noggin's posts, page 25

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NG
noggin Founding member

Top of the Pops

Anthony Jarvis posted:
I wonder if Going Live ever used cypher? I know they were fond of large captions animated through the Charisma. Sorry, slight OT.


I doubt it - Cypher would have been quite a big-ticket item for a kids show. Charisma had an internal cost, but the BBC owned them, along with still stores (The BBC-designed Rank Cintel Slidefile and then Quantel PictureBox) and Cap Gens (Aston 4/Caption then Ethos/Motif). As BBC children's shows usually had quite tight budgets I doubt they were going to have the budget to hire in a Cypher and the freelance operator to drive it. (Even if they had had to hire in CGs and ops, it would have been cheaper to hire an Aston and op)
NG
noggin Founding member

Sky Arts goes FTA

Markymark posted:

Aren't EE essentially adding a layer to their 4G network for the (very delayed) ESN (Emergency Services Network) with similar features of traffic priority ?
https://ee.co.uk/business/large/esn/esn-ee/

It might become obsolete before it's launched !


AIUI it's not even able to feature-match the current Tetra Emergency Service system...
NG
noggin Founding member

Coronavirus - Impact on live/recorded shows

Asa posted:
An interesting question being posed by Richard Osman this afternoon.




Not faking but "boosting" what is there, presumably from the crew or, at some point, a smaller socially distanced audience.

I don't see a problem with that, having to explain it each time feels like a clunky thing to do though.


I suspect you could probably acknowledge it with a line on the credits alongside 'Answers correct at time of recording' - or a simple caption during the welcome to the show?

(The National Lottery draws on the BBC seemed to have lots of audience sound effects during the draw back in the days when it came from Arqiva's studios without a live audience - or am I misremembering?)
NG
noggin Founding member

Coronavirus - Impact on live/recorded shows

Brekkie posted:
With Melbourne now going into a tighter lockdown than we ever had any news on if Neighbours is continuing filming? I don't think they're banned as it is considered work but surely if non-essential shops have to close then non-essential production should as well.


Not sure I follow that. Non-essential shops are usually closed to reduce mass social interactions (both in the shops and whilst travelling to and from) - as a significant proportion of the community use shops.

If dramatic TV production can continue whilst following whatever Aussie social distancing rules/guidelines/legislation are/is currently in effect then it's not really comparable to shops, as relatively few people work in TV production when you take a wider view?

If there is a ban on non-essential travel, and non-essential workers travelling to their place of work AND production of Neighbours is deemed non-essential - then I could see that as an argument to stop production - however if it's possible to do it safely and legally - there may not be a reason to pause production?
NG
noggin Founding member

Sky Arts goes FTA

thegeek posted:

I don't know how scalable that would be for DTH though - perhaps some sort of multicast stream to subscribe to for linear channels?


ATSC 3.0 in the US is based on multicast IP, albeit delivered over RF channels allocated to TV. I wonder how similar a 5G approach might be.
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC News: Presenters, correspondent & rotas

Markymark posted:
Newsroom posted:
I am so shocked and sad to hear about this. Annita is giving him a brilliant send off during her last hour on the News Channel. Such a gigantic loss. Hopefully he'll turn up somewhere else very soon.


Times Radio ?


Or possibly early retirement combined with voluntary redundancy. Financially once you hit your 50s at the BBC that can be a compelling combination if you have maxed out your pension and worked at the BBC for 24 years or more. (The sweet spot used to be around 55 with that combination. In the 90s when there were a lot of redundancies offered in BBC Resources it was often said that if you worked past 55 you were paying the BBC for the privilege!)

Then it's just a case of finding something interesting to do with the rest of your life - which may not mean a full-time job.
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC NEWS CUTS

Newsroom posted:
Stuart posted:
Newsroom posted:
I don't see why Marr can't move to Westminster. I think that studio is underused as it is. Seems versatile enough that the desk can be moved around (as seen when the 6 and 10) came from it. Would anyone know how much floor space there is at the Westminster?

Other than it's not staffed on Sundays, you mean?

