noggin's posts, page 61

ITV abandons the South Bank

Also worth pointing out that there are lots of factors influencing what studio a show is made in - so even if a production team likes one studio, it doesn't mean it will always make the show in that studio.

Other studio bookings, commissioning timescales, production logistics, talent availability, whether the show is live or recorded (and on what day), budget, regional quota commitments etc. can all have an impact on studio selection.

Changes to BBC Parliament & Political Programming

You don't remember when coverage of Parliament was sound only do you? It took a lot of effort to get cameras in there in the first place...

There were, and are, very real concerns that video footage of parliamentary proceedings could be edited and used to misrepresent the proceedings in the houses. The rules that broadcasters have to follow with regard to editing and modification of the footage are still quite strict to ensure that viewers are not misled.

In an era of fake news - this may not be such a bad thing...

Changes to BBC Parliament & Political Programming

That may be in the US. Pretty recent versions of the show broadcast in the UK have had replacement edits.

Changes to BBC Parliament & Political Programming

It's not a change to the Parliamentary TV legislation, it's a change to UK Fair Dealing legislation. (Fair Dealing allows you to use material without the copyright owner's permission)

ITV abandons the South Bank

BBC Studioworks still provide some core engineering support staff for TCs 2 and 3 I believe.

The Late Late Gay Byrne Irish Television Thread

AIUI there are two separate, but linked things.

1. RTÉ are ceasing DAB broadcasts entirely - so both mainstream and 'digital only' stations lose their only digital radio broadcast platform.
2. RTÉ are closing the 'digital only stations' which with the closure of DAB would then only have had online and DVB TV distribution.

(They are also moving Lyric FM production from Limerick and closing the studio(s) there)

All are cost-cutting measures, just as closing their digital text/teletext service Aertel is presumably.

North American Affilliates/Network Set Design

AIUI ATSC 3.0 is likely to be using HEVC/h.265 compression for current testing. HEVC can be used for 1080i, but has none of the interlaced optimisations that AVC/h.264 has. As a result you may actually be better off deinterlacing 1080i29.97 to 1080p59.94 prior to HEVC/h.265 encoding (or at least won't hit any major penalties in bitrate/quality terms)

Germany and the Netherlands are using 1080p50 HEVC/h.265 over DVB-T2 terrestrially - though I suspect a lot of the content will be 1080p25 and 1080i25 to 1080p50 deinterlaces. (Germany have ditched SD interlaced entirely from their upgraded DVB-T2 platform - and introduced 540p50 to replace it, alongside 720p50 and 1080p50 modes in their standard. Though 1080i25 may also be supported - there's no real point in using it)

I think wherever possible future TV standards are going to avoid interlaced formats. Next generation encoding either doesn't support interlaced, or just treats the fields as frames (thus ignoring any potential for optimisation and consequent bitrate savings/quality improvements) This also allows you to use a common baseband source for OTT/CatchUp and unicast streaming to mobile devices, OTT set top boxes, PCs etc. - rather than having to deinterlace separately in that workflow.

EastEnders

I think EastEnders used VPR5 portable 1" VTRs at one point (amazing pieces of engineering - a 1" VTR not much bigger than a 1/4" audio recorder), before switching to Betacam SP for location stuff (not sure if Beta SP camcorders or BVW35 portable recorders)

EastEnders

What year would this have been recorded in?

Studio stuff would have been shot on 1" C-format or D3 1/2 digital composite in the 4:3 days. Location stuff could have been shot on a number of formats depending on the date and how it was shot (PSC or SCU style)

2019 General Christmas election.

Grandstand was still based at Lime Grove at that time I believe, as would Nationwide a few years later, so Lime Grove certainly had the connectivity and facilities for a reasonably large number of incoming lines. It was also the home, at that time, of Television Current Affairs, who may have had a large part in producing the election coverage.

In 1966 TV News were still based at Alexandra Palace, and Spur hadn't been completed (where News would move to) - so there was no real News or Current Affairs presence at TV Centre.

BBC News (UK) presentation - Reith launch onwards

Are you sure it's not Davison Highley? Or is Boss one of their retail brands?

BBC News (UK) presentation - Reith launch onwards

Yes - you're looking at a much bigger cheque for a decent bespoke TV sofa made by a proper furniture manufacturer, than for a retail build (Tens of thousands of pounds would be a sensible amount to budget)

A lot of TV sofas are custom made by Davison Highley. They made the current Breakfast sofa, The One Show sofa, the Graham Norton Show sofa etc. : https://www.davisonhighley.co.uk/bespoke.html (click on Televison)

You have three real choices when designing a studio set with a sofa :

1. Buy or hire an existing commercially available seating solution (often these are designed for comfort and don't look great on camera - but there are sofas that work fine). Doing this does mean you have no guarantee that other shows won't use the same seating and have the same look.

2. Get your set construction company to make the seating. Whilst this may be cost effective, furniture construction is a specialised area, and a set construction company will probably just make a wooden structure and pad it, then upholster it simply. It won't be that comfortable, won't be that durable, but for a short run it may solve a problem cost effectively.

3. Go to a furniture manufacturer and order a bespoke designed sofa. This is by far the best solution for long-running shows. You end up with a unique sofa designed specifically for you, but built to high standards by people who know how to build sofas (other industries like retail, restaurants, high-end corporate hospitality etc. also often bespoke seating designs from these companies so they have in-house design and construction teams for bespoke construction). For long-running shows with a decent budget, this is by far the best solution. It is also the most expensive.