noggin's posts, page 210

15,946 search results, most recent first

NG
noggin Founding member

Winter Olympics 2018

dosxuk posted:
Is there any news on whether they / anyone is providing access to the OBS feeds?


I wouldn't be surprised if Eurosport offered them on the Eurosport Player?

Interesting that the ARD/ZDF deal in Germany is quite different to the UK deal (the BBC had a stronger hand in some ways as they had exclusive 2018 and 2020 rights and bartered them with Discovery who had exclusive 2022 and 2024 rights)
Quote:

"ARD/ZDF will present a wide selection of free-to-air coverage on television and digital simulcast, as well as three additional feeds of live sport action, enabling viewers to follow every German medal hopeful.

Eurosport will show free-to-air coverage on Eurosport 1 as a dedicated Olympic Games channel during Games-time and holds rights to air every moment, with live feeds of all sports, on TV or streaming on mobile, tablet or online with Eurosport Player.

Eurosport will retain Pyeongchang 2018 exclusivity for German prime time on Eurosport 1.

Snowboard, Short Track, Figure Skating and Ice Hockey, excluding German team matches and finals, will also be live and exclusive on Eurosport."

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1054143/discovery-communications-deal-offers-german-viewers-free-coverage-for-next-four-olympics

So Eurosport 1 is FTA in Germany for the duration, and can show anything at any time. ARD/ZDF can't broadcast in prime time, and can only show German matches and finals in some events that are otherwise Eurosport-exclusive. That's a significant difference to the BBC. However ARD/ZDF appear to have more online rights as they can run 3 digital streams - whereas the BBC can only run one?
NG
noggin Founding member

Above and beyond: Keeping TV and radio services on air

Yep - in the US you retained the 'station-centric' RF channel approach - with individual stations who had 6MHz analogue RF channels being granted - largely - a duplicate 6MHz ATSC entitlement.

Even with 90's quality MPEG2 compression and ATSC 8VSB modulation, if you were a 720p broadcaster or 1080i (and didn't mind a quality hit - which most, other than CBS O&Os I believe, didn't) you could broadcast additional 480i, 720p or even 1080i streams. The ATSC standard was still basing channel identification on RF channel numbers (as per analogue - and allowed digital stations to quote their analogue RF channel numbers for branding reasons) so 'sub channels' were given .1, .2 etc. suffices.

The UK - and most of Europe - took a different view. We went SD 16:9 MPEG2 not HD, and this meant we often reduced RF channel allocation for networks, as SD MPEG2 allowed large numbers of services in the space previously occupied by one. ITV and C4 had an analogue 8MHz channel each, but on DTT they were allocated a single RF 8MHz channel to share. The BBC was initially also allocated just a single RF channel, rather than two as they had for analogue, they used this for BBC One and BBC Two and then additional services. Eventually they spread into commercial spectrum (buying space on SDN's mux for BBC Knowledge ISTR) and when Freeview was brought in to rescue DTT the BBC were granted a second mux (now used for Freeview HD)

Like the US we introduced a station numbering system that mirrored analogue, where we used national presets (BBC One on 1, BBC Two on 2, ITV on 3, C4 on 4 etc.) and DVB-T's LCN system allowed this to continue.
NG
noggin Founding member

Local TV

Spencer For Hire posted:
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Is NCA definitely News and Current affairs? I've seen it described as "Network Contribution Area" which seems fairly reasonable when stations have a NPA(news booth) call it a News Preparation Area.


Network Contribution Area is what I was led to believe it stood for when I was in BBC LR. I was thinking I’d been misinformed for a moment there.


Yep - I knew them as Network Contribution Areas (they were basic, simple, DTL positions/studios to allow contributors for network productions to be accommodated without tying up local facilities). I think the one just off TVC Stage Door reception was called an NCA too (though I may be wrong)
NG
noggin Founding member

Above and beyond: Keeping TV and radio services on air

mrwish posted:

These ones are perfectly fine to watch though as they are unencrypted. They just require the right (DVB-S2 Multistream PLS) tuner to do so!


I was pleasantly surprised that an old USB DVB-S2 tuner I had, by some quirk, had the right chipset to do this, and it works fine with commonly available open source software.

As you say - the unencrypted services are destined for FTA terrestrial broadcast, so it is just good enough to keep rights holders happy, and the coding scheme used makes it much easier to re-broadcast as DVB-T/T2 than would be the case if they used regular DVB-S2 standard broadcasts.
NG
noggin Founding member

London Live

Brekkie posted:
London Lite posted:
Worth remembering that BFMTV isn't a 24 hour operation. They're live until midnight and then repeat the 11pm hour until 4am. Also BFMTV Paris is largely pre-recorded, but the information on screen is constantly updated.

