noggin's posts, page 245

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NG
noggin Founding member

Sky Sports Revamp

Square Eyes posted:
With the news that Sky are going to be losing the tennis in 2018, that will free up more space on Action & Arena.
Many other 'minority' sports may end up going the same way.


Not sure I'd describe Tennis as a 'minority sport' - particularly given the viewing figures Wimbledon gets when Murray is playing.

It's not exactly archery or fencing...
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NG
noggin Founding member

BBC News: Presenters & Rotas

Steve Williams posted:
Does nobody remember Wogan With Sue Lawley?


Yes - and Kenneth Williams was also memorable as a stand-in for Sir Terry.
NG
noggin Founding member

New BBC corporate font: BBC Reith

VMPhil posted:
I was a bit confused when the justification given for the font change was that it was unsuited to long form articles on the web. What webpages does the BBC use Gill Sans for the main body of text?


I think that's the point. The BBC's current (or is it now previous?) corporate typeface, Gill Sans, wasn't suitable for long form text, so it wasn't used, and the corporate brand was diluted a bit.

Quote:

Plus the usual BS about it being "optimised for the digital age", a phrase that has been recycled since about 1987 (probably)


I think the point is that if you CAN have a corporate typeface that you can use on-screen, on-line, on-mobile etc. rather than needing to switch out to different typefaces for different outlets, you enhance your brand.

By owning your own typeface you both ensure a unique element of your brand AND avoid the nasty licensing gotchas that lots of other typefaces will incur. (As anyone who has had to try and deploy graphics across multiple outlets and platforms when a designer has 'found a nice typeface that's perfect' and designed a brand around it, only to discover it's heinously expensive to license will know...)
NG
noggin Founding member

International News Presentation: Past and Present

Mouseboy33 posted:
Moscow24 is still running their channel successfully.


Not sure you can measure the 'success' of a station in Russia, a country that has been left with no free, non-state controlled, broadcast television news media...

*EDIT - by free I mean independent and free of government control*
Last edited by noggin on 31 July 2017 9:37pm
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NG
noggin Founding member

What you do when setting up a TV

VMPhil posted:
noggin posted:
VMPhil posted:
Odd stuff on the edges of the picture doesn't exist on HD broadcasts.


Whilst it is less widespread - you certainly do see issues on some HD broadcasts.

The vast majority of the time I've been watching HD TV (for the last seven years) I've not noticed enough issues to warrant turning it off. Though as an anorak being able to see bits beyond the edge of the screen is more interesting than annoying to me.


That's not the same thing as 'doesn't exist' though... Smile

(I've been watching off-air HD since the 2006 BBC Crystal Palace DVB-T tests, though first saw demos in the late 80s, one of which was early 3D HD)

Safe areas will be with us for a while yet... Let's just hope we escape the mess of misunderstanding that is 720x576 vs 702x576... At least with HD the active video signal is usually the same shape as the TV screen it is displayed on.
NG
noggin Founding member

What you do when setting up a TV

Steve in Pudsey posted:
I go the other way on overscan and go for full screen. But I watch a lot of YouTube content and not all content producers are as aware of safe areas as they might be.


Yep - I use a number of TVs as PC displays some of the time, so usually disabled or minimise simulated overscan. I also disable pretty much every noise reduction, contrast enhancement, 'live colour' etc. function I can find, along with any motion interpolation. I use a test disc to set the sharpness level so that it isn't masking any fine detail (on some sets this is 0, but on others 0 is 'negative sharpness' and 50% is better)
NG
noggin Founding member

HDTV TS Files

Rkolsen posted:

As you know the US had an early adoption to HD. I'd say all sports and most network primetime (save for reality TV*) was broadcast in HD by 2005 with news divisions between 2007-2009 (although 4:3 pillarbox remained while). When you add in the sports channels and premium channels you need a box. Unfortunately at that time many STB and HDTV sets didn't have HDMI at time there was a demand and the component video or DVI were offered. However the FCC recqured STB manufacturers to include a FireWire 1394 to play off of.


Yep - HD really arrived in the UK with the 2006 World Cup tests - which rolled on to become BBC HD - and by then HDMI had become a mandated standard for HD TVs sold in Europe with the 'HD Ready' logo (which was the first consumer 'buy with confidence' logo for HD TVs), so there were no issues that required legacy HD interconnects to be provided, other than for very early adopters (mainly those with projectors)
NG
noggin Founding member

What you do when setting up a TV

VMPhil posted:
Odd stuff on the edges of the picture doesn't exist on HD broadcasts.


