Yes - she wasn't that unknown. imdb, like Wikipedia, is only as good as the people who update it... BBC Genome is definitely a better research tool for BBC presenters.
My frustration is that both the BBC and SVT run a closed shop with their national finals. Yet our Swedish colleagues get a much better and diverse set of songs than the by-numbers, by-committee vanilla material we get. All it would take is one killer song.
Yes - the SVT contest is an industry in and of itself though - and its tentacles spread widely across Eurovision (look at how many Mello composers and writers also enter songs to represent other countries, and how many Swedish backing singers and dancers are recruited by other countries).
I'm not sure the bulk of Mello songs in recent years have been that amazing have they? Take away some OTT camerawork and production and there haven't been that many memorable songs that are that amazing. They aren't even that representative of the wider Swedish music scene, any more than UK national final songs are of the UK industry? They are just quite good at creating a commercial sound and performance package that does well in Eurovision...
As regards the difference with Sweden “I refer my honourable friend to the reply I gave some moments ago”. The UK music industry does not need Eurovision but the Swedish record industry (for local acts, not the likes of Zara Larsson) absolutely need Eurovision to build profiles and sustain careers.
It's more a case of needing Melodifestivalen than Eurovision these days I suspect...
If you are a Swedish artist looking to break into a European audience then Eurovision provides a perfect opportunity. That’s why the Swedish record industry back it to the hilt. Harsh as it sounds British artists don’t ‘need’ Eurovision to help launch them into new markets, and neither do their record companies. They don’t view Europe with any interest.
The biggest issue is cultural compatibility. UK is separate from European culture and always will be. And despite all the hullabaloo about Sweden being a Eurovision powerhouse how many of their Eurovision songs/artists have broken away from the Swedish market? Very few. Even Loreen, best ever Eurovision winner, has struggled to establish a career outside of the Scandinavian bubble.
Precisely. Record labels push artists to Melodifestivalen because they know it will give them a huge boost in streams and download sales. Often artists will get an album deal off the back of the competition.
UK artists can become international stars without Eurovision. Other nations' artists can too - but it's far harder.
And you're right - a Eurovision win isn't a ticket to international chart stardom. It may boost your status nationally though. (And you'll always have a place on the Eurovision circuit...)
There seems to be a problem that it’s not The X Factor or Melodifestivalen.
Yes - it's important to remember that SVT have very few other big entertainment show successes other than Allsång på Skansen (which is a summer show). Melodifestivalen is effectively their 'Strictly'... They throw everything including two kitchen sinks at it every year.
It's becoming far less common and practical.
The cost of bringing everything in and out of jackfields is high, and requires a lot of space.
It is much easier to rely on a matrix, which allows flexibility, and also replaces distribution amplifiers, plus can be remotely controlled.
Yes - particularly in OB trucks.
In some studios you will often still find mixer inputs for core sources (cameras, dedicated outside sources, EVS replay etc.) hardwired and not going via a router - for resilience purposes. The mixer will then have 'Assign lines' which are router destinations (sometimes fed via synchronisers if the sources are likely to be non-sync) for getting other ad hoc sources present on the router onto the mixer.
That surprises me re cameras, I would have thought it would be switchable/patchable so that "camera 4" could be fed from any wallbox rather then hard wired.
That is indeed the case - and hardwiring a camera channel to a vision mixer doesn't cause any change to that.
This is because camera cable patching happens upstream of the CCU - the Camera Control Unit (aka the Base Station) - of the camera, and the connection of the CCU to the mixer is thus downstream of any camera cable patching.
Studio and OB cameras aren't wired directly to vision mixers by the cable plugged into the back of the camera. Broadcast cameras used on studios and OBs in general don't use HD-SDI outputs. The triax or fibre camera cable from the back of the camera is patched to a CCU, and the output of that CCU is then fed to the vision mixer and/or router. The CCU remains fixed and can be hardwired to the vision mixer - CCU 1's output is 'Camera 1' however the camera is cabled to it. The triax or fibre cable routes feeding the camera head to the CCU can be varied and manually replugged as required.
You can have lots of different cable routes to connect a camera head to a CCU - via wallboxes, multiple cable drops etc. but camera 1's output will be from camera 1's CCU, and it is the CCU output that is hardwired to the vision mixer.
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For example so that when the One Show wheel a camera or two outside and plug them into the exterior wallbox they appear as the same source at the mixer.
Yes - that happens because Camera 1 is still connected to the same CCU, just by different cable routes. The CCU for camera 1 can still be hardwired to the same vision mixer input in this scenario.
When a camera moves from one wallbox, or cable drop, to another in a studio or on an OB all that needs to happen is that the camera is connected to a new cable or route at the camera head, and the other end of that cable or route is plugged into the same CCU at the other end (either on the OB truck tailboard or on a triax/fibre patch panel feeding CCUs).
This patch panel will allow you to chose which wallbox connection is connected to which camera's CCU at any given time, as this camera patching happens upstream of the CCUs - it is also upstream of any router or hard wiring and has no impact on whether a CCU output is fed to the mixer via a router or directly, bypassing the router.
Camera 1's CCU output is Camera 1 on the mixer however the fibre or triax patching between the camera head and Camera 1 CCU happens.
