noggin's posts, page 234

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NG
noggin Founding member

Update on regional BBC One HD

Inspector Sands posted:
How would it work on satellite though, even though they're just PID switching for the regional opt outs they would still need the bandwidth to carry 10 or however many news programmes.

I'm not sure if distributing them to the box via the Internet like Sky do for adverts is possible with a live programme and of course there's no guarantee that the viewer has a broadband connection to their box (more likely than it was a few years ago but still not a cert)


The way it works in Sweden is that they effectively take the picture quality hit a bit on the regional news (SD-only) inserts.

In Sweden they have SD-only regional opts on both SVT1 and SVT2 (the PID switching allows either channel to PID switch to the regional feed), with only terrestrial having HD regions. They effectively squeeze all the SD regional feeds and the two network feeds onto one transponder. This is pretty optimistic... (The regional feeds can be PID switched to either SVT1 or SVT2 regional feeds - but not simultaneously. Politically moving all the regional stuff to SVT1 would have been trickier due to the history of the two networks)

I suspect the BBC would have to split across two transponders at least for SD. For HD the cost savings from PID switching may not be worth it - as you'd have to spread across far more transponders and duplicate network feeds across each one (as retuning at the opt-out wouldn't be acceptable)

HOWEVER - a side effect of the PID switching - as implemented in Sweden - is that it would render integrated headlines and promos impossible - as the crash and the bang at the junction would make them unwatchable. There's a second or so of disruption at the opt-out on PID switched services when I've seen them.

I think the ITV or Germany model is the one the BBC will follow. They can't do a Sky-specific solution - any DSat solution needs to support Freesat. I suspect they will end up with transponders full of BBC One HD English regional variations - unless they make HD regions Freeview/Cable only.

The changes to opt-outs I mention were in the origination chain, not the emission one.
NG
noggin Founding member

Daily & Sunday Politics

Steve in Pudsey posted:
Isn't the London opt an indie production?


It certainly was in the days of 'The Politics Show', and Tim Donovan used to present it when it was an indie. Not sure if it still is.
NG
noggin Founding member

Update on regional BBC One HD

Markymark posted:
The second is cheaper (and along with NW, SW, and London being made available on BBC 1 HD) could be implemented in a more cost effective manner, by adopting ITV's scheme of centralised opt switching, (which removes the need
for an HD sustaining chain via each region) It really is about time the Beeb 'manned up' and got on with implementing a similar scheme. It's 2017 FFS.


The BBC are, indeed, planning a migration to this solution - but I don't know the timescale. The commitment to regional content on BBC One HD was part of the new charter renewal we are now in.

I believe the timescale for regional opts on BBC One HD and the timescale for upgrading BBC regional centres to HD are not the same (i.e. SD upscaling will happen).
NG
noggin Founding member

Peston On Sunday

London Lite posted:
The Hospital Studios in Covent Garden would be a decent alternative. Close enough to BH.


They aren't cheap though... You may have noticed Watchdog no longer comes from there...
NG
noggin Founding member

Early days of NICAM Stereo

Well pulling the 128k MP3 into DaVinci Resolve with the free Izotope Audio Imager plugin (which gives you a nice Lissajous stereo image monitor, and lets you wind the width up and down) confirms there is something 'stereo' there (not that we needed this - our ears told us that)...

When you wind the width to zero you get a nice mono straight vertical line and it all goes very 'mono', when you run in 'normal' mode it all makes sense as stereo - but like others have commented, it sounds a bit 'phasey' - so who knows... The junctions between studio and VT are quite sledgehammer-ish, so it could well be an early-ish stereo experiment I guess.
NG
noggin Founding member

Early days of NICAM Stereo

VMPhil posted:
noggin posted:
Also worth considering that in the early days of stereo many broadcasters ran in M/S rather than L/R for both production and recording - so the recordings could have Mono Sum and Stereo Difference tracks.

Here's a 2 minute extract from the start of the show:




https://up.metropol247.co.uk/092017/1506803142_22413625.mp3


Thanks - I have the BBC Four HD off-air transport stream on my laptop. When I get a chance to actually play it and run it through some stereo waveform monitoring stuff I'll report back.
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC Store to close on 1 November

IndigoTucker posted:
You aren’t really losing anything in the 720 50p iplayer stream really on interlaced material.


