noggin's posts, page 258

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NG
noggin Founding member

UK General Election

Rkolsen posted:
deejay posted:


Which 'enormous space' are you referring to?

Studio B? It's not enormous compared to ELS Studio D and doesn't have the associated infrastructure. There is a lot more technical infrastructure at Elstree than just the usual studio gallery and there are far more people working on the election programme than you see in the back of shot. NBH B has a standing set, in use for several hours every day, 6 days a week.

I'm not doubting you but it's worth mentioning that Studio juggling has been done in the past in US elections where sets are reconfigured and moved in, out, installed and tested around preexisting show schedules.. I'm sure the set in Studio B could be moved in and out

You're sure are you? Have you any idea how 'bolted to the floor' most of the BBC News studio sets are? They aren't set-strike sets, and the building isn't designed for set-strike operation. Whether it was a good idea or not - the studio sets are pretty immovable. Remember how long it took News to install the Barco sets in TV Centre. It took weeks of using a temporary studio set-up (which the BBC no longer really have available) to build them...
Quote:

- the world shows could go out in C (as many do often), Victoria Derbyshire could move to The One Show studio as it's an airy show,


Derbyshire would be a squeeze in The One Show studio - and because The One Show doesn't use any of the newsroom systems, either they'd need to find a kludge to engineer it into a news gallery, or they'd need to totally change the production style of the show. BBC News would also have to pay to use the space - as it isn't owned by them, as well as pay for a full crew. And BBC Television (who own the studio) would need to be told they couldn't do any daytime shows - like Rip Off Britain Live - in there.

Quote:

and Newsnight could be replicated in A. I mention Studio B because it's the largest and some of the nations sets looked good. They could use A for Jeremy Vine.


Yes - but you'd end up spending a lot of work getting existing programmes on-air - before you could even start rehearsing your actual show. And you've ignored the back-end requirement to hub the shows - which also takes a significant tech build and needs a decent amount of production space. Shows as big as the Election don't just use an existing gallery - they effectively have a very large editorial and technical operation upstream of the gallery co-ordinating OB contributions. This needs physically and technically to be built and integrated into the gallery. This isn't something you do the day before.
Quote:

Is the gallery in Elstree permanent or set up specifically or bespoke? If it's bespoke then it would be a real pain in the arse to coordinate technically based on what I've heard.


Gallery is a standard non-news production gallery usually used for entertainment shows (just like TC1 before it). Additional equipment is rigged in it for News, but the bulk of the 'Election specific' stuff is done in a purpose-built hub. This is a dedicated space which is re-built for each election (I think some gear is left installed but I may be wrong). This is far more important than the gallery. There was a dedicated space at TV Centre for the same functionality (albeit in SD)

Quote:

What sort of connectivity comes into BH - how many satellite signals it can receive, bonded cellular and internet pipes.


BH receives very little satellite stuff AIUI - that is mainly downlinked off-site and routed over the BBC internal lines network (I may be wrong). Bonded 3G/4G stuff is integrated over the internet (as the SIMs just provide a connection between the bonding unit at the OB and the internet) and I believe the bonding servers are within BBC premises.

Reality is that downlink and IP stuff is not dependent on physical location as long as you are within the BBC network.

Quote:

That being said I think it would be extremely difficult to pull off in BH. And apologies if this doesn't make sense as it's an "late night post".


I think your biggest assumption is the ability to set/strike the NBH sets - they are NOT designed for it...
NG
noggin Founding member

UK General Election

Newsroom posted:

Couldn't have said this better myself Rob. The sheer size of the BBC set was wasted due to lack of activity, buzz, and the low number of people actually there. I do hope they do away with this set and the use of Elstree. They've an enormous space in W1, some planning and that entire space could be put to use.


What enormous space in W1? The BBC don't have any large studios in W1 - the biggest studio (Studio B) on the site is the same size as the 'small' studios at Television Centre (TC2, TC5, TC7) and has such a massively permanently installed set you'd have to work around it.

You'd be able to put Dimbleby at one end, Mishal at the other and Emily in the middle with a much smaller screen, and Jeremy would need to be scaled back (physically) and done from Studio A I guess in a much less ambitious manner.

However the amount of time needed to modify the studio infrastructure and rebuild the galleries to work in a different style, plus bring integrate the additional tech that wouldn't usually be used, is non-trivial, and you'd need to find temporary solutions for Derbyshire, BBC World News and Newsnight for a week or two to do this.

