noggin's posts, page 110

15,946 search results, most recent first

NG
noggin Founding member

Eurovision 2019

JamesM0984 posted:
Ah I see. I was thinking that a short circuit could travel down the XLR and potentially into the mixer, but it didn't look like a mic that needed Phantom power.

That said, she'd have a battery pack on her for her IEMs but I assume that would be in a pouch - which is how we got round the issue when I was in a production of Singing In The Rain a while back.


dosxuk posted:
JamesM0984 posted:
Also - I notice Wiktoria had a corded mic. Presumably a waterproof one so she didn't get fried, but wouldn't wireless be safer in that instance?


A dynamic wired mic will only have the voltage produced by the coil in the mic moving to the sound. No external power is required. A wireless mic has to have a power supply for all the transmission circuitry as well.

Furthermore, the cost of wireless kit is much higher than a wired mic if you're expecting it to get trashed.


JamesM0984 posted:
That was a brilliant interval show.

Surprised Anna didn't make it DTF, but I can't complain about the four who are still safe. I felt Wiktoria didn't do herself many favours by not blow drying her hair properly, she looked a bit of a mess on the reprise which might at least harm record sales domestically.

A bit too Linnea Deb heavy for me, but can't fault the production. SVT leading the way again.

Also - I notice Wiktoria had a corded mic. Presumably a waterproof one so she didn't get fried, but wouldn't wireless be safer in that instance?


Isn't everyone missing the point?

A Radio Mic would have been more likely to fail due to water ingress than a dynamic cabled mic?

The use of a cabled Beta58 (or similar) wasn't a personal safety issue (though you'd have to sense check the way the dynamic mic was connected to the wider sound-world), it was more to mitigate against a loss of vocals surely?

A Beta58 will survive pretty much everything after all...

I'm assuming the heavy use of foldback wedges was also there to avoid a reliance on RF IEM receivers?
NG
noggin Founding member

26th Anniversary of the biggest shake up in ITV

One of the benefits of the US Closed Caption system, for subtitles, over the NTSC-variant of World System Teletext, was that it was a much lower data rate signal which was thus more robust. As a result it survived VHS recording, and mastering, so off-air recordings and pre-recorded movie cassettes could carry Closed Captions, whereas teletext didn't really survive VHS (*) recording.

This was why there were also 'PAL' closed caption decoders sold in the UK to allow movie VHS tapes to be watched with optional subtitles.

(*) Yes - I'm aware that you can extract WST data from VHS recordings, but to do so relies on the cyclic nature of teletext transmission giving you multiple datasets to reduce errors.
NG
noggin Founding member

Top of the Pops

james-2001 posted:

Gary Davies appearing on virtually every show is getting a bit tiring as well, god knows why he appeared so much in 87, he'll appear on around 2/3rds of the 1987 episodes we'll see on BBC4. He's appeared on 5 of the 7 editions from 87 we've seen so far.


Didn't Gary present a lot of 1987 episodes to allow the Top of the Pops USA deal with CBS to work?

He co-presented the CBS show with Nia Peeples - which was an edit of US and UK performances and US and UK links. I guess CBS wanted a consistent Brit presenter - so it made sense for Gary to do the US and UK shows?
NG
noggin Founding member

Top of the Pops

My guess is that if the original recording is a PasB from network, or from a studio output on a show that didn't start with a VT clock, the transfer team will have edited a new clock on. If the original recording has a perfectly OK clock already on the insert, then they will leave it as-is?
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC Scotland channel - service to also launch in HD

623058 posted:
People really still watch SD? Even my Granny has HD tv, and she not that well off.


Yes. Remember lots of HDTV sets sold in the 00s were HD but only had DVB-T tuners.

It's only relatively recently that Freeview have mandated DVB-T and h.264 compatibility for all Freeview branded TVs (i.e. made Freeview HD the standard for all TVs). Until quite recently it was perfectly possible to buy DVB-T-only displays that aren't compatible with HD. (As others have stated some of these TVs were HD Ready or Full HD and had HDTV DVB-T+h.264 tuner/decoders for the HDTV systems used in other European countries like France, Norway, Ireland etc.)

Similarly there are significant numbers of SD MPEG2 Sky Digiboxes (remember in some regions the DSO schemes were Freesat-from-Sky and beneficiaries in those regions got SD Sky boxes)

Of the 6 TVs I own - 2 are Freeview HD. 3 are HD displays with just Freeview SD tuners (one of them also has HD h.264 DVB-T but not DVB-T2 so is SD-only in the UK). One is an SD analogue only B&W CRT.
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC Scotland channel - service to also launch in HD

DVB Cornwall posted:
Remember that DVB-T has/had an HD variant, which wasn't chosen to be developed once DVB-T2 with it's bandwidth advantages came along. so describing a DVB-T receiver as HD ready isn't as wrong as it sounds.


In other countries - like France, Ireland, Norway etc. DVB-T is still actively used for HD - in face France very recently migrated from SD to HD channels on DVB-T.

Also in places like Germany and the Netherlands they are ahead of the UK - as they are using 1080p50 HEVC/h.265 over DVB-T2 (so our Freeview HD sets may not work for HD in those countries unless they have an h.265 decoder. Usually UHD sets will have these, HD sets may not)
NG
noggin Founding member

Channel television network contributions

bluecortina posted:
ttt posted:
deejay posted:
V-Fade and U-Fade are the usual terms these days but the BBC always used to call it a “Down and Up” (Originally when going between two slides in a junction, when they were physical slides in a scanner, this required a “Down, Change and Up” which was essentially a U-Fade)


Sorry to go off-topic but when would a V-fade become a U-fade?

