I really wish the BBC would stick to what it's good at rather than chucking money these kinds of projects.
That's what people said when the BBC decided to invest in TV services when they were only doing radio.
In the all-IP future, customisation is king. Controlling that is key. The BBC would be crazy to NOT be getting involved in machine learning and customisation.
My guess is Andrew Marr’s programme will still trounce Sophy Ridge’s programme in the ratings. Sky should have moved her programme later not earlier.
Marr historically has rated similarly to Breakfast Mon-Fri in that slot (c.1.5-1.8m) I think. I don't think Sky News ever comes even close to that in ratings terms, and instead is in the low 100ks, if not lower?
Looking at last Sunday Ridge got 130k, with no Marr as competition,
The last time I saw a B&W Dad’s Army on BBC Two, the sound quality was noticeably poorer than the colour episodes, presumably due to it being a telerecording. I’ve often wondered if that’s one reason why they aren’t in regular rotation.
When they did the colour recovered version of Room at The Bottom, they actually used the audio someone had recorded off-air at the time as it was better quality than that on the telerecording. I have a feeling the Doctor Who Restoration Team have done similar for many episodes.
Not sure it's many episodes, but for some of the animated reconstructions and tele snap recreations it's all that they have. Mark Ayres will know
I would assume that any 9am-10am Lorraine programme would have a commercial break with its final advert/trailer/breakbumper ending at 09:24:59. For viewers in STV/UTV land, this would be the day's final sighting of e.g. an ITV-branded breakbumper/trailer. The day's first sighting of STV/UTV would be e.g. a breakbumper at the start of the commercial break circa 09:45, and the first STV/UTV ident & anno would be to introduce This Morning at 10am.
Yes - any ITV Breakfast break will, presumably, have to have completed before the ITV Breakfast to ITV plc/STV switchover point, at which point STV take over advertising for the channel in their area (both in revenue and regulatory terms)
I've been watching some box sets on All4 in recent weeks. Of course the ads can't be skipped (I'm tempted to stump up the 3.99/m to banish them though)
There's normally the same 5 or 6 ads over and over again, including one for Boots. I thought it was odd that the end cap had a map and postcode, at first I thought it was just random, then I clocked it was the real location of a Boots store in Oldham. Didn't think any more of it, until last night, a new ad (woo!), for PC World, and an end cap showing their store in, yep, Oldham!
So, I clock what's happening, but Oldham is 200 miles away, but that's obviously where my IP address (which is static BTW), shows up as being near.
It's all very smart, and obviously far from fool proof, but how many punters do actually get a accurate target I wonder?
What happens if you do a reverse IP look-up on your IP address?
Are you sure you didn't give a post code when you registered with All4? (And how can you stand to watch their rubbish only-just-SD pictures? The ads are sub-SD)
Bristol, Birmingham and Southampton have had new vision mixers owing to the original GVG Zodiak desks reaching end of life. Oxford took some gallery kit from BBC Manchester after NW moved to Salford and replaced their original GVG Pres mixer.
Let's not forget as well that a lot of the VMs that have replaced the 'Project England' kit across the regions are HD capable, it's the backend and cameras that often aren't, as well streams. It's an easy operation to replace kit in a gallery and studio but if they can't send things to transmission/transmit in HD it's fruitless.
Birmingham's GVG Kula 3 can manage UHD, but the cameras and output streams can't even manage 720p, along with most of the aparatus in the apps room.
Yep - some regions now have HD-capable cameras and/or vision mixers, and I think all main regions now have HD-capable GVG/SAM/Quantel servers for playout. They have had HD-capable location cameras for quite a long time (may even be on 2nd generation in some cases).
However a station is more than the sum of its parts - the glue (particularly up/down conversion), main router/matrix, monitoring, and dull stuff like building cabling etc. all need to be upgraded for HD working, and there needs to be a route to actually get that HD content to the audience at home (or you end up with another London, Plymouth or Salford)
NB 720p and 1080i are almost always supported by the same kit so 720p isn't seen as a 'lower spec' format than 1080i in production terms. (It's actually 1080p25 that is usually the additional cost option, or in some cases the format that isn't supported)
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I don't really talk to many people in the industry (though a few I went to school with went into that field) and the Kula IP model is being considered as part of the 'ViLOR' style shift in the regions (along with others, obviously full tendering process will need to take place)
If a 2110/2022-7 style remote production solution like ViLOR is in the mix, then the Kula is a good fit, though a more radical solution would be Kula panels at the regional centres (if they have any) with multiple regions sharing a Kahuna 9600 or similar (there's no reason to dedicate a mixer-per-region now if you can accommodate enough inputs and outputs and ME-bank/DME requirements for multiple regions in a single crate, other than 'eggs in baskets' arguments)
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Incidentally I found out that Birmingham replaced their Aston CG with CasparCG. Will other regions follow suit or is it a case of if it still works (and reads floppies) the astons are staying?