I think it probably is achievable IF they can find space to site a hub operation - and with the move to IP this hub need not really be on the W1 campus (though in reality it is much easier to manage a show if you are all on the same site)

However the bigger issue is where you'd build the hub, and where you'd sit all the production team working on the show (who are in-vision extras in the studio at Elstree). Now that BBC Studios have largely left W1, and moved back to W12, there would have been space to build a hub (though it would be hugely expensive to waste that amount of space in Central London - whereas Elstree has loads of free space in a lower cost part of 'London') However most of that has presumably been land-grabbed by World 2020 expansion?

The reality is that W1 was never planned as the BBC's ONLY studio centre - it was designed to do run-of-the-mill daily radio and TV news, and general radio production. There was never an aim for it to do Elections and general TV production. The One Show has squeezed in (largely by occupying a space originally planned to be the BBC shop, and converting areas planned for storage into a control room suite) but that was a compromise (gallery and studio are in different buildings...) When W1 was planned - the model was to do elections in TV Centre...

Anyone suggesting using the Newsroom space as a presentation area needs their bumps read. The issue with having the largest TV and radio newsroom in the world is that it is the largest TV and radio newsroom in the world... You can't move that functionality elsewhere to allow the space to be use for a different purpose - there is nowhere big enough to put it elsewhere in the building.

You can't say 'Oh - we've got an Electionn - Newsgathering, Radio and TV bulletins, BBC World Service News - would you awfully mind not working for a week?'
Last edited by noggin on 10 June 2017 10:59am
NG
noggin Founding member

TV Exit polls

One key thing about the Exit poll is that it is fine-tuned based on previous polling experience. This is why it is much more difficult to Exit poll one-off referenda. Boundary changes also have an impact in some cases.
NG
noggin Founding member

SNG, Mobile Uplinks, Bonded Cellular and Downlinks

harshy posted:
noggin posted:
mapperuo posted:

Yeh was a busy night!

I saw trucks out there from Spain, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and France. Always Impressive how they manage that.


Yep - and increasing use of IP connectivity too (either through 3G/4G bonding or hardwired/WiFi IP)

Is this what the BBC did I failed to get any of the bbcs count feeds Sad


Some were definitely on SNG DVB satellite - but increasingly the BBC is using IP (including via VSat satellite Smile ).
NG
noggin Founding member

SNG, Mobile Uplinks, Bonded Cellular and Downlinks

mapperuo posted:
harshy posted:
There was lots of news feeds for the general election without moving the dish, just mainly count feeds although there was one clear channel4 feed which was interesting to watch.


Yeh was a busy night!

I saw trucks out there from Spain, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and France. Always Impressive how they manage that.


Yep - and increasing use of IP connectivity too (either through 3G/4G bonding or hardwired/WiFi IP)
NG
noggin Founding member

SNG, Mobile Uplinks, Bonded Cellular and Downlinks

Rkolsen posted:
Out of last nights counts how many would you guys say were pool feeds?


Not sure - historically I don't think election counts are pooled that much. (As you need to put reporters in front of the cameras - and Sky, BBC and ITV will all want to do lives at the same time)
NG
noggin Founding member

DIY Broadcast Tech

Rkolsen posted:
noggin posted:
Rkolsen posted:
I was wondering based on the reported lack of user friendliness of the Tribune equipment how does the BBC equipment stack up? Is it easy to use or is it connected to Mozart or the BNCS to the point where it's like any old manufacturer?


Not sure I understand your question. What BBC equipment are you talking about? Do you mean equipment the BBC uses - like ENPS, Viz Mosart, or equipment the BBC develops in-house (like Elvis, Davina, BNCS, Jupiter, BigTed etc.) In fact ENPS could be considered a BBC developed product - as it was originally developed by the BBC in association with AP, to replace the old BASYS newsroom computer system (which evolved into iNews).

BNCS is a BBC-originated product (and the version used within the BBC is pretty similar to that developed by the BBC, whilst the commercial product used at Sky, IMG, BT Sport - and I believe a number of US broadcasters - is a little different, though similar)


The products developed in House that haven't been commercialized (sold off or licensed).


They are usually relatively simple, lightweight and usually pretty user-friendly, though with UIs that may not have had a lot of graphic design time spent on them.
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC Breakfast

Steve in Pudsey posted:
Wouldn't the Olympic Breakfast - which used both the SQ2 and Sport galleries - have needed something more than a few tielines?


