noggin's posts, page 195

15,946 search results, most recent first

NG
noggin Founding member

How does Film4 work?

gottago posted:

One aside I remember is that they occasionally would air cricket/horse racing free to air on Filmfour when C4 was showing the other sport it was clashing with. Guess they thought E4 would be completely inappropriate demographic wise given that that was the only other channel they had at the time as it was pre More4.


Yes - definitely remember that too.
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC News Channel Presentation - 21/03/16 onwards

davidhorman posted:
Oh dear. Scratchy mic trouble for Carrie Gracie. Sounds like they've had to go to a camera mic (or mounted elsewhere in the studio), and during the first Roger Bannister VT she's gone to the other side of the studio (or is it just another camera angle?) which sounds even worse.


Chances are it was a desk standby mic. BBC News have used a number of approaches (in-desk mics, on-desk PZMs that look a bit like a computer mouse, personal mics - aka LAVs - taped to the edge of a desk), slung standbys or standbys on stands just masked by the desk). At the catwalk I'd expect any standby to be slung from the lighting grid.
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC News Channel Presentation - 21/03/16 onwards

System (i.e. studio and OB cameras) have audio channels and mic connectors built in to them to let you run with a camera mic (the audio is output at the CCU at the other end) - but you don't usually see mics installed on them in news studios (usually the cameras are quite distant). However they can be very useful on more handheld stuff - particularly on OBs (at least as a backup)
NG
noggin Founding member

International Presentation

Hatton Cross posted:
elmarko posted:
How does the licence fee tie in to Eurovision eligibility?


It doesn't. ITV are members of Eurovision.
It's down to the simple rule of if you pay 'the subs' you can become a member.

However, given that the biggest broadcaster members of Eurovision are in part or wholly funded by some form of license fee/broadcasting tax in their countries, you could be excused for thinking that is how to be a member of the EBU.


There are some more requirements - you have to run a news service as well as paying a membership fee (and (*) being within the European Broadcasting Area - and usually a member of the Council of Europe)

This was why there were question marks over Israel being able to enter, as IBA (the previous ESC Israel public service broadcaster) closed and the replacement service initially planned to be news-free (and thus not eligible). However the new Israeli broadcaster DOES now have a news service, and so can enter...

(*) We gloss over Australia. (There's a get-out clause that says the Reference Group who run the ESC can make exceptions / special invitations)
NG
noggin Founding member

New look Newyddion

Interceptor posted:
noggin posted:
However showing Pobl y Cwm in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland without burned-in subtitles seems a somewhat odd decision... (*)

Did S4C run their Transl888 service back then (English subtitles on 888, Welsh-for-hard-of-hearing subtitles on 889) - or were we in the pre-888 era? (And did S4C provide English subtitles for their Welsh-language content back then?)

In 1981 S4C weren't running any subtitles, programming or any broadcasts of any sort Wink

I think BBC Midlands used to show Pobol y Cwm in the daytime for the benefit of Welsh viewers who could not receive BBC Wales. I presume that network picked that up after most regional presentation was stopped?


D'oh! I hadn't realised that particular bit of Pres pre-dated S4C! Yes - that makes sense, particularly if there were still 405 VHF BBC One viewers...
NG
noggin Founding member

FTA TV in the UK- a lot to offer

Markymark posted:
MetalGearRex posted:
noggin posted:

Yes - the BBC ran their mux(es) at lower bitrates and used a more robust modulation scheme (16QAM 2K rather than 64QM 2K) which provided a signal that was easier to receive at a given transmitter power. This avoided picture break up through digital reception errors. ( I think D3/4 did the same on the ITV/C4 mux too? )

The BBC also avoided over compression (at least in those days) so that even if you had a perfect signal from all muxes, the BBC channels had fewer compression artefacts and looked cleaner.

IIRC, the Digital 3 + 4 multiplex (Mux 2) was 64QAM. Higher amount of channels you can store, but pre-switchover, it guaranteed variable signal quality - whether it was strong or weak.


The UK was unique in the world for employing 2k COFDM (rather than 8k as used in the rest of Europe/World [1] ) That didn't help with reception quality either, 2k was more susceptible to impulse interference (car ignition, duff thermostats etc). The OnDigital boxes were only equipped with 2k chipsets, so the BBC/Freeview consortium were stuck with that constraint (with 99% of the existing receiver base being OnD boxes at launch).


