diarmydotnet's posts, page 5

RTÉ News

Have to say, without shadow of doubt, the best Nine I've ever seen tonight. Really tight ship run with very little hiccups. Ken Hammond and Eamonn Horan work very well together. Hammon was particularly worthy of praise with his perfect cueing, quick-cuts to reports and tight returns to studio. He really moves things along perfectly. Horan too, who's an excellent presenter in his own right, was very good tonight - sharp, great use of inflections and overall presentation was snappy. Very well done. Just shows how the experience of Hammond matched with the persona of Horan can really get a new 'bulletin' down perfectly. Must say gallery were excellent too, with only 2 slight technical faults with reports.

By the way, anyone think that the Temp Set's graphics are being run from server-based VT?? Seems much snappier and the graphics are fierce standardised?? Would make sense in getting used to server-based output in the run up to the new launch, and it would explain the mysterious sharpening up of the graphics beds for the titles and the astons??? Anyone subscribe to that notion??

RTÉ

Absolutely ANYONE who has broadband and 10 minutes to spare should watch this video from YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdCK4wx9S0c

It's the Late Late show re-cast in Lego. But the amazing thing aside from the work that went into producing it, is the amazing level of attention to details... the cameras are shaky, you can see the floor cameras, the microphones are all delayed and the stupid jib camera shots aswell. Amazing stuff! I don't know who the author is but I'd like to shake his/her hand!

D

RTÉ News

Warning!!! Short Post Ahead!!


--- Very Disheartening ---


D

RTÉ

Hi Folks,

Just had a gawk through the thread for the first time... Very interesting about the access to the RTÉ News Center sub-site... Shame it's such a badly put together operation.

The new reel of Autumn programs has been running on RTE over the past few days, section by section (although I've yet to see the News & Current Affairs one on TV). Overall it's not bad, but I have to say, whoever the continuity girl is should really go back to writing scripts and let someone with a more muted and less falsly-enthusiastic voice carry off things like that... I'm noticing her brash voice more and more as I suffer through the atrocious quantity of ad-breaks on RTE while waiting for some divine intervention in their programming schedule... Really Really Bad. In fact, here's a question... has anyone actually ever liked an RTE Continuity presenter?

Anyway, another thing I found on the RTE re-launch site is this:

http://www.rte.ie/tv/autumn2006/images/primetimeinvestigates.jpg

Who's responsible for that hideously massive RTE logo?? Honestly I'd hate to be a Red Bee project manager seeing stuff like that being churned out less than 3 weeks before a relaunch. Sickening.

On the whole YAS debacle, thank god it's over eh!? Only thing is we all know it'll be back. For my part, I watched it one evening last week just for the sheer crass value. Apart from the devestation of missing Kathryn Thomas performing, I had plenty of holes shown to me to pick at. Agree with Phen 100% about the camera cueing. It's appauling. The jib camera is the worst because it zooms out from the stage and then looks at the heads of a bored audience. Also, I know nothing of the Helix, but can the seats be moved?? Surely it'd make more sense to have a smaller audience area blanketed by those lovely black curtains to keep the sound at bay... you really get the impression of a barn-yard echo when the crowd are forced to clap along to some dreary song like that miserable Mary Black one Áine Ní Dhroignean sang. Nice girl, passion-less singer.

Idents-wise on RTE, I actually like them. The music isn't any good, but the images are captivating... and what's more important is the original set of idents (which seem to have been *lost* of late) were from all around Ireland. Something RTE overlook constantly.

Anyway, I'm off to the grotto to pray for a new beginning in a few weeks with all the weeds in RTE being served a bowl of RoundUp and a fresh new look to ease me into Eddie Hobbs' latest show coming soon.

RTÉ News

I did for a while too, but since Sky got up their own a$$ about the whole 'Breaking News' ****, I've lost interest. They're on a par with The Sun now at this stage for sheer unbridled sensationalism. Sad thing is though that Sky are still the benchmark for presentation and I fear BBCN24 is going down the same road.

RTE still packs in the Irish perspective though (and only on Irish stories, I don't find them good on international stories) so that's their saving grace for me.

D

RTÉ News

I didn't literally mean people would turn off from RTE, but rather that figuratively, it would lead to more and more people being more and more fed-up with the dodgy presentation. I've only had NTL digital for 2 years and it only took 2 weeks to fall in love with BBC News 24. I still watch RTE News for the sake of the Irish aspect, but what I'm really saying is that if RTE had a competitor of equal-ish footing, they'd be wiped off the board for presentation and execution reasons. If Sky News Ireland lasts until DTT becomes a national reality and TV3 news becomes serious about news (they STILL haven't gotten around to having a news website) then RTE could be in serious trouble. As I've said in the past, they have huge potential but unless they cop on and do things right for once (given that we're being hunted like dogs to pay TV Licenses to which we have no say on its use or accountability for it) we shouldn't be treated like amateur idiots by our national broadcaster with the adage "sure nobody'll notice, it'll be fine."

On another point, any one notice the change in the Lebanese/Israeli correspondance lately?? The two correspondants have taken the microphones out of the shot!!! Wonder did Teilifís's rant hit home, and if so, what powers from RTÉ are reading our constructive criticism??

interesting........

