if they try to transfer the mux operators licences of "C" and "D" to other parties.

: Who's in and who's out? Well BSkyB are specifically out for competition regulation reasons highlighted in the original licence award, BBC probably likewise. SDN and hence NTL are out as the main competitor. Who knows, perhaps ITV would have a strategic interest in operating Mux "D" ?

Time for opt-outs on Reporting Scotland

Yes it does, but Blackhill too.

As Blackhill came first, a lot of Edinburgh households will get their TV from there rather than Craigkelly. This does rather put the kibosh on things, pity.

Time for opt-outs on Reporting Scotland

I love playing this game. Asa Briggs clearly enjoyed doing mich the same with English regions, back in the late '60s.

As I see it the challenge in devising an effective regional map for broadcasting in Scotland is that whatever you do you are left with two fairly large entities, those serving the Highlands and Greater Glasgow.

Another problem will be political, although England now toys with the idea of regional government, Scotland has largely dispensed with the huge regions creted in the '70s, replacing them with something more akin to the former counties and Large Boroughs. The creation of large composite regions, in the name of localisation, probably wouldn't play .


1 Highlands and Islands ( Bressay, Keelylang Hill, Skriaig, Eitshal, Torosay, Rumster Forest, Rosemarkie, Knock More )
2 Aberdeenshire and Tayside (Durris, Angus)
3 Lothian and Borders (Craigkelly, Selkirk)
4 South West (Darvel, Sandale, Cambert Hill)
5 Strathclyde Central and Greater Glasgow (Black Hill)


Rgds/

Hanging On By their Fingertips

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

But consider - if you'd have started a year back, rather than nominate expired personalities, you could have used fired Senior Managers, BBC Governors and ITV Board Directors.

Who'd have guessed such a large cull!

Sky plans Internet-style content for 'FreeSat'

I wonder what level of system call WTVML will eventually (ever) be able to make to the middleware or the Sky box o/s :

Open itself is very restricted (not intrinsically but very purposefully) in the type of call that can be made. You can't for instance invoke a call to change channel, as you can within the UK- DTT MHEG platform. This has the effect of preventing a broadcaster from developing an Open app that performed as an EPG. UKTV have come close, but "key xyz [enter] to see UK Cheapo repeat " is not the same as pressing enter to be on that channel.

IMHO the big problem with Open is that its a very "closed" platform, Sky have restricted access to many aspects in order to protect their platform both technically and commercially. Open also has a very high cost of entry, developing testing and deployment is high maintenance.

WTVML seems to be a way in which advertising agencies, can create interactive (iTV) content using their own web based skills, without either the content being too interactive, or the developers needing to know too much about digital TV. This would be a way to broker more press red campaigns, and for channels to produce more text based content, without needing to go too deeply into Open . In a developed and fully implemented state WTVML could be a sort of MHEG+ of the Cable and Satellite world, offering straight and simple access for content to be annotated with iTV functionality, without need for access the the inners of Open or its open standard competitor MHP.

The trouble is, as with any areas of standards relating to BSkyB, you wonder whether this is an attempt to trounce other potential standards, possibly even deploying a defensive measure against the BBC's excellent FreeSat proposals.

Time for opt-outs on Reporting Scotland

Scotland's is an incredibly diverse country, I'm surprised that the broadcasters have managed to get away without having to spend too much in reflecting this. As you said, it was a licence to print money ...... And again, I don't mean noth sea oil.

The article that I was referring to is here : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3616627.stm

and there was discussion on TVForum : http://www.tvforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9717

I REALLY hate HTV West raised this on the 11th April.