Yep - the 8k compatible chip-sets were delayed so ONDigital (and thus UK DVB-T) launched with 2K only broadcasts. As you say 2k 16QAM is about as robust as 8k 64QAM - which is why post-DSO we switched modes (and the BBC went from 18Mbs to 24Mbs at the same approximate 'reception quality' on PSB1/BBCA)

Penalties of being the first out of the blocks...

Quote:

The subsequent Freeview era boxes were mostly 8k compatible. Post DSO we switched to 8k, and therefore that killed the OnD boxes (a shame, because the Pace models were perfectly good and usable, albeit very slow, and unable to read the 7 day EPG )

[1] Except the US, Canada and (?) South Korea, who went with ATSC (rather than DVB-T)


And Mexico went ATSC 8VSB too.


South America (with a couple of European-influence exceptions) and Japan are ISDB-T (Japan uses MPEG2, South America H264 - though Japan uses H264 for the 1-seg mobile TV bit of ISDB-T)

China is DMTB (formerly DTB-M/H I think)

Rest of the world is largely DVB-T/T2.

Almost every 50Hz country (couple of South American exceptions - and of course China) went DVB-T/T2.
60Hz countries are mixed between ISDB-T, ATSC 8VSB (and now ATSC 3.0 OFDM in Korea and soon the US), with one or two DVB-T oddities.

Funny anomaly is that there is a 50Hz DVB-T operation on St Pierre and Miquelon just off the Canadian cost (Canada is ATSC 8VSB). It carries the main French services, but unlike the French mainland they aren't FTA to restrict reception in Canada. I believe they even have local news on FR3.

Norway also has a strange hybrid DVB-S/DVB-T solution to solve a major issue they have geographically. There are some parts of Norway that are in fjord valleys that are so deep they can't see the Clarke belt for DVB-S/S2 satellite reception, and don't get decent DVB-T terrestrial coverage. As a result they have a hybrid, where a dish is placed at the top of the fjord to receive a DVB-S/S2 transponder (which carries the NRK channels FTV encrypted on a pay-TV platform - a bit like the BBC used to be on Sky). This transponder is then re-broadcast terrestrially at low power to homes in the fjord valley - still encrypted - and viewers in the area have a CAM with the satellite encryption conditional access module (not sure if it needs a viewing card) in their TVs or PVRs.
Last edited by noggin on 5 March 2018 2:33pm - 2 times in total
NG
noggin Founding member

How does Film4 work?

PFMC84 posted:
There was Film 4, Film 4 World and Film 4 Weekly if memory serves. Film 4 Extreme is also in my head but that may have been an themed slot on Film 4 or one of the other channels that closed when it went FTA.


Yep - that rings lots of bells. I think Film 4 World was the channel I missed when it closed.
NG
noggin Founding member

New look Newyddion

Interceptor posted:
james-2001 posted:
That showing isn't subtitled, I admit I'd have expected the non-Wales showings to have been.

It probably would have been quite a difficult task back then, unless they had some way of keying on Ceefax 888 in real time?

These showings were primarily intended for Welsh speaking audiences who for whatever reason couldn't receive BBC Wales, as I understand it.


In-vision subtitling was possible ISTR - the BBC had special subtitles cap gens with a very distinctive typeface (grey background) which were used on a lot of foreign movies and language learning TV series in the 80s and early 90s. News also had a system to do live subtitling of News Afternoon (which had in-vision subtitles for the hard of hearing in the days before CEEFAX sets were widespread)

Whether it was possible, or cost effective, in the time available I guess is the question. However showing Pobl y Cwm in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland without burned-in subtitles seems a somewhat odd decision... (*)

Did S4C run their Transl888 service back then (English subtitles on 888, Welsh-for-hard-of-hearing subtitles on 889) - or were we in the pre-888 era? (And did S4C provide English subtitles for their Welsh-language content back then?)

(*) Interesting 'fun fact'. In Norway they tend not to burn in subtitles for non-Norwegian language shows and instead broadcast them as optional subtitles, so if you speak good English, you can turn them off for English language shows etc. Sweden tried this, but there was too much confusion amongst audiences, so they returned to burning in.

HOWEVER - subtitles are a real issue for visually impaired viewers if they don't speak the foreign language, as they can't read the subtitles (which is why BBC editorial policy is for dubbing rather than subtitles in most cases, outside entire shows and movies, and why News usually voice over foreign content in news reports).

