Bit disappointed to find the 1999 countdown is not an original.
This is a late reply but you should grab a 1080 clip from YouTube with something like KeepVid and have a look at it - the quality is fine. Decent bitrate.
The holy grail was always to catch the full 90 second countdown - which you were more likely to see on BBC1 at the crossover point to News 24. Despite numerous attempts, however, the most I ever got was 89 seconds!
Chances are that it started at 89. After all if it's a 90 second countdown and the 0 is seen before the top of the hour cut then it must start at 89?
Even if the actual clip itself started with the graphic on 90, putting it in for a duration of 90 seconds would cue it on 89
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 10 November 2017 10:29am
The holy grail was always to catch the full 90 second countdown - which you were more likely to see on BBC1 at the crossover point to News 24. Despite numerous attempts, however, the most I ever got was 89 seconds!
Chances are that it started at 89. After all if it's a 90 second countdown and the 0 is seen before the top of the hour cut then it must start at 89?
Would have liked to have seen a few more of the countdowns today, not just the titles montage and two countdowns we saw.
I'm afraid our current archive deal prevented us doing that, we did what we could, sorry if that wasn't enough.
Chris, out of interest, I'd love to know if the BBC still has original copies of its BBC News idents/countdowns etc. Is that sort of stuff kept for posterity or deleted/destroyed after its useful life?
Many thanks for all your efforts yesterday - it was fantastic to see the old flags again in particular!
They always keep that sort of thing as BBC2's 26 year old idents prove. The only missing BBC idents at all are probably a few of the early BBC1 Christmas symbols.
I wonder if Ben ended his forecast that way harking back to the classic Daniel Corbett "that's your weather... for now" point finger, nod head ending? Given that they were talking about Dan Corbett being the first News 24 weather presenter and how he's now in NZ it wouldn't surprise me.
So what was the first programme to broadcast on BBC News 24? The channel itself launched at 17:30 but the first proper news broadcast wasn't until 18:00 with Gavin Esler and Sarah Montague (as shown on the clock from the 1997 footage). What filled the first half hour on the channel? Was it some form of 'what is News 24' type programme?
The countdown filler came about as a way of buffering up to the exact top of the hour. With no adverts, regions or affiliates, or even an MCR type Presentation department involved in the transmission of News 24/Channel, it’s always meant that programme timings aren’t that critical. However the top of the hour is almost always hit to the second and so the flags and then countdowns were conceived as a way of running some channel promotion which could be joined as required already running up to the top of the hour.
Okay. Sounds like it was just so you didn’t have to cut content or find trails for upcoming programs to fit the exact time to the top of the hour.
Yes and no. News 24 has no separate Playout operation, and works very similarly to BBC Radio 5 Live. The use of a pre-fade to get you to the top of the hour is a well known and well used TV and Radio technique (they are also used to get regular shows to an off-air time accurately) The countdown is just a very nicely designed example of a pre-fade.
The News 24 gallery operation could add and drop promos to get approximately to the top of the hour - but would never hit 'second accurate' without the prefade, as the promos were almost always 30" long - with no more granularity to play with than that (there were some exceptions to the 30" rule). It was always a rule on News 24 that you hit the top of the hour to the second - just like some radio channels hit the pips.
Is the prefade automatic? Where it would cut to the vision mixer output regardless if it was ready?
Also how is the countdown scheduled - If there’s no separate playout operation does Mosart do it and how is it handled? I ask since it doesn’t have a set start time does the server start playing out at a set time and Mosart cuts to it when all that’s scheduled is played.
Last edited by Rkolsen on 10 November 2017 11:43am
They always keep that sort of thing as BBC2's 26 year old idents prove. The only missing BBC idents at all are probably a few of the early BBC1 Christmas symbols.
To be fair there were all modals and were broadcasts live. It was only from late 80s, there were put on films. I would love to know if hogamany idents are still kept in Glasgow.
Okay. Sounds like it was just so you didn’t have to cut content or find trails for upcoming programs to fit the exact time to the top of the hour.
Yes and no. News 24 has no separate Playout operation, and works very similarly to BBC Radio 5 Live. The use of a pre-fade to get you to the top of the hour is a well known and well used TV and Radio technique (they are also used to get regular shows to an off-air time accurately) The countdown is just a very nicely designed example of a pre-fade.
The News 24 gallery operation could add and drop promos to get approximately to the top of the hour - but would never hit 'second accurate' without the prefade, as the promos were almost always 30" long - with no more granularity to play with than that (there were some exceptions to the 30" rule). It was always a rule on News 24 that you hit the top of the hour to the second - just like some radio channels hit the pips.
Is the prefade automatic? Where it would cut to the vision mixer output regardless if it was ready?
Also how is the countdown scheduled - If there’s no separate playout operation does Mosart do it and how is it handled? I ask since it doesn’t have a set start time does the server start playing out at a set time and Mosart cuts to it when all that’s scheduled is played.
It starts automatically at xx:59:00 or xx:58:30 (from a server I believe) and is cut to by the director in the gallery manually when needed.
So what was the first programme to broadcast on BBC News 24? The channel itself launched at 17:30 but the first proper news broadcast wasn't until 18:00 with Gavin Esler and Sarah Montague (as shown on the clock from the 1997 footage). What filled the first half hour on the channel? Was it some form of 'what is News 24' type programme?
A preface programme about the history of BBC News and what to look forward to on N24.