Yes - I think that has been widely regarded as a good solution, but with the impending decision about ER upgrades, rolling out new gear into lots of regions has been paused (wouldn't be good to roll out CasparCG everywhere, then replace it 12 months later)
Does this mean sky atlantic is getting the boot? IF it make CC up is game, im all for it.
Don't think so - Sky Atlantic would presumably still be the home for HBO drama, and international (i.e. non-English language) series that they have acquired? (Though some of the Nordic Noir stuff could bounce to Sky Crime?)
Probably needs to start on a close up presenter shot and then zoom out to allow the VR graphic to appear.
Is it a static shot? If it is it likely only is a simple graphic overlay or faux AR.
The cameras in Studio E at NBH are AR enabled.
That isn't relying on any AR tech though - the camera is static and there is no AR-style camera movement that is tracked in the graphic.
It just looks like a standard key+fill graphic keyeded over a camera. The empty space before any graphic appears does look very odd. If it animated instantly it would work - but until the graphic appears it looks either like a mistake, or to those of us who know, a signal that a graphic will eventually appear. (A bit like when BBC News interlaced reports go 25p progressive for a single shot which has graphics inserted into it)
It's similar to the 'half-screens' that BBC News used to overlay over live reporters on location in the early 00s.
I thought Mosart (I thought at one time the US site had it with the Z) at the time required a surface.
I think the MOS in Mosart may be linked to MOS - the standard newsroom interface protocol (others will know) It's often spelled incorrectly online though - even in press and PR stuff.
No requirement for a control surface in the control room for Mosart - plenty of installs don't have them and just use the Mosart UI and/or a Mosart 'bash box' instead. Mosart is controlling the mixer crate, and doesn't connect via the control surface. Programming effects in the first place may be easier with a control surface, of course, but that depends on the soft interface of the mixer brand you are using. You'll probably find Mosart can control a BMD Atem without you ever needing to buy a BMD hard panel.
Of course, now Viz own Newtek, they have an in-house switcher division.
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NBC is testing an all IP route with Las Vegas running by sending audio and video feeds back to their Dallas data center for smaller Telemundo stations. There will may be Ross panels on site like a traditional but all of it will be IP. NBC also switched to all Ross Expression for graphics and apparently ABC is doing the same.
The only thing they will have is a small multi viewer on site to feed cameras into for the camera operator as the delay to and from they found could screws up remote positioning.
Yes - and if you are in a dynamic lighting environment, latency on exposure and colour balance controls can also be quite nasty. Remote server control (if you have an EVS, K2 or LiveTouch panel in front of you, but your monitoring video is via an IP round trip) can also be tricky over latent connectivity.
That’s what they’re trying to replace. For the person operating the APC and other things a delayed Program/Preset and all the rest likely is preferred but for real time cameras best to have as much latency as possible.
The only thing NBC didn’t mention at the TVNewsCheck forum on IP was whether they'd be using a dedicated Comcast backbone to between the station, the datacenter in Dallas and the station’s master control to Denver. I know in Philadelphia the HQ of Comcast when they moved WCAU (NBC) and WWSI (Telemundo) to the CTC there was enough fiber for them to create their own private network without dealing with the public internet. They installed 100Gbps links to their tower / satellite farms and to the ENG receive sites (although the bandwidths nice they probably don’t even need more than 2 GBPs at any moment).
I don't think anyone is using uncompressed 2110/2022-6/7 over the public internet (How on earth would you get PTP to work properly?)
If you are using the public internet then you will be using significant levels of compression, probably LongGOP codecs in transport streams, protected by Zixxi, SRT or RIST, which adds massively to the latency. Fine for contributions or simple remote presentation, but not really an option for high quality studio origination (particularly chroma-keying a weather presenter post-compression)
I thought Mosart (I thought at one time the US site had it with the Z) at the time required a surface.
I think the MOS in Mosart may be linked to MOS - the standard newsroom interface protocol (others will know) It's often spelled incorrectly online though - even in press and PR stuff.
No requirement for a control surface in the control room for Mosart - plenty of installs don't have them and just use the Mosart UI and/or a Mosart 'bash box' instead. Mosart is controlling the mixer crate, and doesn't connect via the control surface. Programming effects in the first place may be easier with a control surface, of course, but that depends on the soft interface of the mixer brand you are using. You'll probably find Mosart can control a BMD Atem without you ever needing to buy a BMD hard panel.
Of course, now Viz own Newtek, they have an in-house switcher division.
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NBC is testing an all IP route with Las Vegas running by sending audio and video feeds back to their Dallas data center for smaller Telemundo stations. There will may be Ross panels on site like a traditional but all of it will be IP. NBC also switched to all Ross Expression for graphics and apparently ABC is doing the same.
The only thing they will have is a small multi viewer on site to feed cameras into for the camera operator as the delay to and from they found could screws up remote positioning.
Yes - and if you are in a dynamic lighting environment, latency on exposure and colour balance controls can also be quite nasty. Remote server control (if you have an EVS, K2 or LiveTouch panel in front of you, but your monitoring video is via an IP round trip) can also be tricky over latent connectivity.