I don't think any 24 hour news channel is actually live 24 hours a day though.


No - but many are live for their news portions and only use pre-recorded feature programmes for back half-hour output at off-peak times.

BBC World News and the BBC News Channel don't repeat news bulletins other than in emergencies, or because of technical difficulties. (They certainly aren't scheduled)
NG
noggin Founding member

Local TV

Whataday posted:
Wow.

Who in their right mind would want to rip off that look?


dbl posted:
Whataday posted:
Giving me 2004 ITV regional news vibes.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVvJyoFHzYg

You're right to think that because they ripped off (albeit butchered) the 2004 ITV News look, soo obvious.

vs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M1E-FxpgL0


This pops up time and again. AIUI it wasn't 'ripped off' it was licensed...
NG
noggin Founding member

Identify the correct year for the Pres.

Markymark posted:
623058 posted:

Quote:
Tyne Tees letting Border use their facilities. Colour came to the Border region in 1971/72, when they did get colour equipment, it was all second hand from Scottish, Tyne Tees and Yorkshire!


Not unusual, BBC Oxford was equipped with kit from BBC Oxford Road (Manchester) (Just realised the irony !)

Someone from YTV told me when they ditched their EMI-2001s in 1980, BBC Leeds took them for spares.


The BBC Cambridge studio set-up in 1996, for launch in Jan 1997, had some ex-Lime Grove kit Surprised
NG
noggin Founding member

Feeds to Irish Channels

I'd only compare transport streams (and the video decoded from them on the same platform and display) - anything else is adding too many variables.
NG
noggin Founding member

Above and beyond: Keeping TV and radio services on air

Steve in Pudsey posted:
Not sure how successful that is, there is (or was) a thriving trade is flogging receivers for these feeds to ex-pats in the Canaries.


Same is true of the DTT transmitter feeds on satellite for Italian and French DVB-T/T2 networks that can be received with the right, unorthodox, reception code.
London Lite and mrwish gave kudos
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC News Channel Presentation - 21/03/16 onwards

Worzel posted:
mdtauk posted:
Seeing the Serif font in use in those experiment images, from that video - I just thought I'd toy around with it for the logo and programme branding.

It is probably more likely to remain in Gill Sans, as a flagship brand. I'd be happy just with fresh on-screen presentation, even if the globe and rings motif remain essentially untouched. I would like something more vibrant and playful typographically, which BBC Reith seems to be designed for.

BBC Reith sounds like it will be around for several decades, based on how it was talked about in the video.


Here's the official guidelines...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gel/guidelines/typography


Those are the guidelines for on-line content - not broadcast AFAIK...
NG
noggin Founding member

Feeds to Irish Channels

dosxuk posted:
harshy posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
It was insourced, although just for the domestic services on Astra.

Explains why the HD lacks the crispness of Sky’s HD services.


Sky like their cameras to have loads of detail wound in. Most other broadcasters prefer the more realistic look.


Yep - Sky Soprts definitely like a 'commercial' look to their pictures. Not French, but quite (artificially) 'crisp'...

Quote:

You can only really compare the uplink facilities by seeing identical footage being transmitted at equivalent settings through both sites.


Sky do run at quite high average bitrates for their sports channels, and significantly lower average bitrates for their movie channels. BBC One HD, BBC Two HD etc. on satellite are probably averaging lower than Sky's sports channels, but higher than their movie channels (though encoders play a massive part in this - you can't just compare bitrates)
NG
noggin Founding member

Feeds to Irish Channels

Markymark posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
noggin posted:

The BBC used to do their Astra uplinking in house, then when they sold the department that did it to Siemens, I believe Siemens-then-ATOS continued to do it (with some services upland via Arqiva also at one point), albeit from facilities at BBC-owned sites.

Some of the services the BBC outsourced to ATOS (renamed bit of Siemens) have now been brought back in-house to the BBC - uplinking may be one of them.

It was insourced, although just for the domestic services on Astra.


I think 1998 to 2003 (when the Beeb were encrypted on Astra 2A/B) the uplinking was outsourced
to NTL at Crawley Court (Arqiva in today's money) ? When they went unencrypted on Astra 2D, (and also added all the BBC 1 English regions) then it was 'insourced' to the teleport they built by the W12 East Tower ?


Yes - but that W12 Teleport was part of BBC Technology, that was then sold to Siemens (later rebranded as ATOS), so again outsourced - albeit to previously BBC owned facilities - and as part of the sale there was a 10 year deal which has now expired.

I believe that bit of the BBC outsourcing deal with ATOS has not been extended and uplink, internal lines etc. have now been in-sourced (with the fabric of the BBC internal network moved from Vodafone (formerly Energis, then C&W) to BT.