noggin's posts, page 92

15,946 search results, most recent first

NG
noggin Founding member

AppleTV 4K and Apple Video Services.

Just checking BGT on ITV Hub.

Commercials are 704x396 at 25fps bitrate of 1Mbs

Show ramped up from 704x396 very quickly to 1024x576 at 25fps 1.46Mbs h.264/avc video and 98kbs aac audio. (Whether that 1024x576 is sourced directly from 1920x1080 - and thus has detail up to 1024, or is a 702x576 scale to 1024x576 to keep square pixels, but with no detail above 702, I don't know)

Looks pretty similar to All4.

A far cry from iPlayer's 1280x720 at 50fps 4.6Mbs h.264/avc video and 128k aac audio.

The 50fps vs 25fps is crucial - it means iPlayer looks pretty much identical to watching Freeview/Freesat/Sky/Virgin, and ITV Hub, All4 (and Amazon Prime, Eurosport player etc.) all look sub-standard and second class.
Last edited by noggin on 20 May 2019 5:17pm - 2 times in total
NG
noggin Founding member

AppleTV 4K and Apple Video Services.

DVB Cornwall posted:
I don't own a Mac, is there a Windows alternative to this?


No - you need to be running MacOS to be a developer for tvOS.
NG
noggin Founding member

Eurovision 2019

One valid point that has been made discussing the new way of delivering the televote results (starting at the bottom of the jury leaderboard, rather than delivering televotes from lowest to highest) is that it removes the moment of affirmation from the winner of the televote as they don't know they have won the televote. I absolutely get the reason for the change - and it is great from a TV point of view (though the mechanics of coverage could be better) - but it's not perfect.

Would have been a nice moment for Norway.
NG
noggin Founding member

Eurovision 2019

Brekkie posted:
noggin posted:
Andrew posted:
They don’t even play it on Radio 1 here, never mind top of the charts. I doubt it ever gets mentioned on commercial radio either.


Eurovision is far more Radio 2 than Radio 1. In other countries it is more likely to be linked to their Radio 2 than their Radio 1 equivalents. If you look at what songs have been successful in recent years - they have been far more Radio 2-friendly in UK terms. The same is true elsewhere.

Is it the case abroad though? I do wonder if taking the view it's more Radio 2 than Radio 1 is part of the problem.


It certainly feels that way in Scandinavia. Their Eurovision stuff is definitely on their R2 equivalent not their R1 equivalent. ESC and Melodifestivalen may both be big there, but they are still at the AOR/Cheese end of their musical credibility spectrum... It's certainly not overlapping much with the contemporary youth stations on NRK, SR, DR etc.
NG
noggin Founding member

AppleTV 4K and Apple Video Services.

VMPhil posted:
DVB Cornwall posted:
Can someone with ITV Hub on AppleTV check BGT. Is it in HD or not? Looks suspiciously like it to me. If so it's quite a step forward.

Doesn't look like it to me. The telltale sign of sharp text on graphics isn't there.


Hang on - I'll check. If you link your ATV with Xcode on your Mac you can enable the player HUD in developer settings that shows you an overlay with resolution, codec, frame rate, audio and video bitrate etc. info of the video being played.
NG
noggin Founding member

Eurovision 2019

Andrew posted:
They don’t even play it on Radio 1 here, never mind top of the charts. I doubt it ever gets mentioned on commercial radio either.


Eurovision is far more Radio 2 than Radio 1. In other countries it is more likely to be linked to their Radio 2 than their Radio 1 equivalents. If you look at what songs have been successful in recent years - they have been far more Radio 2-friendly in UK terms. The same is true elsewhere.
NG
noggin Founding member

Eurovision 2019

deejay posted:
Gary McEwan posted:
How 'commercialised' is Eurovision in the rest of Europe compared to over here in the UK?

The other countries songs seem to hit the top of their respective charts and get a lot of promotion, whereas here it's a case of blink and you'll miss it.


I believe in Sweden most of the songs that take park in Melodifestivalen routinely get into the charts, and are played on radio not just in Sweden but right across Northern Europe and Scandinavia. This year there were 28 entries and of the final 12, all but 3 got into the Swedish top 10. The music industry in Sweden takes Melfest very seriously and as it commands an enormous audience on Swedish television is an excellent promotional opportunity. So when the music industry needs the Melfest (and subsequently Eurovision) to generate publicity that publicity is rewarded by consistently good results at Eurovision itself. Not just because the songs are of a very high standard (jury vote tick), but because the promotion has already happened across a large region (telephone vote tick).