Depends how they did it. In 2012 they hardwired cameras from the Olympic studio in Stratford up to Salford to let them use their Salford gallery to cut cameras in London (effectively using 'long tielines') and the 2012 Network News bulletins from the BBC News studio at Lund Point used three galleries to broadcast BBC News bulletins in HD for the duration, all with tie lines...
NG
noggin Founding member

BBC Breakfast

m_in_m posted:
noggin posted:
m_in_m posted:

Presumably if this hasn't been implemented it would make it more challenging to handle any larger scale changes to the Breakfast/NWT studio that required them to move out for the duration - especially considering the automation used and the integration with newsroom studios.

Presumably the same challenges would apply between using The One Show studio for news programmes.


Yes - this is the reality of news production systems moving further and further away from 'general' production systems, you have two very different styles of gallery operation, and so moving to a temporary studio and/or gallery is trickier than perhaps it once was. This is the case particularly if the lower cost 'dedicated studio+gallery' model has been used rather than the costlier 'any studio can work into any gallery' approach has been taken.

Do we know what approach has been used in Salford? We know London is galleries tied to studios but less of an issue due to having multiple studios programmes can relocate there albeit maybe not ideal especially for some of the studio B programmes.


Don't know to be honest.

I wouldn't be surprised if the two regional news operations (which also handled Network Breakfast and BBC NW Opts) had some cross over (they're probably on the same router and using BNCS in both areas), and the two sports news operations similarly (ditto to BNCS and routers).

I doubt there is cross over between the sport news and regional news operations though - but that's just an educated guess.
NG
noggin Founding member

The Late Late Show in London

Markymark posted:
noggin posted:
Mof posted:

The studio production is 59.94i


Since the move to HD, it's been a LOT easier to make shows in different frame-rates in Europe - as the image format remains the same (1920x1080 or 1280x720 - though the latter is rare outside North America - as in Europe 720p broadcasters usually run 1080i in studios and OBs)

As a result the same cameras, switchers, VTRs, CGs etc. all can now usually easily switch.


Yes, and last year most (all ?) of the European (and therefore '50Hz' based) trucks that were in Rio for the Olympics host broadcaster (and unilateral) coverage, were running at 59.94.

At least one OB company did take 60 Hz to 50 Hz mains inverters. Brazil's electrical supply is 220/380 volts but of course 60Hz, electronic kit with SMPSUs has no issues with that difference of frequency, but air con compressors and similar do (or can do)


Yes - the real challenges are when you shoot 'off frequency' - i.e. shooting 50Hz video in a 59.94Hz country or vice versa. The big issue is usually lighting flicker. If you film in areas in which you can't control the lighting, and the lighting is mains-frequency discharge, you get horrible flicker. You can sometimes shutter this out - but if you are shooting with non-globally shuttered cameras, or with motion that isn't conducive to shuttering, it looks horrible.

Pity poor Japan - they have both 50Hz and 60Hz mains to contend with - the country is split in half...
NG
noggin Founding member

UK General Election

TROGGLES posted:
Maybe these 300 'Sky Cameras' are mobile phone cameras - all those sim cards the bought a while back Smile


They are cheap video cameras with HDMI outputs going into bonded 3G/4G links (like WMTs or LiveUs)
NG
noggin Founding member

The Late Late Show in London

Mof posted:
London Lite posted:
Seems this sketch with Ben Kingsley has been filmed at 30fps with the studio and intro at 25fps. Reminds me of when Carpool Karaoke was on Comic Relief and had motion judder issues.


The studio production is 59.94i


Since the move to HD, it's been a LOT easier to make shows in different frame-rates in Europe - as the image format remains the same (1920x1080 or 1280x720 - though the latter is rare outside North America - as in Europe 720p broadcasters usually run 1080i in studios and OBs)

As a result the same cameras, switchers, VTRs, CGs etc. all can now usually easily switch. It's less common in the US to be able to run at 50i, because so many displays sold in North America won't lock to 50Hz (whereas 59.94Hz compatibility is universal in Europe), so European shows made in the US usually have to shoot 59.94i and standards convert to 50i - unless they take their own flyaway gear.

(Believe it or not some TVC Studios were supposed to be 525/625 switchable in B&W - which was easier with tubed cameras than CCDs - but this was non-trivial and I'm not sure it happened in anger. Some ITV companies shot the same shows in parallel on two different sets of gear to record both a UK and US version ISTR)
UKnews, bilky asko and London Lite gave kudos