noggin's posts, page 125

BBC World News | 30th October 2017 Onwards

Ravens aren't used for main content Playout in NBH studios. The HD studios in NBH are largely based around a large Quantel (now GVG via SAM) ServerQ installation for ingest, editing and playout. This is interfaced with the Jupiter system (which includes a Quantel QCut) for desktop editing. There are craft QEdits driven by picture editors for higher quality editing.

Routing line-feeds into the Quantel ingest servers for a linear feed would have been tricky without BNCS control. File-based delivery shouldn't have been impacted as it goes into Quantel in the file-domain I believe. Playout is directly from server Playout ports and doesn't go via a dynamically controlled BNCS line-switcher AFAIK - so also shouldn't have been impacted (and didn't seem to be)

(ESPN in the US had a similar Quantel+BNCS - also known as Colledia - system at one point in the 00s, but have migrated to a different set of platforms now I believe) https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/espn-strikes-digital-deals-with-quantel-bbc-technology (Colledia was effectively the BBC Technology brand for Jupiter and BNCS technology ISTR)

BBC News - more technical problems (21/11/18)

Yes - the confusion may come from the fact that you can buy the product from ATOS but can also have In-house developers for it.

The BBC may have a blanket, site-wide licence, or some other sensible way of handling this situation.

BBC News - more technical problems (21/11/18)

Yes - there are local routers in each studio, and then a large building-wide redundant router (I suspect actually building-wide routerS with highways between for resilience) BNCS is just a control system for the local and station-wide routers, but the routers can still also have their own control panels running in parallel (and you'd expect an XY panel to be available). However if the router hasn't been configured helpfully with clear source and destination labels (as they were planned never to be seen by the end user) then this might be quite time consuming... Most hard panels in use in BBC control rooms with BNCS are actually BNCS hard panels (usually configured as dumb panels, not smart ones though...)

On resilient installs you will often 'salt and pepper' install - splitting sources and destinations between router cards, or even routers, in a manner that means your input and output eggs aren't all in one basket (say splitting all the OS destinations for a studio between two routers, or at least two different router output cards for example)

However BNCS adds a whole extra level of functionality over basic routing (such as CleanFeed/MixMinus/IFB-queueing and routing, 4-wire routing etc. that would be trickier to implement from basic router controls) In some situations BNCS will also control multiple smaller routers as if they were one big virtual router, handling intermediate routes invisibly. This functionality may also be lost in 'manual' mode.

BBC News - more technical problems (21/11/18)

That may well be the case. (Or may be the case for the 'BBC Flavour' of BNCS - the installations at IMG and Sky have a significantly different UI to the BBC installations, which have hardly changed in UI terms since at least 1998!)

Channel 4

Yes - All4 is unwatchable on a decent sized TV screen. Whilst almost every other broadcaster streaming service hits at least 720p - All4 is still stuck at sub-SD quality.

Hopefully the new Channel 4/Sky deal (which tied into C4 getting F1 highlights from Sky, in return for Sky getting more C4 on-demand content) means that Sky viewers will get all the All4 content (currently you only get content that has had a linear broadcast) in 1080i. This is particularly important for 'Walter Presents' stuff where often only the first episode gets a linear outing.

BBC News - more technical problems (21/11/18)

Yes - though if you're used to operating kit 'not via BNCS' not that complicated. That's the downside of BNCS - people don't actually know how the kit they are operating is really operated in anger without BNCS.

26th Anniversary of the biggest shake up in ITV

A counter argument is that 'economies of scale' probably = employs less people within the UTV region? (And the reverse may well be true of STV - who will employ more people from within their region than if they were an off-shoot of ITV?)

Whether that is an important issue I leave to others - but it is a significant one.

Another is that decisions about UTV, other than those to do with local news, are less likely to be taken by those who live in the UTV region than would be the case with STV?

BBC News - more technical problems (21/11/18)

You don't really load a programme into BNCS - it's not an automation system like Mosart.

BNCS is a virtual manual control system that lets you control local and station routers, IFB and talkback switching, colour correctors, under-monitor displays, tallies, remote cameras, line switchers etc. from a standard control panel (usually a touch screen, but mouse control can be an option too) - rather than needing manufacturer specific panels for each function. It's heavily network based, and when it falls over you can lose a lot of functionality. If BNCS panels go down and/or the backend interfaces to the BNCS-controlled kit fail and/or the network that links the two fails then this could stop you routing outside sources to your control room, routing your control room output to the Iines to master control etc. It could mean you lose camera tallies or red lights in the monitor stack, are unable to label sources or talkback buttons etc.

In OB trucks - and some studios - you often see the VSM system offering similar functionality (VSM is now a Lawo product)

BNCS was designed in-house by the BBC (in Manchester originally I believe), and then when BBC Technology was sold to Siemens-now-ATOS I think BNCS was part of that sale. It's in use at IMG, Sky and Timeline (aka BT Sport) studios I believe.

At the BBC BNCS is basically providing a unified manual user interface for equipment from a large variety of manufacturers that would otherwise potentially mean you needed to learn lots of different UIs for that specific kit. The basic UI on the version of BNCS the BBC use hasn't changed since at least 1998 - and it's usually an incredibly reliable system.

In some cases there will be emergency hard panels that aren't connected to BNCS for some functionality, or you may be able to KVM to kit and control it from a 'PC-style' UI running on the kit itself. However if the BNCS failure is caused by a major IP network failure, these KVMs may run on the same network.

Sound Recording

Yes - almost certainly that is a stick mic plugged into a radio mic transmitter body pack (the same or similar transmitter you'd use with a lapel mic).

These days you often see stick mics with integrated radio transmitters (or the horrible 'plug in the bottom' transmitter bricks) but in those days I suspect you had a small stock of body packs and connected either lapel or stick mics to the same transmitters.

The sound person would probably receive that mic with a radio mic receiver on his mixer so he could monitor levels, possibly record effects on a second track (if they had two track recording) or mix in effects (if it was single track) etc. In that they era may well also have been using uMatic VTRs rather than Betacam camcorders so the sound person may have been carrying that too - or there may have been a separate VT engineer doing that. (When 1" open-reel portable recording was used a VT or Vision engineer was often in the crew to handle tape lacing etc.)

BBC Cuts

Yes - the BBC is between a rock and a hard place with this. The government took a political decision to pay for over 75's licence fees - and then (a different government?) took another political decision to shift the financial responsibility for this from the treasury to the BBC (alongside funding the World Service, S4C, rural broadband and Local TV)...

Means testing sounds like the best solution - but as others have said - it's very difficult to administer cost effectively. This is a really tricky situation.

I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! 2018

I suspect she'd be sacking her agent shortly after that. Holly's career doesn't need that kind of boost...

Wither BBC

I think that's where the beginning of the end starts. Once you make it general taxation and reduce the direct link between payment and the BBC, you doom the BBC to be beholden to politicians at a much lower level.

If you are going to remove the TV licence then a household tax (as in Germany) or an individual Public Service Tax (as in Sweden - which is only paid by income tax payers and has a degree of progressive-ness about it, but is a fixed separate tax rather than part of general taxation) could be ways to go. The Public Service Tax was only approved in Sweden last week and is already controversial as it means a household of mum, dad and two adult wage-earning kids will pay significantly more under the new system (4 x Public Service Taxes)