noggin's posts, page 15

Eurovision 2021 - Netherlands - NPO/AVROTROS/NOS

That's a pretty weak argument though - the commentary from Graham, and Sir Terry before him, is a main reason for some of the audience to watch.

Plus there are boring regulatory reasons to have a commentator on a live event - such as to advise when the UK does things differently (no SMS voting), or when voting elements need to be explained more clearly than the host presenters do.

You'd also need a live commentator for compliance reasons - to apologise for elements in the live show were there to be bad language, nudity or to cope in the case of an interruption etc.

Some years the show without commentary would be horrific. (Watching the 'Eurovision Again' commentary-free reruns on YouTube demonstrates how odd the show would be without commentators - it would be a very niche watch).

When you watch with Graham commentating, it's like watching with a friend - for many it just wouldn't be the same without a commentator.

Rylan would be a very good shout as a replacement. He's a Radio Two face, clearly loves Eurovision, is quick witted and is an experienced live presenter, but lets hope Graham sticks with it for years to come.

Coronavirus - Impact on live/recorded shows

Yep - that's likely to be a 'key and fill' VT where the key doesn't include the very top and bottom lines of key, particularly if there was a funky transition to and from the VT.

The VT is keyed, or overlaid, over the background camera - and a line at the top and bottom of the screen remains.

This can also be the case if a DVE-transition is used.

On the current BBC Four TOTPs you often see the Charisma DVE bleed through by a pixel or so all round when it has been cut to with the current on-air camera routed through it. On older TOTPs you also used to see 'blanking errors' which can cause you to see larger strips of background camera.

Overscan on CRT TVs hid a multitude of sins around the edges of pictures, which we now see via our flat screens if we disable overscan or watch online.

On SD shows on BBC HD outlets you may see half a row of repeating dots at the very top of frame. That's a reference signal for the PAL Transform decoder that the BBC designed and implemented for high quality conversion of composite PAL content (it's probably the best PAL decoder in the world - almost totally removing cross colour and cross luma artefacts). Not all the recent TOTPs have gone through it - and they also have 'baked in' PAL decoding artefacts because the Charisma DVEs had to decode prior to their processing...

Bauer rebranding 53 stations to The Hits/Greatest Hits

At one point wasn't The Box based around NTSC laser discs and a standards converter - to allow random access video playback in the days before video servers. (ISTR it had to be NTSC for some reason - possibly because it shared videos with a US equivalent ?)

.... and finally

There is an Autocue operator for the News Channel and BBC One main bulletins. When there were short daytime summaries on BBC One and Sixty Seconds bulletins on BBC Three from NBH the presenters had the option of either a hand controller or foot pedal to control it themselves.

BBC Six

If you mean a warning because of flash photography...

HIGNFY is a recorded show, and therefore will have had to have passed an Ofcom-approved Photosensitivity and Flashing Pattern (PSE and FPA) test, so no warning will be required. The material will have been tested (and edited or modified if required) prior to delivery and broadcast. All delivered shows are required to deliver with a certificate demonstrating that they have passed.

Unless exceptional circumstances exist you aren't allowed to include content that would fail a Harding or similar PSE/FPA test in delivered shows.

Live shows, shows with fast turnaround inserts, and fast-turnaround as-live shows which don't have control over all of their content can use the warning approach instead. (Think News bulletins, Eurovision Song Contest, live pop concerts, global events etc.)

Live entertainment shows (like Strictly, X factor and The Voice) that do have control over their content ARE expected to run a Harding over their rehearsals and confirm that their rehearsal passes a Harding, and modify the lighting, staging or camera coverage, it if it doesn't.

Warning before content that would fail a Harding (or similar) test isn't an option for conventionally delivered recorded shows, you have to ensure they pass.

South West England & CI Thread

WMT cellular units certainly bond over multiple cellular connections (I think 4-8 SIMs and Modems, plus WiFi and/or Ethernet cable) is the standard config. I don't know if they bond cellular and WiFi (allowing dual Cellular if you use a MiFi) on their iPhone app.

https://www.mobileviewpoint.com/products/mobile-encoders/agile-airlink

I believe they do a similar retransmission/error correction process as other video transfer systems like SRT - where you decide latency (and buffer duration) to mitigate transport disruption.

