noggin's posts, page 259

BBC Breakfast

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.

BBC Breakfast

Aah - there's a big difference between 'wireholes' (which are basically ducts you can run cables through) and wallboxes, which are permanent racks or cabinets that are pre-wired back to other areas (like a facilities patch area, router or other facility).

A 'wirehole' is basically an aperture you can run cables through (could be a cable flap, a bit of sealable drainpipe, a properly built cable duct etc.

A wallbox or similar will have cable connectivity neatly terminated with connectors you can simply plug in to.



I think you are assuming that Media City is a single operation. It's not - it's a property development more than anything. Dock 10 have moved into one building - which has studios and technical facilities. The BBC have moved into a couple of other buildings - and have also built in some smaller studios and facilities in there. (Confusingly some of the BBC facilities are run by an operation called 'The Farm' previously mainly known for post-produciton facilities)

Dock 10 run the facilities in the Dock 10 building. The BBC (and The Farm) run the facilities in the BBC building(s). BBC Breakfast (and BBC North West regional TV) and BBC Sport News all have facilities in the BBC building independent of Dock 10.

The BBC also have a deal with Dock 10 to rent larger studios in the Dock 10 operation for larger sports shows, as well as ad hoc deals for other shows.



More a case of building their galleries so that they were a good fit for the BBC shows that were going to hire some of them for a large chunk of the time. Lots of non-BBC shows have been made in 'BBC style' studios in London - so it wasn't as if building Dock 10 galleries to be a bit 'BBC-like' was a major barrier to non-BBC work. (And the reality is that the first iteration of Dock 10 galleries weren't that popular as they didn't quite 'get things right')

There are workflow issues that would need to be addressed for integrating the BBC Sport operation in the BBC buildings with the control rooms in the Dock 10 studios in the buildings next door - so that would have probably been some of what you'd read about. (EVS linking etc.)



I think you've jumped to a few conclusions and made a few assumptions that aren't actually stated in that article. Just because Dock 10 (as it is now known - it was previously known as other things) have built studios to a BBC-style spec, as the BBC were a primary customer (and co-siting at the same time) it doesn't mean that all the studios in Media City that the BBC use are owned and run by Dock 10.

It's also worth remembering that news studios (like Breakfast use) are not standard production studios - and are heavily engineered around just doing news shows. Dock10 run general production studios - which are increasingly very different types of operations.

There were plans for the BBC to be able to use their own (non-Dock 10) galleries to control Dock 10 studios - but I don't know if these have ever been actually deployed in anger (or even implemented).

There is very good connectivity between the buildings in terms of OS connectivity and high speed networking.

BBC Breakfast

You wouldn't use "wireholes" in that kind of situation - you'd just install decent connectivity (i.e. wall boxes or similar with SMPTE or other fibre, plus power and some copper), and indeed I believe there is reasonable connectivity from the Plaza area to Dock 10.

Which is great if you are in a Dock 10 gallery. Breakfast doesn't come from a Dock 10 gallery.

Breakfast comes from a BBC gallery in a different building (it uses the same studio and gallery as the main BBC regional news operation in Manchester). The BBC have a number of in-house studios and galleries in their own buildings next door to Dock 10. The BBC DO hire Dock 10 facilities for some shows (particularly the weekend sport shows like Match of the Day, Final Score and Football Focus), but the daily news and sport news stuff isn't Dock 10.

I suspect it would have been possible to have done the Big Breakfast show using a separate Dock 10 gallery - but it may have cost more than using a low-cost OB truck.




I think you are confusing the BBC studios and galleries with the Dock 10 studios and galleries that the BBC hire on a show-by-show basis? The BBC have their own faiclities, entirely independent of Dock 10.

There IS some connectivity between the two buildings, in particular to allow content to be shared between EVS systems, and there will be decent tielines to let BBC shows in Dock 10 control rooms access the BBC internal contribution circuit systems.

I'd imagine the Dock 10 set-up - like most multi-studio set-ups, as routers for each studio, plus a central router for incoming and outgoing sources and routing between studios. With some control software (like BNCS - which I suspect Dock 10 will be using) you can virtualise these routers to a degree - to remove the need to do multiple router operations to get from A-to-B.

DIY Broadcast Tech

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)

BBC Store to close on 1 November

This always gets raised. Reality is that you have to charge extra for a large chunk of the library - as almost all archive, stills, music rights, writers fees, actors agreements, music performance rights, dancers rights etc contained within a show are currently only negotiated for UK TX + 30 day streaming/download iPlayer windows (unless the show is a co-pro or acquired in advance - then the income from this offsets the additional rights costs)

These rights contracts don't allow the BBC to continue to provide the content after this period without either paying again, or paying more in the first place. It's even worse for old shows - as they often had worse, not better, rights contracts in place.