Whilst it is less widespread - you certainly do see issues on some HD broadcasts.

Philips/Thomson/GrassValley cameras with analogue HD triax sometimes show horizontal blanking/timing errors. (Amazing how many people think the link between the camera and the CCU is digital... It isn't always. A lot of HD triax cameras use analogue component transmission - though Sony have a digital compression scheme on their newer triax cameras. Their older system also used analogue techniques - which could be quite noisy ISTR)

DVEs going into and out of circuit sometimes show half-line artefacts at the top and bottom of frame, as can some keyed full-screen graphics (which aren't quite full-screen)

You can also sometimes see EVS chroma scaling artefacts on CSO/Chroma-key stinged packages (replays on Strictly were a common one for years) where you see a grey line on the right of frame as the key is cut on ready for the VT run (because the final chroma different samples aren't properly generated and so don't key). (This happens if you use a 1440x1080 codec like DVC Pro HD)

Plus of course you still have errors on any SD to HD upconversions (unless they are carefully handled to minimise/reduce them)
NG
noggin Founding member

HDTV TS Files

Rkolsen posted:
noggin posted:


For domestic use - yes - recording the streams yourself outside of the Freeview/Freesat licensed ecosystem is the easiest solution.

However in a broadcast environment, it's much easier to arrange to disable HDCP en route to an HDMI to HD-SDI conversion... (Which also allows easy recording of encrypted Sky and Virgin Media content)


Do the boxes have component video out? That would be easy enough unless it's disabled for a business enviromennt. (DirecTV here in the US disabled it for businesses because they'd bars would use one box and amplifier to save money for each TV.)


Component is far less widespread here than in the US.

In the days of SD we had RGB SCART - which arrived in the 80s (possibly even late 70s in France) here (many of us used it connect home computers to our TVs) so had no need to introduce component for DVD (as RGB delivered the same high quality result, avoiding the artefacts of composite and chroma bandwith issues of S-video) or SD set top boxes. (RGB SCART also had useful stuff like status switching, pin 8 widescreen signalling etc.)

By the time we went HD, HDMI was a standard, and all 'HD Ready' TVs had to include HDMI. Given the copy protection advantages of HDMI - only early first gen STBs had component HD outputs usually (First gen Thomson Sky HD boxes output 1080i and 720p component). However second gen boxes removed it.
NG
noggin Founding member

Sky TV to go satellite dish-free in 2018

TedJrr posted:
noggin posted:
Though don't ISPs handle the link to the OpenReach infrastructure in each exchange (i.e. operate their own internet backbone and interconnects) - OpenReach only provide the last leg between consumer premises and the exchange ?


Full unbundling is restricted to the top 200 or so telephone exchanges. For the rest ISP's use a BT Wholesale product. FttC uses a form of OpenReach virtual unbundling. This supports multicast packet for BT, so presumably may support this for others as well?


I think it would have to support multicast for others, otherwise questions would be asked about monopolies and restrictive practises.
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC World News from New Broadcasting House

It does annoy me that BBC World News is still broadcast letterbox 14L12 in SD regions where 16P16 is not widespread, yet the teams making content for it seem to ignore (or be told not to consider0 the requirement to stay 14:9 graphics safe. When I was in India I stopped watching World on my hotel because so much was illegible. It's a particular problem on the stuff that has no reporter track and is just graphic-led.

I understand the reasons for using 14L12 (4:3 material was traditionally converted to 16:9 using 14P16, so when it was shown 14L12 it returned to the same size, albeit with a top/bottom crop) - and 16L12 is unpopular in many areas. But it does feel as if content should respect that (which will probably mean BBC News Channel domestic stuff should too)
NG
noggin Founding member

CCTV footage on the news

Rkolsen posted:
Sounds like cleanest way to get video out would to have a external video capture device to record to a hard drive.


Yep - though some use VGA or similar outputs which are a pain to capture in the field.

Quote:

But I gotta ask why are there some many proprietary file codecs? Is it to prevent tampering with the video.


Codecs aren't always that proprietary - but the wrappers often are.

Quote:

Edit : Don't some systems have SDI outputs? If they do they could just play it out through the pool video input so many cameras have.


Many have SDI inputs (it's a nice connection standard that goes decent distances on coax) - fewer have SDI outputs, as SDI displays are higher-end.