Yes - in some years Swedish artists have been effectively forced to do Melodifestivalen (when they don't really want to) to get album deals. Melodifestivalen is supported by Swedish music labels, and is very popular with the Swedish public, but it doesn't have huge credibility in the more credible/'cool' parts of the Swedish music industry.

Scandinavian entries all get significant radio play across all the Scandinavian countries - and they often show or repeat each others selection show finals. They do share musical tastes (Estonia increasingly is a 'new Nordic' country too) and there is some overlap between them (Sweden and Norway, Estonia and Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, Sweden and Finland, have all shared performers or tried to for instance.)

BTW - did anyone notice that one of the UK's backing singers was Anna Sahlene? She is a fantastic Estonian singer who represented Estonia in the early 00s, and also entered Melodifestivalen at least once.
NG
noggin Founding member

Eurovision 2019

Andrew posted:


Oh and the BBC always cut off the credits, although is that because there would be lots of logos of sponsors and stuff on the later bits.


The BBC cut away on the last credit before the screen full of sponsor logos appeared, as those logos would breach the BBC's sponsorship policy, and probably now also cause Ofcom concern.
NG
noggin Founding member

New BT logo

I'm probably alone in this - but the new logo looks massively more fit-for-purpose than their current/previous, very dated colour sphere and the BT text in a no-longer-fashionable-if-it-ever-was typeface.

In particular the physical signage looks much nicer, and removing the large number of colours (like the BBC did in 1997-ish) is a very sensible move. (There are still some, but the logo works without them)
NG
noggin Founding member

Eurovision 2019

BM11 posted:
noggin posted:
BM11 posted:
Every bad performance increases the chance that one year the BBC will very sadly decide enough is enough(fearing the negative headlines the contest gets everyear.) and handover to Channel 4 or ITV.


Given the ratings vs cost - and popularity of the contest, I think this is VERY unlikely to happen. The BBC is a major EBU partner, and is currently represented on the Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group. Things would need to change seismically in the way the BBC operates for them to leave the contest .

Mostly agree, through the threat of changes could see the BBC thinking dropping Eurovision might mean they can keep something else in the renegotiation.
The contest being held in Russia one year is another risk.


When I say seismic changes - I mean changes of the order of magnitude that would see the BBC having to axe/sell off Radios 1, 2 and 5Live and BBC Two and Four (even then, the low cost-per-hour of ESC compared to a mainstream Saturday night show would still mean it was good value), or a charter renewal that prohibits the BBC from competing with ITV on popular entertainment shows like Strictly.

I'm not sure what 'renegotiation' you are talking about.
NG
noggin Founding member

Eurovision 2019

BM11 posted:
bilky asko posted:
BM11 posted:
His performances in rehearsals have tended to be bad. I really do wonder if another poor result will see the BBC go back to no national final again.


I don't see how he's bad enough to require multiple posts from yourself saying how bad he is. Are you just saying it to shoehorn in your predictions of doom?

Every bad performance increases the chance that one year the BBC will very sadly decide enough is enough(fearing the negative headlines the contest gets everyear.) and handover to Channel 4 or ITV.


Given the ratings vs cost - and popularity of the contest, I think this is VERY unlikely to happen. The BBC is a major EBU partner, and is currently represented on the Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group. Things would need to change seismically in the way the BBC operates for them to leave the contest.
UKnews and bilky asko gave kudos
NG
noggin Founding member

Eurovision 2019

thegeek posted:
noggin posted:
UKnews posted:
For example the EBU have a private fibre optic network with many points of presence across Europe (FINE - Fibre Network of Eurovision), but you still have to book and pay for capacity on the service (cost depending on the type and amount of traffic you want to send). The BBC have used it for quite a few events (TV and Radio) and will again next weekend.


Yes - though AIUI FINE and the EBU/Eurovision satellite operations may be being 'spun out' of the EBU slightly to make them a more arms-length commercial arm.

FINE was partially created to service the various Olympic Summer and Winter Games venues and is a very impressive operation, used by many broadcasters globally (and not just EBU members)

The spin-off has already partially happened: the network operation is now known as Eurovision Services.

Major events use the EBU for their distribution - UEFA are a big client, which makes sense given the number of sources and takers, particularly on a Europa League group stages night. Ligue 1 and (to a lesser extent) Bundesliga also use them for their distribution. They'll send a proper control room and network monitoring point to major events too (eg Olympics, where they're still a big connectivity provider even though they're not a rightsholder).


Yep - that spin-off happened a while ago though didn't it? I think there may have been an internal further distancing within the EBU structure. (Almost in preparation for a sell-off?)