Media Websites

TV Home - Automated recordings of BBC idents

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
EB
E Burns
Pete posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
Everything is recorded. The BBC has a system called Redux that save the output of a lot of BBC channels onto server and is then accessible from a webpage. I think it had everything since 2006. A lot of bbc staff have access, as do some who aren't.


There's a website called Box of Broadcasts which is basically iPlayer for Further/Higher Education. It lets you "record" TV shows so you can cite them in your work. However all BBC content going back to 2007 is already there, which I suspect means its just sucking it from redux.

BoB has a nicer interface than Redux which, certainly until recently, was very rough and ready. Plus BoB lets you search using the subtitles which can be very helpful. It did miss the first few days of BBC Scotland though which was annoying. Which begs the question if its built off of redux why it can't be fixed retrospectively. Might email them.


Can you download from BoB? Or is it viewing only? On Redux I can download high quality raw mpeg-ts feeds of BBC programmes (there are options for smaller .mp4 files too).

My archive content is also missing from Redux except for the Shakespeare stuff.
NG
noggin Founding member
E Burns posted:
Pete posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
Everything is recorded. The BBC has a system called Redux that save the output of a lot of BBC channels onto server and is then accessible from a webpage. I think it had everything since 2006. A lot of bbc staff have access, as do some who aren't.


There's a website called Box of Broadcasts which is basically iPlayer for Further/Higher Education. It lets you "record" TV shows so you can cite them in your work. However all BBC content going back to 2007 is already there, which I suspect means its just sucking it from redux.

BoB has a nicer interface than Redux which, certainly until recently, was very rough and ready. Plus BoB lets you search using the subtitles which can be very helpful. It did miss the first few days of BBC Scotland though which was annoying. Which begs the question if its built off of redux why it can't be fixed retrospectively. Might email them.


Can you download from BoB? Or is it viewing only? On Redux I can download high quality raw mpeg-ts feeds of BBC programmes (there are options for smaller .mp4 files too).

My archive content is also missing from Redux except for the Shakespeare stuff.


Mention of subtitles search makes me think this may be related to Snippets (which is a child of BBC Redux that allows for searching via subtitles and sub-clipped export). Snippets only uses h.264 mp4 transcodes from the MPEG2 or h.264 video in the transport streams - and I suspect BoB might be similar as 'off air' quality isn't needed for most higher/further education citation?

(Snippets and Redux are both due to be retired within the BBC soon, with BBC Archive Search absorbing their front-end functionality)
SP
Steve in Pudsey
BoB doesn't have a video download feature.
IT
IndigoTucker
BoB is easy enough to download from using freely available plugins.
PE
Pete Founding member
noggin posted:
E Burns posted:
Pete posted:

There's a website called Box of Broadcasts which is basically iPlayer for Further/Higher Education. It lets you "record" TV shows so you can cite them in your work. However all BBC content going back to 2007 is already there, which I suspect means its just sucking it from redux.

BoB has a nicer interface than Redux which, certainly until recently, was very rough and ready. Plus BoB lets you search using the subtitles which can be very helpful. It did miss the first few days of BBC Scotland though which was annoying. Which begs the question if its built off of redux why it can't be fixed retrospectively. Might email them.


Can you download from BoB? Or is it viewing only? On Redux I can download high quality raw mpeg-ts feeds of BBC programmes (there are options for smaller .mp4 files too).

My archive content is also missing from Redux except for the Shakespeare stuff.


Mention of subtitles search makes me think this may be related to Snippets (which is a child of BBC Redux that allows for searching via subtitles and sub-clipped export). Snippets only uses h.264 mp4 transcodes from the MPEG2 or h.264 video in the transport streams - and I suspect BoB might be similar as 'off air' quality isn't needed for most higher/further education citation?

(Snippets and Redux are both due to be retired within the BBC soon, with BBC Archive Search absorbing their front-end functionality)


yeah BoB doesn't give you the variety of options that Redux gives re: file types. It's a streaming player, with one resolution (1080x607) but, as noggin says, that's good enough for the job it does.

I don't think it has the HD versions of channels up either, only the SD ones although it does have regions... Oddly it currently only has ITV London, but has all the ITV regions in the "inactive channels" and the archive there goes back to 2003. In fact there's no rhyme nor reason to the dates things go back to, but after 2007ish is pretty solidly everything.

It doesn't have a download function, likely a licencing restriction. It used to be surprisingly simple to get around that although its since been tightened up.
IS
Inspector Sands
noggin posted:

(Snippets and Redux are both due to be retired within the BBC soon, with BBC Archive Search absorbing their front-end functionality)

I didn't realise that, a bit of a shame as Redux is available outside the BBC network whereas archive search isn't.

Though in doing that hopefully they'll not restrict some of the older material, as I mentioned a while ago when I first had Redux access there was a lot of VHS recordings on it, some of programmes (or parts of programmes) that aren't on Archive Search. For some reason they're still there but I can't search for them. All that's left pre-2006 is stuff on Shakespeare


Snippets is brilliant especially now that virtually everything is subtitled it's a really good resource, I just hope that they don't think that subtitles are a replacement for proper cataloguing.

That's the problem with Redux, it's not got any cataloguing, the recordings need linking to the relevant metadata as is done in Archive search
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 24 July 2020 7:01am

116 days later

RE
Rexogamer
The site seems to have stopped, with the last listed recording on the 30th of Aug. Has something major happened?
RO
rob Founding member
Rexogamer posted:
The site seems to have stopped, with the last listed recording on the 30th of Aug. Has something major happened?


No it hasn't, it's still recording.
AS
Asa Admin
I guess you were visiting tvhome.uk/ That's a backup site I was doing some things with, which obviously should be redirecting to the .co.uk one.

(Separately, I'm surprised/impressed it held out to capture the EastEnders ident given the schedule was running 10mins late)
RE
Rexogamer
Asa posted:
I guess you were visiting tvhome.uk/ That's a backup site I was doing some things with, which obviously should be redirecting to the .co.uk one.

I was. Thanks for the heads up!
LW
LWTfan1968
Seems like it messes up a lot on TWO. It missed two straight idents/continuity announcements (Insect Worlds and Pointless). I'd have to imagine they had continuity, especially for Pointless (coming over from one, as they had coverage of a coronavirus thing or something from Downing Street). I did notice however that it did record that junction a minute early (during a trailer), so that may have something to do with it. For some reason one and itv both seem spot-on with the timing, so it must be something with TWO.
AS
Asa Admin
That's not unusual. I'm guessing Insect World was a last minute schedule change. There will be a delay before it picks those up, so it only realised at nearly half four. For Pointless, I've just manually nudged it ahead a few seconds.

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