RTÉ News

in fairness C2tv, news is half entertainment half topical... taking your analysis on board would lead us to simply abandon the news entirely on tv and just listen to the radio.

it's quite difficult to watch news unless it's presented well and properly. Fox News is a prime example of a channel no one can watch because it's presentation is soooo unbelieveable crass (and when coupled with the racist and pro-republican views it's completely unwatchable)

We Irish are naturally perfectionists and love to find something wrong and pick out the bad points... it's not a bad thing in the slightest because we accept nothing but the best.

So for my part, I think it is crucial that the presentation part of RTE's news is top-notch (largely due to the incompetent background staff and poor presenters and boring news stories.)

It's about coming home from work at 6 and winding down with something that's relaxing but informative. Right now, RTE are semi-informative (and in the past were very informative) but the presentation is boring and glitchy - so yes, I think the graphics, presentation package, title music and updates are important.

RTÉ News

I've had another look at the 'sting' and I think it's actually a ship.. looking up at the sails from the mizen mast on deck. This is the easiest way I can represent it is showing 4 photos.

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/1.gif

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/2_copy5.gif

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/3.gif

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/4.gif

For them to go to this level of effort means this could very well be the real thing, minus the logo. A boat ties well with RTE's insatiable appetite for maritime imagery and the fact that it's digitally rendered means the work put into it would conform to something new. Also the wording of the sentence before the RTE News graphic:

"And yet another dimension to RTE News and Current Affairs"

I think that we're looking at the real thing, as I said minus the logo. We can only wait and see. I think the logo will be different because it's not propery stuck-on to the black flag behind it.

Needless to say, apart from the pixelations, it looks completely crap. Pity - The thought of using brown and black on the big news wall renders it useless. If this is the way they go, I don't think I'll be watching too much longer and Sky News Ireland will have to do.

RTÉ News

for those of you who haven't or cannot see the stream, here's a screen grab i took of it on my mac.

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/newrtelookhopenot.gif

I really really really really really really hope this isn't what's in store for 2 weeks time. It's hideous. The colouring as Teilifis remarked is ok, but the text is too boring and generic, the animation is awful and the overall look is more of a 3D rendering of house plans rather than a news intro. RTE CANNOT use just graphics this time. For the past 10 years they've used nothing but graphics as their intros. It's time to move on with real-life images of some inanimate object like Sky's use of the real globe or the BBC's countdown thingy that commands attention from the viewer, or ITV's use of a clock (albeit entirely graphical).

And if RTE do use this brown thing as an intro they'll lose even more viewers. I'm amazed at how many people complain subconciously about this awful intro music and comments such as "I give them 2 minutes before they have a major f**k up!".

One more, rather on-topic item, is this business of the constant coverage of the Middle East crisis on Six, Nine and One of late. It's as though RTE's prayers have been answered in that they now focus on just one story (meaning all correspondants can have a free holiday on tax-payer's money) and RTE can appear to be global in its news presence. The fact is, RTE is actually infuriating the public with the coverage of the Middle East crisis. It's so far from home in its roots that people just don't care anymore. Sky News has done its part for completely turning people off televisual news with its constant streams from Iraq and the Terror War. I fear BBC News 24 is falling into the trap also, however they allocate less time to the Middle East than Sky. RTE cannot afford to keep doing this now. There are plenty of newsworthy stories in Ireland at present (even taking into account that the Dail is off duty - which seems to be the main source of news for RTE). RTE need their viewers to keep watching its awful news service - otherwise the advertisments in 3 places during the show and before and after the 6 news will lose interest. Especially if RTE is going to unleash a horrid ball of brown s**t on us all in 2 weeks!!

There's still time to render something else. Even ressurect the 1997 title music and wire-frame graphics, change the colour to more green than blue and launch in 3D again instead of this horrid mess.

RTÉ News

Just for the record, and not going too much off-topic, I do speak Irish.

I didn't really explain myself well phen, but i was thinking along the lines of seperate programmes or even seperate end titles... similar to the black and white screen we now see at the end of each rte programme... I don't know of any other TV station that has specifically defined colour schemes (without going crazy such as CBBC) for different strands of programmes.

Just a thought that RTE could classify by colour their programming.... maybe even inspire them into doing more home-grown programming.

I dunno, bit of waffling.

diarmy

RTÉ News

On the subject of logos/mocks, i wrapped up these babies this evening.... Open to comments!


http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/rtebuttons.jpg

diarmy

RTÉ News

in fairness guys, that green mic looked like something a pre-school kid did in clay class. it was horrid - mainly because the green was such a pukey version of the green on the national flag (the same hue as the RTE green.)

I dunno guys, I may have said bad things in the past (goldfish memory) about Una O'Hagan, but in fairness, she's a heck of a lot better polished than Anne Doyle. Really that woman is like John Aldridge on Celeb You're a Star - just wants to get out of it. I agree with Teilifís (as per usual) about Nine staying a sit-down show, leaving any standups by the 'news wall' to the Six One and News at One. Finnerty would be an excellent example of a competent 'news-waller' in my opinion. Even Education Girl (can never remember her name) would be excellent at that task. Dobbo mightn't be so good. I can remember a stand-up shot from him the time the Pope died, and he looked desperate (maybe it was the khaki pants) but he has an oddly-proportioned torso (very VERY common in Irish men.

If the poker were surgically removed from Aengus MacGrianna, and the kiss of life given to him my some comely maiden, he'd be a good 'news-waller' too. Sharon would not however - no matter what anyone says, her diction and cadences are all wrong... too raspy and sharp.

diarmy