The Newsroom

BBC News branding has become a mess?

(August 2007)

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IN
intheknow
imaginativename posted:
Also another thing which is vaguley related. Whenever I watch the national news on BBC one, during the opening titles, there is always a jerk in the sequence at some point as they play out. It happens on every tv in my house, on the tv in my brother's house, and on my tv at uni, so I know it isn't my tv at home! What causes this?


I'm presuming by your forum profile that you watch BBC North West. This jerk in the titles has happened on analogue ever since North West Today/Tonight switched to a temporary gallery while the main gallery was upgraded (I think NWT went widescreen around this point), Presumably, they are back in the main gallery now, but the jump still occurs. It only happens on analogue though, if you watch on digital platforms, everything is as it should be.
RE
Revitt
Andrew posted:
imaginativename posted:
Also another thing which is vaguley related. Whenever I watch the national news on BBC one, during the opening titles, there is always a jerk in the sequence at some point as they play out. It happens on every tv in my house, on the tv in my brother's house, and on my tv at uni, so I know it isn't my tv at home! What causes this?

That's your region opting back in after the headlines. BBC1 routed via your region must be a fraction of a second different to Network. I expect it happens across all the regions


Yes, but what is the point of opting back in straight after the headlines all the time? It would be much better if they didn't opt back in until the end of the news bulletin. It drives me mad the jerk forwards during the titles and the jerk backwards during the weather on the one and six.
TG
TG
If they didn't opt back, the whole bulletin would go out with black curtains on digital, just as the local bulletins used to before going 'properly' wide.
IS
Inspector Sands
noggin posted:

That is a throw-back to the original Lambie-Nairn branding when all regional and national titles had cut-outs of their "editorial" (or was it "geographical") patches combined with placename lettering shuffling on.


Which were known as 'destinations'

Bit unfortunate about Look North's use of this element though:
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/lntitles.jpg
Laughing
AN
Ant
Andrew posted:
imaginativename posted:
Also another thing which is vaguley related. Whenever I watch the national news on BBC one, during the opening titles, there is always a jerk in the sequence at some point as they play out. It happens on every tv in my house, on the tv in my brother's house, and on my tv at uni, so I know it isn't my tv at home! What causes this?

That's your region opting back in after the headlines. BBC1 routed via your region must be a fraction of a second different to Network. I expect it happens across all the regions

It happens in Scotland too, I've noticed. It always happens when the titles are playing (usually towards the end making the last beep sound out of place). Noticed it on both digital and analogue.

Get it soooorteed.
PE
peterrocket Founding member
Inspector Sands posted:
noggin posted:

That is a throw-back to the original Lambie-Nairn branding when all regional and national titles had cut-outs of their "editorial" (or was it "geographical") patches combined with placename lettering shuffling on.


Which were known as 'destinations'

Bit unfortunate about Look North's use of this element though:
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/lntitles.jpg
Laughing


Ahh, but then the biggest clanger is the Reporting Scotland titles, where on the last frame of the sting, the place names shuffling in the background are all from Northern Ireland.

(There was a still online but I can't seem to get at it)

Someone forgot to change them after they made the Newsline version!
SP
Steve in Pudsey
TG posted:
If they didn't opt back, the whole bulletin would go out with black curtains on digital, just as the local bulletins used to before going 'properly' wide.


Also means the local studio is able to rehearse/pre-record if required during the six.
HA
harshy Founding member
i agree there is way too much inconsistancy, but I don't think its too bad on News 24, on World you get complete mismatches, although with this recent look, things have improve a bit, they still got a breakfiller with the orange globe while the ident has a red globe, with the 1999-2003 look, everything was well presented with the branding elements looking well integrated and polished, but now with Red Bee, we've ended up with inconsistancy.
NG
noggin Founding member
Revitt posted:
Andrew posted:
imaginativename posted:
Also another thing which is vaguley related. Whenever I watch the national news on BBC one, during the opening titles, there is always a jerk in the sequence at some point as they play out. It happens on every tv in my house, on the tv in my brother's house, and on my tv at uni, so I know it isn't my tv at home! What causes this?

That's your region opting back in after the headlines. BBC1 routed via your region must be a fraction of a second different to Network. I expect it happens across all the regions


Yes, but what is the point of opting back in straight after the headlines all the time? It would be much better if they didn't opt back in until the end of the news bulletin. It drives me mad the jerk forwards during the titles and the jerk backwards during the weather on the one and six.


They wouldn't be able to rehearse or pre-record anything as the main studio mixer would be in circuit.
NG
noggin Founding member
TG posted:
If they didn't opt back, the whole bulletin would go out with black curtains on digital, just as the local bulletins used to before going 'properly' wide.


Not in most regions (Hull may be an exception) - the digital opt-out is triggered by a red-light/tally for the analogue network source on the regional news studio's vision mixer going out, when the mixer is cut away from analogue network. Only analogue transmitters are fed from the soft-opt (ignoring the oddball Jersey kludge), the digital transmitters and DSat are fed from a hard-opt triggered by the network tally.

Some regions have a secondary analogue network source on their mixer to get round this - to force an opt-out with network on the mixer on both analogue AND digital transmitters. This allows captions to be superimposed for example, but the quality of the digital network drops (it is composite PAL 14:9 letterbox ARCed to 14:9 pillarbox - so is reduced vertical resolution, cropped horizontally and has poor quality colour)

As long as the real analogue network source is left cut up on the studio mixer the digital feed is not "opted out" - and digital network from London continues to be broadcast. If the jumps are present on digital (which they shouldn't be as the digital delay in the studio output feeding the digital opt-out switch should compensate) then these would happen at the actual point the region cut to or from network - NOT when they soft-opted.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
From what I've seen Leeds DSat usually has the headlines on the six pillarboxed. Presumably that means that they've taking the heads via a second network feed so it doesn't opt back?
NG
noggin Founding member
Steve in Pudsey posted:
From what I've seen Leeds DSat usually has the headlines on the six pillarboxed. Presumably that means that they've taking the heads via a second network feed so it doesn't opt back?


Yep - Leeds did some sort of kludge for the end heads. Not sure if this was to allow them to do mixes or fades to black (which can't be done using the normal DTT opt) - or whether it was to do with the Hull sub-opt at the time.

Of course there aren't any end heads any more since The One Show came back...

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