It's less space than Studio E at NBH, so unless you would wish to see a 'Peston' style interview format with Marr at one end of the desk and the guest at the other end . . . I don't see how that would improve on the current bad situation.


Like most people, I'm totally unaware of what is staffed and what it not at the weekend so thanks for the insight, and that of the size of the studio itself.

There is the argument that the Westminster studio itself hasn't been seen the majority of viewers so with that in mind and with it being underused, it's surely an option to reducing the amount the demands of E at the moment. I agree with other members here that E will age far quicker with the way things are currently going.


Studio E requires minimal staffing (it has 100% automation and 100% remote cameras), the BBC Westminster studio requires significantly more staffing AIUI (although it has Mosart it doesn't have the same flexibility in automation terms).

In the current climate of cost-cutting I don't see increasing transmission costs being on the agenda, at least in the short term.
NG
noggin Founding member

Studio Sets, Infrastructure and General Technical

DeMarkay posted:
Does Millionaire still use Cat and Mouse?


I don't think Cat and Mouse exist any more, as they were subsumed into Microsoft.
NG
noggin Founding member

Studio Sets, Infrastructure and General Technical

thegeek posted:
peterrocket posted:
Hatton Cross posted:
Curious they are using Windows, because I've been in the audience at a couple of gameshow recordings, when the screens on set have gone off, and on the reboot, the whole system running the show has being run using Apple macs


The graphics for the show are powered by Ventuz - which is windows only. Kind of like Viz, but more general purpose than broadcast. It pulls everything in from databases and generates the graphics, column and scores as needed.

Am I right in thinking that the early series of Pointless had their scoring systems credited to Cat and Mouse? (They put together a rather good Skype for broadcast solution, and ended up being bought by Microsoft.)


Yes - Cat and Mouse used to do a large number of gameshows, but their excellent Skype integration caught Microsoft's eye, and Microsoft made them an offer that was too good to refuse for the company.

I think some of the team behind the gameshow side are now at Kinetic Pixel (who seem to do the same stuff on the same shows) though I may be wrong.
NG
noggin Founding member

Sky Arts goes FTA

London Lite posted:
However the platform is largely Full HD, with even the three local channels in Paris being 1920x1080 which compared to London Live is a disgrace. There's even a test UHD mux!


Yep - the UK had a test DVB-T2 UHD mux 6 years ago which lasted for a while using the frequencies allocated to COM8 (I think) prior to COM8 launching. It carried the 2014 World Cup and Commonwealth Games UHD tests.

I still have some recordings of the broadcasts somewhere (it wasn't encrypted, but h.265 2160p decoders were a bit rarer in 2014 than they are now...)
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC NEWS CUTS

Stuart posted:
Markymark posted:
Totally unenforceable rules then, so the licence fee revenue will dwindle away over the coming years, it's becoming nothing more than an 'honesty box'

True, which is the point I was originally making. It's why they really need to come up with another funding model within the next 10 years.

I'm not keen on the concept of a 'Government Grant' as that smacks of state control. A 'local levy on every household' as in some countries, would have the Daily Fail screaming for years. Subscription may see the end of too many niche services.

Perhaps 'embracing the devil' and using advertising revenue in the UK is the only answer.


The Swedish model of a personal public service levy is an interesting take. It's only - I believe - levied on income tax payers (so gets round the low-income issue). However Sweden has accepted that strong, independent, public service TV and Radio are worth paying for...
NG
noggin Founding member

European Equivalents of Legacy (ex-analogue) UK channels

headliner101 posted:
noggin posted:
As for TV2 Denmark, I guess that's in a similar situation to where C4 was after the move away from ITV advertising levy funding, and before it became a full public service corporation (so in the interim period where it was more commercial than it is now?)


So Denmark may have a Channel 4 (and Channel 5) but not necessarily an ITV1?


Kind of - though TV2 is now a pay-TV channel (though quite low cost) in Denmark I think so it doesn't map fully to C4/C5 either. The only FTA mainstream services in Denmark are DR channels now I think.