noggin's posts, page 102

NOW TV

I think it depends on whether dropping SD removes that channel from being available to people (i.e. those with low broadband speeds in the case of IPTV, or those who don't have HD-capable equipment). Some platform providers may not be able to drop SD if they remove services that they are expected to provide. (Mainly the BBC, ITV, C4, C5 I expect?)

EastEnders

IISTR that Corrie's bigger challenge was the move from 4:3 to 16:9 SD, as they were in danger of shooting off their sets more (and they also had issues with the exteriors being scaled down a bit. Albert Square is also quite compact in real life)

The TV Question Amnesty Thread

Yes - if the show is being edited on an external NLE then that will have render and export time, and the EVS will also have import (and potentially transcode if the NLE and EVS are using different codecs) time.

I know in the world of sport and events highlights, cut on EVS, it's not unusual for a highlights montage to have started to play-out before the final shots have been added to the sequence.

EastEnders

I suspect that depended on the PSC workflow (ISTR that EastEnders could shoot both Triax and PSC at Elstree, so their PSC workflow also presumably included HD->SD->HD - though I'd expect that to be defeatable?)

EastEnders

Yes - though Neighbours also moved from shooting 50Hz to 25Hz (i.e. went filmic) when they went HD, so the decor and lighting change may have been more because of the 'film look' being introduced, rather than because they were shooting in higher definition than before. (I assume it stayed multicamera though?)

(Home and Away switched from 50Hz to 25Hz when they started shooting, but not editing, HD ISTR. There was a strange interim period where some Australian channels that were broadcast in 576p50 were called 'HD' and Home and Away shot 1080p25, then downconverted this to 576psf25 (i.e. p25 in an i25 wrapper) edited it SD 16:9 - making sure not to process the picture such that vertical resolution was lost, and then converted the 576psf25 to 576p50 by 'deinterlacing (*)' to 576p25 and 2:2 frame repeating to 576p50.


(*) Technically not really deinterlacing as the content was psf.

The TV Question Amnesty Thread

EVS is more of a server that can edit, than an editing platform. It's key selling point is that you never render anything once it is in the box (though file-based ingest of content may need to be transcoded if it's not in the EVS's native codec - which is a set-up option) You can't do live production with kit that needs to render - particularly sports. All the main production servers are instant Playout devices.

You can do basic cuts/mixes in EVS, and some audio split editing, and it's incredibly good at creating sports highlights using clip lists (where each clip will automatically play after the previous one (with a cut or a mix as required), with the operator still retaining the ability to ramp Playout speed, in real time.

You can also quickly play a sequence of clips, moving manually to the next one on-air, should you need to for analysis.

EVS was initially design to replace VTRs for slow mo replays (the original product name was LSM = Live Slow Motion) and immediacy has always been a key factor in its design (along with reliability - it has a very good reputation in that regard, at least compared to the GVG K2 rival product...)

These days in the UK pretty much every live studio or OB show outside of News will be using EVS for play in, and many will use it for recording too (or K2 if they are unlucky, or LiveTouch if they are trialling it) EVS is 'the industry standard'

Kodi Filmic Effect

I'd probably deinterlace to 50p if I were transcoding (and I do) - which will avoid problems on platforms that don't handle deinterlacing properly.

The w3fdif deinterlacer in ffmpeg is pretty good - so a -vf "w3fdif=complex:all" filter in your ffmpeg command line is a good bet. (It's a deinterlacer designed by the BBC for use in standards converters and digital video effects gear, and uses a neat V/T filtering approach that avoids motion compensation or adaption that can go wrong)

I'd probably use h.264 for the video codec - and use libx264 (not any hardware accelerated encoding - as the quality hit you take will mean an increased file size or lower quality pictures at a given bitrate) You can chose to run at a constant bitrate, constant quality, or do a two pass encode that increases quality at the expense of encode time (for a target average bitrate)

I used to use two-pass encoding when storage space was tight, I know just use a reasonable -crf (constant quality) option (-crf 18 is pretty visually lossless, but won't reduce file sizes much. -crf 23 is a default that is OK - and lower bitrate - but I can see additional artefacts being introduced)

So I'd use -vcodec libx264 -crf 18 for my video codec parameters.