There is very little output the BBC could offer indefinitely online without it costing more money. These fees are paid when the BBC sells a show commercially to another broadcaster, or when it sells it on DVD, Blu-ray or by download.

Charlie Brooker did a good explainer here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbrmaeiZ4RE (Ironically the YouTube copy no doubt ignores the rights implications...)

NOW TV

What do you mean by no chance it works in webplayer?

When I watch iPlayer in a web browser I get the 720/50p streams (and if I adjust my refresh rate to 50Hz on a suitable HDMI display connected to the PC I get good 50Hz motion - not 25Hz). Apple TV 4 iPlayer app will also get the 720/50p stuff (though you have to manually select 50p output in the AV settings on the ATV)

Liquid News

No - but the screen-based Liquid News sets (initial projection based one, then plasma based one) were pretty influential.

Both of the screen-based iterations were designed by Chris Webster.

Liquid News

The News Show didn't use the Liquid News set - it used the BBC Three News set (also used by 60 Seconds) at the lower end of the studio. Same was true of the 15 Minute '7 O'Clock News on BBC Three' which followed it.

When Liquid News came off-air in April 2004, the old Liquid News set was dismantled as was the then 60 Seconds/BBC Three News set. The latter went to Points West in Bristol (people often describe the Point West set as the old Liquid News set - it wasn't).

A new (much darker) set - which re-used a lot of plasmas and added three projectors - was created in the space previously occupied by the Liquid News set for the 30 minute '7 O'Clock News on BBC Three' which Eddie Mair and Tazeen Ahmad presented. This set was revamped again with two sofas around the time Paddy O'Connell took over from Eddie Mair.

Click Online and FastTrack also recorded sequences in the studio using a re-dressed version of the 60 Seconds set (with different graphics in the plasma wall).

ITV abandons the South Bank

JK Derry - I apologise if my contradiction of your floor areas caused offence. I have always used the BBC metric feet dimensions when thinking about TV Centre studio sizes, hence thinking your dimensions were off.

BBC News Channel Presentation - 21/03/16 onwards

Yep - though they are still not hitting plasma pitch.

They're fine if you can still achieve a degree of separation - but even the finest pitch LED panels will have moire issues at some shot sizes unless you can throw focus enough to diffuse. If you are in a tight space and need to vary shot size significantly (particularly if you are using moving cameras and on-shot moves rather than cutting between static shots) then fine pitch LED is still not perfect, and still isn't a drop-in replacement for plasmas. The 85" and 103" plasmas were a fantastic solution - and there still isn't really a replacement that performs as well in some situations.

Don't get me wrong - fine pitch LED is great and a huge improvement over where we were previously. It's just not quite there as a drop-in for everywhere. (The other issue - historically - with LED was cooling and keeping large areas of LED screen quiet - but again I think this has improved hugely in recent years.)

The real issue is that consumer displays have gone down the LCD route ('LED' panels you see sold in the shops are still LCD), and LCDs are still far from great in many on-screen roles (The BBC Singapore bureau exposes some of the limitations ...)

ITV abandons the South Bank

I suspect BBC Studioworks are now using imperial square feet and including the firelanes... As others have correctly surmised I was using metric feet (which were standard in the BBC for many years)

TC2 was 60 x 40 metric feet which is around 2,400 metric square feet.
TC3 was 90 x 70 metric feet which is around 6,300 metric square feet.

I believe both of those figures are useable rather than total space and don't include firelanes. (They come from Martin Kempton's excellent TV Studio History site)



How many shows have you directed in TC2...

Yes - you can fit an audience of 120 or 150 in it. Whether you'd want to - and whether you'd still be able to do decent round-table coverage of a panel without hugely compromising that element of the show and making it look like it was in a narrow corridor - that's a different question...

For decent round-table discussion shows to look great (rather than average) you need decent lighting, which needs decent separation and a reasonable amount of space. Once you start compressing that you end up with less ideal lighting, and a cramped feel.

When Watchdog was in TC2 the jib had to have its base in the adjoining workshop the studio was so tight...

Newsnight used to come from TC7 - which is roughly the same size as TC2. If you look at the pre-Barco era studio audience shows they did, you see tight it is space-wise.

The New ITV & BBC Weather Thread

I think the BBC announced the change would be in the spring?