In Sweden they have a solution. The subtitles are burned in live on broadcast (not on the masters) and the same text data is fed to a voice synthesiser (and a very good one) which can then read the subtitles on an optional audio feed (a bit like we have for audio description) so you can watch a foreign show and have the Swedish subtitles read to you.
NG
noggin Founding member

How does Film4 work?

lobster posted:
I remember back in the day how much of a nuisance Film4 became by keep cold calling you up giving you the hard sell to subscribe, I'm pretty sure it was about £10 a month extra too....and back then most of what they were showing was shall we say, rather niche.


I subscribed to FilmFour and didn't subscribe to SkyMovies. For me FilmFour was better value and showed more interesting stuff. I have a dim recollection that before it went FTA and on Freeview, and was still a pay-TV channel, there were a couple of FilmFour channels - one dedicated to classics, one to foreign language? No mention of it on wikipedia (but that doesn't mean anything of itself) - does anyone else remember this? (Or were they just branded blocks on a single channel?)

I actually miss the old FilmFour in some ways, as I dislike ad breaks in movies.
NG
noggin Founding member

FTA TV in the UK- a lot to offer

MetalGearRex posted:
The BBC were also unique to their approach to DTT in the early days - they preferred a robust, reliable service, unlike commercial broadcasters, who pushed to increase the amount of channels at the expense of image quality, which was notoriously common during the days of ITV Digital.


Yes - the BBC ran their mux(es) at lower bitrates and used a more robust modulation scheme (16QAM 2K rather than 64QM 2K) which provided a signal that was easier to receive at a given transmitter power. This avoided picture break up through digital reception errors. (I think D3/4 did the same on the ITV/C4 mux too?)

The BBC also avoided over compression (at least in those days) so that even if you had a perfect signal from all muxes, the BBC channels had fewer compression artefacts and looked cleaner.

To answer questions about the rest of Europe, the UK is pretty unusual in having an entirely FTA (or almost) platform. In most other countries in Europe the OTA platform is a mix of FTA and pay-TV.

Germany used to be entirely FTA for their DVB-T SD MPEG2 platform I think, but they recently started to migrate all their muxes (I think) to DVB-T2 HD/SD H265/HEVC - introducing 1080p broadcasts (and moving SD services to 540p rather than 576i). However the commercial channels like Sat-1 and Pro7 that used to be FTA when they were SD have gone behind a pay-wall in HD, and there isn't an SD simulcast on terrestrial. On satellite they did the same with their HD channels, but they retained the SD satellite simulcasts. Only the main ARD, ZDF and Dritte channels are FTA HD.

In Sweden you get the main terrestrials - SVT1,SVT2, SVT24, Barnkanalen and UR,TV4 and TV6 in SD, but only SVT1 HD and SVT2 HD - as a free to air service. All the other channels are part of the Boxer Pay-TV network. I think the SD FTA stuff is the only MPEG2 stuff left on the platform, with HD (and some SD) H264/AVC services on DVB-T2, but the encrypted DVB-T muxes also carry SD H264/AVC stuff. It's much easier to migrate pay content to a new codec...

In the Netherlands you just get the NOS stations FTA, everything else is encrypted and pay-TV.

In France they have switched most of their SD MPEG2 services to HD H264/AVC - and don't simulcast, but the main terrestrials are FTA, with quite a reasonable variety - though some stations are pay-TV. (France has had terrestrial pay-TV since the analogue days though - Canal+ launched as a part-time FTA/part-time pay service back in the 80s).

Italy has all the main RAI and Mediaset channels FTA (including RAI 1 and RAI 2 in HD) but also has some pay stuff.

Always fun taking a DVB-T2 USBV tuner and decent interior aerial on holiday Smile

(Should also say I'm ignoring religious, shopping and local stations in these discussions)
NG
noggin Founding member

The Sport Thread

excel99 posted:
Apologies if already known, but at least part of the BBC's Commonwealth Games coverage will be from Salford. (At the end of the World Indoor Athletics Gabby Logan reminded Michael Johnson to get on a plane to Salford rather than Australia)


I guess similar timezone issues as Korea? Though when the Olympics were in Australia the BBC were on-site...?
NG
noggin Founding member

Shows that people forget or get lost in time

robertclark125 posted:
Canary Wharf. No, not the place, the soap opera on L!ve TV.

Mind you, who remembers L!ve TV?


Well if people don't remember L!VE TV then they won't remember 'Wire TV - the cable network'... (Early haunt of Georgie Spanswick, Femi Oke and which also featured Katherine Apanovich).