noggin's posts, page 52

Saturday Night Takeaway 2020

If they are going to Elstree Studios then it won't be Studio D - as that's at BBC Elstree, not Elstree Studios.

BBC Studioworks have Stages 8,9 (TC3/4/6/8 sized) and George Lucas 2 (bigger than TC1) at Elstree Studios, and Studio D (TC1 sized) at BBC Elstree (which is a separate site)

Sky Q - HDMI splitter for multiple devices

Might be worth seeing if a cheap HDCP 2.2->HDCP 1.4 converter between the Sky Q and the splitter helps with this, if you can find one.

Also are you only using 1080p - or does the Sky Q run in 2160p/UHD/4K?

4K can need a better cable than HD in many situations - and glitching is one of the byproducts of an 'out of spec' cable. Please note I'm not talking about expensive cables giving you a better picture (that's bobbins), this is purely an issue because UHD/4K signals need a higher bandwidth, so the basic electrical properties of the cable often need to be better to carry the higher bandwidth signal.

Camera

👇👇👇👇👇👇

The Sport Thread

It would add nasty judder (you are literally throwing away half of the picture information) and halves the sensitivity of the camera, meaning you'd either need more light, be winding in gain, or opening up the aperture (reducing depth of field and causing focus issues)

50fps stuff with 1/100th second shutter adds a very distinctive 'look' which is OK for replays but looks out of place on live shots. When you get up to 100-120fps capture you can start winding in shorter shutters (which is what NHK are doing to mitigation motion blur on 8K)

The Sport Thread

Two factors.

1. If the camera tech is the same for HD and UHD it's not 'more blur' it's that the blur is more visible. If you capture for 1/60th second - which is normal for a live 60fps look, then you will have the same amount of motion blur optically. However if you are capturing at 4x resolution for UHD, this will make the blur far more obvious, and reduce the benefit of UHD capture (aka 4K) Motion blur that would be acceptable at HD (as it's limited by the lower resolution of HD) may not be acceptable at UHD. That's one of the reasons that HFR as well as UHD is being developed. 100 and 120fps formats are being developed to halve the image exposure time, and reduce motion blur. This may look a bit un-nerving to audiences used to motion blur though.

In other words - the motion blur at 60fps on sport coverage removes the benefit of UHD capture, at least partially, as all you are doing is capturing a blurry picture more accurately on moving picture areas. If you are comparing with 720p60 or 1080i30 it's worse - as you aren't going from 1080->2160 you are going from 720->2160 or 540->2160 on vertical resolution respectively too... (1080i drops to 540p equivalent on fast motion)

I wouldn't say 'more blurry' though - I'd say 'motion blur becomes more of an issue'

2. All current Grass Valley LDX-series (unless I missed a new camera) and the first generation Sony HDC4300s also have rolling shutters at UHD (LDX only rolls at UHD), so you also get rolling shutter artefacts in 4K if you are using GVG or first gen Sony cameras. The new Sony HDC3500/5500 (and the F55 Live) have global shutter so don't have these artefacts.

Camera

If you are talking about multi camera OB and studio shows - then in the UK the only cameras really in use are Sony and Grass Valley (who now own the ex-Philips/BTS camera brand, via Thomson). All the main models are 3CCD or 3CMOS 2/3" sensors - which gives you a potentially wider depth-of-field (more practical than a shallow depth-of-field large sensor when you have to do a lot of quick re-framing on sport and entertainment coverage).

Sony currently have the bulk of the market - with everything from their HSC300 (as used at BBC News), via the workhorse HDC1500/2500/3100s, up to the UHD HDC 3500/4300/5500s (and their variants, which are now the mainstream current cameras)

Grass Valley have a smaller share of the market (they were arguably a bit more dominant, alongside Ikegami, in the SD 16:9 era). One major OB supplier has a large number of GVG LDX86Ns for their UHD trucks, and Sky have a lot of HD LDKs in their studio centre. In mainland Europe GVG have a much larger presence.

In terms of lenses - it's really a straight choice between Canon and Fujinon. Canon are usually preferred in my experience (due to their better optical performance, particularly with lens flare situations)

Ikegami, Panasonic and Hitachi are kind of nowhere in the UK HD and UHD camera market these days (in other territories like the US and mainland Europe they are much more popular. ZDF in Mainz in Germany has Ikegamis, one of the main Swedish OB providers has Panasonic UHD cameras etc.)

When it comes to location shooting there are lots more options - with cameras with a single, large sensor much more widely used, though 3 chip 2/3" shoulder mounts are still also daily workhorses for news, crew-shot mid-range factual etc. (If it's shot interlaced or 50p progressive, it's likely to be a 2/3" 3-chip camera - as those shooting with a large sensor also usually shoot 25p progressive for a 'film look')

Cameras I see in daily use in factual location shooting : Sony PMW300/PMW500, Canon C300, Sony FS7, Sony F5, Sony F55, Arri Amira. You also see A7S DSLRs used as B-cameras, along with all sorts of things like Osmos, GoPros etc. (The B-cameras usually don't hit an EBU R118 tier officially - which is technically, sort of, a requirement for all main UK broadcasters' DPP delivery specs - though how well this is enforced varies...)

In terms of live studio and OB production, in England the industry is pretty much 100% freelance (outside of BBC News, ITN and ITV Daytime), and the high-end industry is dominated by camera operators who work for a number of diary services/crewing agencies. The route into those teams is via the camera assistant role, unless you are already experienced at that level.

BBC NEWS CUTS

The one from the official BBC News presentation is hardly meaningless. If you work in the organisation (the audience it's intended for) it has a lot of meaning. It's a clear way of explaining the new organisational arrangements for News commissioning, acquisition, production and delivery.

The BBC World News Thread

What commercially funded long-form programming has BBC World News cut to provide short-form for Quibi?

If the BBC makes a profit on the Quibi service that will bring more money back to the corporation's public service output which will help mitigate the funding-related cuts recently announced, surely?

Eurovision 2021 - Netherlands - NPO/AVROTROS/NOS

Looks like very similar typography and graphic design to the past couple of years. (Which isn't a bad thing. If it ain't broke...)

BBC NEWS CUTS

The BBC Eurovision production is handled by BBC Studios - so if Graham is contracted directly to BBC Studios for that work - then it wouldn't be included, as 'The BBC' aren't hiring him directly.

However if Graham's overall BBC talent deal includes Eurovision, and he isn't paid by BBC Studios for work on that show, then it may be part of the publicised BBC pay details.

Whether talent is paid through the production company that makes a show, or directly by the broadcaster, isn't always a hard and fast rule - so you can't assume one or the other.

BBC to switch off red button text

Yes - the iPlayer can handle live streams that aren't 'channels'. They were doing it over the weekend with an FA Cup stream.

Britbox UK - UK SVoD Platform.

Is it p25 or p50 on ITV Hub+?