ITV didn't have a national weather forecast until 1989
Earlier than that, 82/83 ish ? (But all your points still stand)
Pretty certain it launched in the late 80s Markymark? Don't remember there being a national forecast on ITV before the Powergen sponsored forecasts that presenters like Trish Williamson, Martyn Davies and Alex Hill presented?
Exactly - the outgoing graphics were pretty much hated when they launched and it took a long time really for that style of forecast to be accepted as the norm.
But the initial graphics aren't the graphics that have been replaced. Those were tweaked greatly over time - I think it's fair for people to give feedback and complaints on these initial new graphics as they will also inevitably be changed over time.
Two of the three major causes of complaint didn't change much though. The angle of the map was revised to increase the size of Scotland on the projection, but the scorched earth landmass colouring (people wanted bright green land) and the 3D fly around (which was controversial as you could miss your own region if you looked away at the wrong point) remained largely unchanged didn't they?
Since I'm sure someone's going to ask, OBS have subcontracted production for the following sports:
Alpine Skiing: SRG (Switzerland)
Cross-country: YLE (Finland)
Ski jumping, Nordic Combined, Big Air: Sapporo TV (Japan)
Curling, and one of the hockey rinks: CBC (Canada)
Speed skating: NHK (Japan)
Short track, figure skating: SBS (Korea)
I guess one issue that has hit the OBS team is that national broadcasters who had expertise in covering winter sport events. in some cases no longer have domestic rights, and as such are less interested in sub-contracting to provide coverage that only viewers on their competition will see.
I have a dim recollection that SVT may have had some production presence in Rio (even though they were no longer rights holders) though. (SVT had historically done the athletics horizontal and vertical jumping, with YLE doing the rest)
YLE appear to have done a pretty good deal with Eurosport/Discovery for 2018 - they can show 5 simultaneous streams, with 2 of them on broadcast outlets, though Discovery have Ice Hockey (a big event) exclusively I think.
Do people complain when ITV or Channel 4 make such changes (aside from programming) or is it just because of the license fee?
Probably neither. The BBC weather is just more important to people.
More people watch (and I think more value) the BBC Weather than ITV/C4/C5's services (after all C4 used not to have weather presenters at all until recently) - and the whole BBC weather operation is probably more in the public consciousness than ITV weather.
Walked past on the way into work this evening and noticed the front of TC1 was being lit up in multicoloured lights. Still a bit of work being done in the forecourt but it looks like it won't be long before it opens.
I thought the side of TC1 still had white lights...
I suspect they have taken the opportunity of fitting RGB LED rather than white LED... So it can be white - but can also be other colours?
NEP is supplying three units for NBC specifically.
NEP have also built the Discovery/Eurosport presentation and routing operations (studios, control rooms, MCR etc.) in Korea. (Largely through NEP Visions in the UK I think). Lots of ex-BBC people out there working as part of that operation (including some of the brains behind the BBC's London 2012 set-up)
The picture above shows studio 7, the Thames News studio at Euston Road in 1991. The cramped conditions can clearly be seen. The studio not only has a very low ceiling but a pillar in the middle of the floor!
South Korea is a 60Hz country when it comes to producing HD video?
I'm currently reading through Sports Video Group for all the tech and whats being used.
Yes - South Korea was NTSC analogue, and famously one of the only countries in the world outside North America to use 8VSB ATSC. They also have ASTC 3.0 sets on sale now (they looked at, and trialled, DVB-T2 but have stuck with the US standard)
So 59.94Hz for production video, with 60Hz mains.
Rio 2016 was the first 59.94Hz Summer Olympics since Atlanta in 1996 I think. (Athens, Sydney, Beijing, London were all 50Hz). The Winter Games have flipped between 50 and 59.94Hz more often (Nagano, Salt Lake City, Vancouver were 59.94, Turin and Sochi were 50)
So I know Panasonic is the official “AUDIO/TV/VIDEO EQUIPMENT” provider for the Olympics. But in reality how many of the cameras, switchers and other broadcast critical equipment comes from them? I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of an OB truck that carries Panasonic cameras for sport and their most powerful switcher is a 2M/E.
Panasonic used to provide an OB truck with Panasonic facilities for the US ABC football coverage when it launched I believe (as they had 720p59.94 native stuff - whereas Sony had only got 1080i59.94 cameras with a poor-quality cross convert). Panasonic also sponsored the coverage.
You are right though - Panasonic have never really been in the live system camera game (different story for PSC/location shooting) - though they had a number of tape formats.
D3 was kind of premiered art the Barcelona 1992 games - and became the standard for Digital Composite SD used by NBC, the BBC and NHK.
(Digibeta launched at Lillehammer in '94 - when Sony were the broadcast sponsors of the games)
Quote:
So what does the OBS mainly use for their production needs? Sony seems to power all of NBC Sports equipment (however the news division does use Panasonic cameras) and get a tag in their credits. Also what sort of CG makes the wonderful score graphics?
OBS hires in production teams and equipment from lots of different areas - the broadcast sponsor tag no longer really applies to the TV production.
Quote:
I’m kind of curious how they cut the different language OBS feeds. Is there a master switcher with slaves switchers for each language? (I got that idea as that’s what NBC uses for some of their Norte Dame football games in 4K) Or is it more akin to the whole BBC News setup where each channel can have a different style.
What language feeds do you mean?
OBS provide a single picture feed from each event - and usually there is an English world feed commentary (sometimes in the past this has been a broadcaster's commentary that OBS take, but these days it is usually their own provision). Other language commentary is provided by broadcasters for themselves (as is often the case with English commentary). The difference is audio only.
I don't think there are multiple language graphics feeds - or are you saying there are?