Am curious - how come Malta can vote for themselves??
They can't. The Maltese broadcaster showing Eurovision probably forgot, didn't realise, or were unable, to blank their own number and put up a 'You can't vote for Malta' graphic over their recap VTs...
Am I imagining this or did they say this year the Big 5 + hosts would get to perform during the semi-finals - is that happening?
The plan is for there to be a fully live performance for the Big 5+Sweden during the Semifinal jury dress rehearsals on Monday and Wednesday. A clip of this live performance will be turned around and shown as a pre-recorded insert during the main Semifinals on Tuesday and Thursday.
It costs something. When you have reduced budgets you cut things. I'm not saying the Eurovision team have cut it, just that strategically the BBC (BBC Music?) have probably decided to. It cost something. That something is now saved.
That's the nature of cost savings, you can't constantly say 'oh that doesn't cost much, we'll leave it'...
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It's mostly automated.
But that requires someone to be paid to schedule it... The non-automated bits require staff and facilities to produce and mix them etc.
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Scott and Mel could present the show from Stockholm that Paddy would usually do (and they've got a line for the BBC Four opt outs anyway that has sound on it!)
What 'line'? Commentary for events like ESC (and sporting events) comes back either via IP or ISDN from a commentary unit in the commentary booth. That space and equipment is unlikely to be available other than during dress rehearsals and transmission...
If you mean the stand-up position that is used for in-vision presentation, that's a standard EBU stand-up facility that you pay for based on how long you use it. Very few countries want to broadcast during the contest (so the BBC book that position and camera out for the duration of the contest), but during the day it used by lots of EBU broadcasters for live or recorded inserts into domestic programmes (though they often move to an outside location). The BBC don't send their own satellite truck and have a dedicated facility - they don't have the budget for that...
Everyone is an expert... Budget cuts have effects. Sometimes they have effects on services people like and value. Welcome to the real world of a massively cut-back BBC.
With all the talk of the BBC going on, I think it's a jolly poor show that there is no Radio 2 Eurovision this year on DAB.
Welcome to the new reality of reduced budgets to pay for the iPlayer hole and licence fees for the elderly... Doubt there will be a Red Button service either. (Almost all Red Button stuff has stopped apart from sport)
I recently changed my USB DVB-T2 stick for a budget August model for just over £20 from Amazon. As it's a BDA device, I couldn't tell the difference in performance between that and my old PCTV stick.
My three year old August DVB-T2 tuner (same as a Geniatech model) is more sensitive than my original PCTV 290e.
The only thing that annoys me is that the best tuner I own is an ancient Hauppauge DVB-T Diversity stick, which allows you to merge two tuners to act as a single tuner, and switches between them based on which has the fewer errors. Feed them via two separate aerials and you get a much better signal than you would from a single tuner and aerial of the same type. Great in hotels. Sadly the Windows drivers stopper supporting diversity tuning ages ago, and the Linux drivers never have. EyeTV works brilliantly with it though. (Great for DVB-T regions, but not for T2) If you have a good signal (or are running Windows or Linux) you just get a dual tuner.
Geniatech / August branded DVB-T2 tuners work well in Linux with modern kernels.
The new DVB-T2 EyeTV Geniatech Hybrid for €129 looks very similar to the €30 T2 stick I already have (though you get the EyeTV software for the higher price...)
It may be because I'm used to Marr/Sunday Politics but I thought the desk setup was a bit odd. You have Peston sat behind this huge desk, while the guest is sat in a (relative to the desk) modest chair, craning their neck to talk to Peston.
Yes - I think they've tried to differentiate themselves a bit from Andrew Marr by avoiding the same seating configuration. Not convinced by the desk. The LED screen in it doesn't quite work either.
One defining characteristic of Andrew Marr's interview style is that he seldom, if ever, refers to notes though, so he doesn't need a desk or table. Robert may do?
Could be - though no need for it to be. The credited screen provider was Kenziko, who have a track record in touch screens (they've done the Stargazing Live one since series 2) using all sorts of tech - including VizRT. Touch screens of the size Alegra was using are pretty easy to source, and come with USB connectivity, and then it's just a case (not dismissing this!) of sorting the UI, moderation/aggregation, and design...
Think Allegra is a good addition. She's got bags of personality and doesn't ever seem massively phased by being on the telly. She's confident and natural.
I'm a fan of Robert, and think he's doing a great job. I think as a pairing they are both doing a grand job. It's a great addition to the weekend.
Sounds about right. It's the reverse of what you often find in theatre where the first dress rehearsal will be without hair and makeup but the final dress rehearsal will run like it's the real thing. The X Factor probably has a "full" dress on Saturday afternoon.
I think the aim is to avoid having to go through hair and make-up twice in one day and spend 12+ hours in costume.
Also the Jury Rehearsal needs to be in full costume on the Friday night.
An alternative strategy is to virtualise your tuners using MuMuDVB to multicast (or unicast) every service on each mux - so all services on PSB1, say, are streamed simultaneously, and then you can add them to many PVR back-ends as IPTV streams. This removes the concept of the tuner from the PVR back-end.
Now that DVB-T tuners are so ridiculously cheap (you can get Dual DVB-T tuners like the PS3 Play TV for around £10 on eBay) it is perfectly possible to have 3 x Dual DVB-T tuners so all 6 DVB-T muxes (PSB1 and 2, COM4,5 and6 and the Local Mux) are tuned simultaneously and all channels available simultaneously. DVB-T2 tuners are a bit more pricy, but you can often find decent USB models with Linux support for £25ish, allowing you to add 3 x DVB-T2 tuners (for PSB3, COM7 and COM8) That allows any channel to be viewed or recorded at any time with no clash, and as many Live TV clients to connect as you like (subject to network bandwidth)
Because DVB tuning is a very lightweight CPU task, you can dedicate these duties to a lightweight x86 box (I use a Celeron 2955U-based box).