Last edited by noggin on 2 December 2018 7:24pm - 3 times in total
It's difficult. The right of reply was taken up and they had to read the statement out. Sadly, that statement was very much a load of crap. Like you say, if James O' Brien on LBC had had such a rant (he goes off on one just as much, especially with Brexit) it wouldn't be an issue, but one imagines the TOH news bulletins would have dealt with the right of reply in this case.
Morgan would be a great shout for LBC actually.
I do find, in small doses, LBC a guilty and refreshing pleasure. I do enjoy equally O'Brien and Ferrari, (and politically I'm not 'smack bang in the middle')
My LBC listening has rocketed since Eddie Mair moved from R4's PM to LBC... (Off topic)
Interesting! Considering the vast size and regional diversity of South Africa, it's certainly surprising that they never had any regional programming.
Yep - but Apartheid in South Africa cast a large shadow of broadcasting in the country I guess. (TV started relatively late in South Africa too - not until the mid-70s?)
As I understand it, in the 80s, South Africa may not have had regional TV, but the various SABC TV stations were aimed at different language groups, so they may not have been 'regional' but they were aimed at different communities within the country?
The original thread (LINK) was recently archived, so here's part 2.
Let's start with a longer version of a clip whose brief excerpts we have seen in the old thread. It's a video of South Africa's SABC from 1977, just two years after television was introduced to the conservative, white-ruled country.
The clip includes:
* A short in-vision continuity announcement
* A complete newscast
*
Epilogue,
a religious though-of-the-day segment
* Another short in-vision continuity announcement
* The Apartheid-era flag and national anthem
* The SABC clock
* The test pattern
As you may have noticed, the test pattern mentions the West Cape region. Does anyone know whether the SABC aired regional programming or were test patterns the only "regionalized" element?
It looks to me like that test pattern (and what appears to be a radio station) was put out by the transmitter when the feed from SABC was turned off.
That would be my guess. The BBC took a different approach and put the testcard on the network feed for 30 minutes or so, then removed any video from the output (so there were no sync pulses), which was - I think - the signal for the transmitters to power-down?
I agree Arqiva/Digital UK haven't handled the situtation in the best manner, but to give them some credit I also don't think things have gone to plan for them.
The intention behind the launch of COM7 and 8 was to increase the number of HD services on the platform, which would drive the uptake DVB-T2 receivers, allowing them to start switching the other muxes without causing too much disruption.
The reality of what's happened is that excluding the BBC channels they haven't really picked up any major HD channnels which would encourage most viewers to upgrade. The channels that would drive adoption, such as HD versions of the popular SD channels (ITV2, E4, etc), are all currently stuck behind the Sky/Virgin pay wall.
Yes - the ITV/C4 HD channels being paywalled is really annoying. ITV2-4HD and E4/More4/Film4 on Freeview HD would make it a far more compelling proposition.
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The muxes are mostly filled by smaller broadcasters, many of which in SD, who have been able to get cheap carrage based on the fact not everyone can see the channel.
As a result they haven't seen the uptake of DVB-T2 receivers that they would have hoped for, although there is now quite a lot out there now with the rise of smart TV's. With that, they're stuck another 'digital switchover' type situation with the politics of trying to switch over while people can't watch it.
Yes - though all Freeview licensed products are now T2 compatible aren't they? They've finally pulled DVB-T/SD only devices from the scheme.
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They do need to get their act together and just get on with it however. I would also argue with the available bandwidth for terrestrial TV being increasingly decreased they should start looking at migrating more of the muxes to an SFN.
Yes - a degree of re-arrangment logically to move nationwide services (BBC Two, BBC News, BBC Four etc.) onto common SFNs and regionalised channels (ITV, C4, BBC One) to muxes that aren't SFN-ed would make sense wouldn't it? Though it would mean a major change to the way muxes are 'owned' I guess?
I guess you'd need to handle SFNs for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland slightly differently to handle S4C, BBC Alba, BBC Two nations/BBC Scotland etc.?
Now a scanner would be built with a large matrix over 1000 sources and1000 destinations and it would be one bay.
Even so, with 4K it is now easier to use IP rather than a discrete video matrix!
Yes, 12 G SDI is non starter for anything beyond a few metres of cable, so you're forced to use Quad Link or 2SI 3G SDI which of course multiplies everything by 4. So a router that's say is 512 sq becomes over 2000 sq for the equivalent at 4k !
IP is the way forward....
And with 2022-6/7 IP you still have Quad3G or 2SI don't you - as 2022-6/7 is effectively 3G-over-IP.
That's one reason 2110 is looking to be the way forward for IP stuff longer term (though it is more complex as it doesn't use embedded audio and has more complex timing stuff)
It's becoming far less common and practical.
The cost of bringing everything in and out of jackfields is high, and requires a lot of space.
It is much easier to rely on a matrix, which allows flexibility, and also replaces distribution amplifiers, plus can be remotely controlled.
Yes - particularly in OB trucks.
In some studios you will often still find mixer inputs for core sources (cameras, dedicated outside sources, EVS replay etc.) hardwired and not going via a router - for resilience purposes. The mixer will then have 'Assign lines' which are router destinations (sometimes fed via synchronisers if the sources are likely to be non-sync) for getting other ad hoc sources present on the router onto the mixer.