noggin's posts, page 298

Sky News 2015 new look

Sky have announced they are moving some output to Ross Overdrive automation, and are re-classifying lots of jobs to move towards automation. (Undoubtedly reducing head count and costs)

1996 Manchester Olympic Games Bid - IBC in Granada?

Not sure what you mean by 'permanent' - but yes, multiple commentary areas for off-tube, off-site commentary were sometimes built in studios at TVC when the UK hosted large events.

These days any major event like a World Cup, European Championships, Olympics, Paralympics etc. would need an IBC to be built. It would be close to impossible to accommodate the requirements within existing studio facilities - however if there was suitable land near an existing broadcast centre in which to build an IBC then that might make sense. Similarly if a broadcaster wanted to move to new facilities AFTER the event, and take over the IBC as a new venue, that would make a lot of sense.

However IBCs provide core infrastructure (feed routing, recording, managament etc.) but individual broadcasters who hire space in the IBC usually handle their own equipment provision and installation, via third party systems integrators (if they don't do it in-house) So the facilities used by the BBC, NBC etc. in Rio won't have been part of the IBC spec, they will have been added by the BBC or NBC, and removed by them at the end of the event (BBC did a sharing deal with C4 to share galleries I believe, so C4 are now using the BBC galleries in Rio)

There were discussions about the BBC or ITV taking over the Stratford IBC after London 2012. In the event, Timeline/BT Sport took over some of the space, though as discussed above, this was largely an infrastructure benefit, they weren't buying fully equipped galleries that had been sitting empty.

2016 Paralympic Games

I think if you are competing out there it is pretty obvious how seriously C4 are taking it. The consistent C4 presence in the mix zone (i.e. live reporters interviewing competitors after they have competed) at many events will re-inforce the view. Add to that the fact that C4 have an on-site 'studio' position for the swimming and athletics, the former being highly visible (and probably the only on-site presentation of that size at the venue), it will be clear to many athletes that the UK and C4 are taking the event seriously.

I think C4 are getting a lot of respect from the Para-sport movement for the way they are covering it. It's very similar to the way the BBC covered the Olympics (with the great addition of The Last Leg) and not being treated as 'niche' or 'special interest'.

2016 Paralympic Games

Yep - but compare that to the UK.

Here Channel Four has Paralympics coverage 1300-1900, 1930-2000, then The Last Leg 2000-2100, then more coverage 2100-0100 - all on the main C4 network. That's around 11.5 hours of output on their main network. Not just one or two items on a regional news show and a relatively low viewing sports network...

Plus C4 have the usual webstreaming, a digital breakfast show etc.

When I checked the ratings last week, C4 were winning their slot (i.e. the most watched channel in the UK) for 2100-2200 and 2245-0100 which isn't bad.

There is an element of C4 doing this as a major commitment, and whilst they do carry commercials, they are a heavily public service broadcaster. But they are doing it well - and advertisers (with some support from C4) are also taking it on board. Some of the inclusive commercials have been great - and should just run as normal on ITV, Sky etc. in ad breaks within/either side of non-Parasport shows.

New Look Sky+HD Menu / Interface Refresh

I think there is also an element that the software isn't optimised for the hardware. The original Thomson S1 Tivos (which were sold with SCART inputs and outputs in the UK) were as responsive and fluid (and a lot more hackable) than the equivalent first gen SD Sky + boxes.

There is also an element of Tivo moving to Flash-like media streaming (of third party streams) - whereas Sky have stuck to a download model where they completely control (and can optimise) almost all (if not all) of the content the box plays, ensuring it is in a codec and wrapper that the box can handle smoothly with the hardware it has. (A bit like non-Tivo Virgin VOD used to)

2016 Paralympic Games

My guess is that they have only a finite number of staff - and so running for even longer would have required an extra shift of people = more flights, more hotels etc. and there will be a finite budget. I suspect the people there are working flat out as it is.

I would expect that to be why there is only one live 'produced' stream on either Channel 4 or More4 (i.e. not two simultaneous different 'produced' coverage in the way that BBC One/Two and BBC Four were able to be) as that would also require a lot more staff to run two simultaneous control room operations, production teams for both streams etc.

(People have suggested that a second stream could be shown on 4Seven - but that misses the point. C4 don't have a shortage of outlets, but they do have a finite budget for Sunset and Vine to produce the coverage)

Personally I think that C4 are doing a cracking job - and pushing the bar far higher than any other global broadcaster in their covreage. Sure - there are always ways to improve things further - but compared to lots of other countries coverage - we're getting probably the best.

2016 Paralympic Games

The C4 presenters have been reporting that there were more tickets sold on an individual day this week for the Paralympics, than on any day during the Olympics for Olympic events.

Virgin Media reveals it's "V6" UHD set top box

Not according to that spec.

<OFF TOPIC>

UHD 2160/50 and 59.94p 10-bit HEVC and HDMI 2.0 output is quite easy to find at a low price point these day in a media player platform.

AMLogic SoCs in the S9xx series do it with no problem. I have a couple of S905 platforms (Wetek Hub, ODroid C2, MiniMX) that all run LibreElec (the Hub also has proper DRM for Netflix HD - but not UHD - in Android) and play 2160/59.94 or 50p HEVC stuff no problem at all. None of these have DVB tuners built in but a USB or Network delivered stream works fine.

There is a Wetek Play 2 coming with integrated DVB-T/T2/C tuner or DVB-S/S2 too. The Wetek models use a variant of the S905 better suited to DVB streams than the others.

2016 Paralympic Games

Watching it, it felt - unusually - as if Clare wasn't aware she was actually linking to a break, but though she was linking to an item, but they went to a break instead.

The backref off the back of the break felt like a slight way to recover from it...

North American Affilliates/Network Set Design

Sad, given the great heritage of Peter Jennings.

Good Morning Britain

The wooden panel on the edge of the desk on Susanna's side looks like a 'modesty panel'. They are usually used to avoid seeing a presenter's legs on oblique shots.

Good Morning Britain

Looks like some kind of TV Award - have GMB won anything recently?