For audio I'd usually keep that untouched using -acodec copy unless I was going to playback DVDs (which usually use AC3/Dolby Digital) on a system without Dolby support . If that is the case I'd transcode to AAC, using something like -acodec aac -ab 256k for a decent quality stereo AAC

I'd usually .mp4 as my output wrapper as it has good support (though mkv can be more flexible)

Example would be - with an input 576i25 MPEG2 + AC3 DVD in a .mkv wrapper where I want the first track (video) and second track (audio) and no subtitles or additional audio tracks output as 576p50 h.264 with AAC audio.

ffmpeg -i "DVD.mkv" -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -acodec aac -ab 256k -vcodec libx264 -crf 18 -vf "w3fdif=complex:all" "DVD.transcoded.mp4"

If you don't know how many tracks there are in a file, and which ones are which, then you can run ffmpeg on the file with nothing other than the -i option with the source filename and it will tell you.

(And yes - ffmpeg experts - I know I should have switched to the new format of -v:c -a:b -v:filter etc. but I can never remember the precise syntax!)

EastEnders

James-2001 is correct though.

Although some changes were made for the HD launch, it wasn't possible to update all of the exterior sets to be good enough quality to pass in HD in every case.

For a long time, when shooting exteriors on the site, the the HD cameras were down-converted to SD and then up-converted back to HD (using high-quality conversion) prior to recording in HD (this softens the picture but avoids SD camera and compression artefacts). In many cases people struggle to tell the difference between native HD, and HD that has been down- and up-converted (in the uncompressed domain) unless they do an A/B comparison with the HD native material.

I'm not sure if this is still the case - but it was for a good many years after the show 'went HD'. Because these exterior scenes were only a relatively small part of most shows, this was still deemed acceptable.

The studio interior sets were obviously updated for HD and were shot in HD without and softening during acquisition from the time the show switched.

Sky's Branding

Yes - probably very desirable advertising targets too (though an ageing demographic I suspect)

The TV Question Amnesty Thread

In my experience it depends on the timescale and the outlet.

Presenters on 24 hour channels often don't get to see scripts until they appear on the prompter in front of them, as they may not have been written until minutes (seconds!) before they are read. That said, many presenters will constantly be in the newsroom computer system reading and revising scripts in advance to make them fit their reading style (or to correct errors - whether grammatical or factual) These scripts are often written by newsroom production journalists.

Presenters on the main 'appointment to view' bulletins (BBC Six and Ten O'Clock News) will often write their own headlines, and write or re-write scripts, based on guide scripts that have been already input. This is trickier for 'last minute' bulletins like the One O'Clock News, as there is less prep time (the running order is more fluid and stuff is often moving much faster), with more scripts going in at the last minute. For the One O'Clock News, there was a 'Chief writer' role who was one of the senior production journalists on the team, working with the programme editor, their deputy, and the presenter, to ensure scripts were written and checked in time.

The BBC's rule is, for all but the most immediate scripts/rewrites, for mainstream bulletins that at least the presenter, editor and original producer all sign off a script before it is flagged as 'ready to air'. (The editor's deputy may also check - either for the editor or in addition to the editor)

Also - if a script has been passed by the lawyers this will be clearly indicated in the body of the script so that everyone knows it can't be rewritten without checking again with the legal team.

The TV Question Amnesty Thread

It may still happen for as-live shows that haven't been edited and are played from site/studio, rather than delivered in advance. If you have an HD Cam SR VTR and tape stock - there's little point not using it.

However these days, now VT is no longer acceptable to many broadcasters for delivery of recorded shows, or archive copies of programmes-as-broadcast recordings, it is probably more common to play from server. (EVS being the common system used for general production)

BBC World News | 30th October 2017 Onwards

Yes - movies will often add their own graphics to increase the resolution, or because they want to ensure the animation works in the edit. (Or just because they haven't decided what the graphics will say at the point of recording)