The Sport Thread

Why would NBC in the US want to broadcast a UK show about the Olympics with no Olympic coverage within it, when they have spent literally billions on rights? That's a kind of bizarre proposition?

It would be far more likely that Sky facilities and production staff on downtime would be used by Comcast to make content purely for NBC US outlets. The Olympic Summer Games are traditionally staged when Sky have fewer sporting events to cover - so it makes sense to use Sky's staff and facilities. It will be interesting to see if they do much remote production/presentation using UK facilities and crew/production staff, or whether they use them for back-office stuff like event logging etc.

The Sport Thread

No - and there's no suggestion that Sky would be broadcasting Olympic content. This is purely a suggestion that NBC/Comcast would use Sky facilities and/or personnel to produce coverage for broadcast in the US. That makes total sense for Comcast - if you have Sky staff and facilities that are on down-time, why not use them to make output for other areas of your business (namely NBC)? Why pay for additional equipment and production staff when you already have them available to you?

There has been no suggestion that Sky would be able to broadcast this material in the UK or Europe (where they hold no rights)

Freeview: changes ahead!

Yes - the DVB standard has included support for triggering advert replacement for a while in 'splice in terms' using SCTE-35 type solutions (this is used where DVB-S/S2 is used to distribute channels for DVB-T/T2/C but with localised advert insertion for regionalised adverts. I believe it is used in Russia for instance).

There is also a DVB project to standardise this in the consumer receiver space for in-home, rather than head-end, replacement :
https://dvb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/20200630_webinar_dvb-ta_SLIDES.pdf

Britbox UK - UK SVoD Platform.

That makes sense if they are ingesting at the original resolution in square pixels (with 4:3 stuff pillar boxed).

It's a pity Desmonds is 25fps rather than 50fps - are BritBox still not doing interlaced content at full frame rate? (ITV Hub does 50fps now -and BritBox UK is handled by the ITV Hub team)

Top of the Pops

That would make sense - though I think the processing was more Mirage-y - as I don't think Encore had tile-based moves (just a single flat 2D surface)? Maybe it was an Encore processor card after all...

ISTR that the Cypher control panel had a trackball, like Encore. (The Encore panel had a yellow trackball and was known as 'a fried egg' controller ISTR)

BBC One Breakdown

Standard UK broadcast bitrate and codec for HD show delivery - as per DPP AS11 - is 100Mbs AVCi100. Add on to that the 1.15Mbs per track bitrate requirement for 48k/24bit PCM uncompressed audio tracks (usually 4 or 16 for stereo and 5.1 shows - so ~4.5 to 18Mbs for audio)

Rule of thumb = 1GB/minute (i.e. 1GigaByte per minute - though it's a bit less for stereo)

So a BBC 30 minute show (~29 minutes) with a standard 2 minute line-up and clock will be around 30GB, and an hour long show will be around 60GB, in HD. This may increase if there are textless elements (often another few minutes on the end) tacked on to the end of the delivered programme.

(SD shows - not that they really exist these days - are 50Mbs for video - using IMX50 I-frame only MPEG2 - with the same bitrates for 24 bit audio - though some 16 bit audio - which will require 2/3 the bitrate - may also be in use)

Also MarkyMark you are making an assumption that you can start playout whilst still recording - whilst that's a standard feature in broadcast video servers like EVS - it may not be for integrated 'channel in a box' systems like Morpheus ICE used by Red Bee... (Red Bee use IP 'channel in a box' for both ITV and BBC playout these days - with no separate playout servers, vision and sound mixers, graphics boxes etc. The 'box' does everything internally in the IP domain - playout, DVE, graphics generation, audio mixing and handles the playout automation stuff too)

**EDIT - I believe delayed playout of a recording is a feature of Morpheus ICE, as it can be used for time shift **

Traditionally Red Bee have required 3x the duration of the show to turn around a line recording as a file for delivery to BBC One or Two playout (So for a 30 minute show you were required to start playout to Red Bee 2 hours before transmission). If you missed that slot you had to be prepared to playout live to network down-the-line. This may have been relaxed since I last checked - but that was the rule of thumb programmes usually worked to in deciding whether they could line-feed to lines-record, or had to line-feed live to NC1 or NC2.