An electronically-generated down-and-up would of course always be a V-fade since generally there are only 0 or 1 frames of actual black.

Older manual ones would technically always be U-fades -- with an underscanning TV you could see this in action on some channels where you'd sometimes see that a small portion of the left-hand edge of the A source being faded out would remain at full intensity then that sliver of image would cut to the B source, which would then be faded up.

Or are you saying that a U fade would be where the actual slides would be shifted to the next one whilst the screen was black? Wasn't it the case that they'd have two scanners and cut between them?

I guess the NODD system would need a U fade if changing between the clock and globe for example on the BBC.


As I knew it:
V-fade. Fade first source down to black, fade up second source.
U-fade. Fade down first source, wait, fade up second source.
Fade and take = V-fade.


Agree with V-fade and U-fade - which are both 'down and ups' but the U-fade spends longer in black.

However a 'fade and take' was a fade-to-black followed by a cut to video (not a fade up)

I tried to draw them as ASCII art but the forum software filters out backslashes it seems.
NG
noggin Founding member

Eurovision 2019

Sh1ruba posted:

And this is why they need better security in Tel Aviv before these bigots tarnish the non-political nature of the contest

It's been clearly stated that Eurovision is non-political so why hasn't the message been drilled into their thick skulls yet? Mad


I think it's a good idea to avoid derogatory language when talking about people on either side of this debate. There are sincerely and honestly held views on both sides that people feel incredibly strongly about.

There are many people who honestly believe you can't remove politics just by saying 'this is non-political', and just saying 'this is non-political' doesn't mean, to them, it is non-political...

I'm not equating Israel with South Africa, but similar 'keep politics out of this' language was used in pre-Apartheid South Africa when it came to sport and music, but many felt that they couldn't separate politics and personal morality from all areas of their lives.

I think it's important to respect the honestly and sincerely held views of others. It's OK to disagree with people.

Can we keep this civil?
NG
noggin Founding member

Channel television network contributions

robertclark125 posted:
If Channel carried adverts from mainland UK, i.e. from the TVS/TSW feed, would Channel have received a percentage of the ad income? I'm meaning if there were five adverts in a break, Channel shows two from the islands, one for the co-op, one for a car dealership, I know Channel would get paid for them. But if the other three came from the TVS/TSW feed, such as for Levis, Renault cars, and Coca cola, would Channel have received any income for those?


I think Channel did get some revenue for the TSW/TVS commercials they showed.

I didn't think they replaced individual adverts in a TVS/TSW break though (i.e. I think the breaks were either 'all Channel' or 'all TVS/TSW'?)
NG
noggin Founding member

Channel television network contributions

Inspector Sands posted:

There's also a U transition, which has a longer period of black. Useful when some sort of external switching like an aspect ratio change is needed to be hidden. In the early days of digital TV the BBC used a 12 frame U transition in and out of every 4:3 programme on their digital networks, this in theory gave set top boxes and their own ARCs enough time to subtley change ratio in the black


Yes. This was only needed for DSat (because Sky boxes don't/didn't support AFDs), which used ARCs + MPEG2 aspect ratio switching (which only changed on a GOP boundary) between 16F16 and 12F12 encoding. As this isn't frame accurate, the 'U' helped hide the switch (though you'd still see sometimes see stretched/squashed video sometimes)

BBC DTT used AFDs and a constant 16F:9 signal that either carried 16F16 or 12P16 content (which I think was the format 4:3 was ingested in) - and thus no GOP-based MPEG2 header switching and asa result you got frame accurate aspect switching on a 4:3 display (as the receiver was doing the centre-cut, under AFD control, not the broadcaster upstream of the MPEG2 encoder)
NG
noggin Founding member

YouTube Gold

RDJ posted:
noggin posted:
RDJ posted:
A Song for Europe 1991 with Terry Wogan one Friday evening.

A very grand affair with a very elaborate studio set up. The stage built that it's overhanging over an orchestra pit. Not quite sure if health and safety would allow this kind of set up nowadays.

Also look out for the very perfectly timed ending to the show at 1:00:20. With a Production credit which would also most likely caused for some very colourful language on talkback during that final sequence.

Eitherway it could very much be argued that A Song for Europe that year was a much better and slicker production than the contest itself from Italy which was an utter shambles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQLEVUUKf64


Wogan used to come from the BBC TV Theatre, which the BBC left in 1991. I wonder if this is one of the last shows to come from there. Would explain the staging. It's very 'TV Theatre Wogan'...

From memory the TV Theatre stage was extended over the existing orchestra pit to make more 'studio floor' space - so that would explain how they could overhang...


From the clip of Samantha running through the corridors into the studio, it does look like the decor of TVC. Indeed signage for TC2 can be seen so it looks like this might possibly be TC3?


I hadn't spotted that bit - definitely TV Centre! Looks like they decided to recreate a 'TV Theatre' feel... Can't have been cheap.
NG
noggin Founding member

Channel television network contributions

When Channel took TVS's dirty feed, those of us living in the TVS region used to frequently see "(Except in the Channel Islands)" or "(Not in the Channel Islands)" disclaimers on adverts. I'd assumed this was because advertisers and the IBA were aware that commercials broadcast on TVS would also be seen in the Channel Islands.