The 720p50 stuff on iPlayer streaming is significantly lower quality than the 1080i25 on the Sky implementation though. The compression on the 720p50 streams is quite harsh, and the deinterlacing doesn't look too great either. (From memory 720p50 iPlayer is around 5Mbs and 1080i25 on Sky is around 8Mbs. I think Sky will carry 5.1 AC3 where available too.)

Compare something challenging like Strictly between the two and you'll see a clear difference.

Until recently I'd have agreed decent 720p50 and 1080i25 compared pretty well with each other, but the extra resolution is really noticeable in the 1080i streams when you are watching on a 2160p UHD display. 720p looks quite a bit crunchier...
UKnews, harshy and London Lite gave kudos
NG
noggin Founding member

Early days of NICAM Stereo

Also worth considering that in the early days of stereo many broadcasters ran in M/S rather than L/R for both production and recording - so the recordings could have Mono Sum and Stereo Difference tracks.
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC Store to close on 1 November

London Lite posted:
Noticed when I re-purchased the Catherine Tate's Nan specials on Amazon Video, these are 1080p, compared to the BBC Store's 720p. Fleabag is also 1080p on Amazon.


That's because the BBC Store version was an iPlayer encode usually - and there isn't, currently, a 1080p profile in deployment for iPlayer.

(The highest quality iPlayer content available currently is the 1080i version on Sky - but that's a progressive download, rather than streaming option and is within a nailed down platform with known-good handling if 1080i. The BBC would be unlikely to deploy a 1080i profile for the wider world because of the pain of deinterlacing. This is why we have 720p50/720/50p deinterlaced from 1080i25/1080/50i as a max on most platforms)
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC World News from New Broadcasting House

deejay posted:
Yes, manual peds but no height drives in B. Planned works in C.


Isn't one camera at least totally manual too in B, as was the case in TC7? A camera with a Radamec or Shotoku remote PTZ head on is still not as 'operator friendly' as one with a standard manuakl panning head (and also the PTZ mounts add a good couple of inches of height)
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC World News from New Broadcasting House

Rkolsen posted:
Someone was asleep at the wheel this morning at KCET which syndicates BBC World News programming in the US. Stations that take the KCET feed had bars and tone for about a minute until the program started. Normally during that minute KCET plays out an old version of the countdown, under writing agreements and an ad for the main sponsor. No part of GMT was cut off but at the very end of the program US viewers were treated to a weather forecast, breakfiller of Ros Atkins standing around using his iPad and more bars and tone. Normally when the program ends they playout a promo for the BBC News website or app, the final underwriting agreement, and a vanity card.

*

As a side note how is the BBC World program feed sent to KCET? Because the KCET syndicated feed doesn't have commercials in it (which the normal BBC World NA feed has) it's not like they can take the feed that's encrypted and sent to cable head ends accross the US.


I suspect it is sourced from a contribution or distribution feed, not an emission feed (i.e. feed to a broadcaster or from a broadcaster to a platform provider, not a feed for domestic viewers). Contribution feeds are usually higher bitrate and in many cases purely booked for fixed periods (not running 24/7 for a single user)

The BBC have fibre circuits between the US and the UK - it could be they use one of those - though I suspect this is handled by Red Bee or Ericsson, not the BBC themselves, but fibre connectivity across the pond is plentiful and not particularly expensive.
NG
noggin Founding member

Eden HD ditched by Sky, still on Virgin and BT

Inspector Sands posted:
Though the up-conversion done by a broadcaster will usually be better than that done by your telly


Yes - a lightly compressed IMX50 or DigiBeta quality SD master, unconverted to 1080i by a broadcast quality up converter, and then H264 compressed at a decent bitrate will look HUGELY better than the same master, compressed horribly to SD MPEG2 at a miserable bitrate, then unconverted by the consumer upscaler in your TV.

Just compare BBC Four TOTP repeats on BBC Four HD, with those on BBC Four SD, on the same TV...