BBC News Channel: Presentation

Just a guess but it's probably a recording from analogue. There are only a finite number of digital receivers at Television Centre and most are tuned to sports channels and things like CNN, Sky News etc. It was probably far easier to lift the Brits from analogue than book a digital tuner and get essentially the same pictures from digital.

I presume this is the point where I insert the inevitable "what, but you can get a freeview box for a tenner" comment...

Having said that, it would be interesting to see how large the BBC's digital switchover bill is come 2012. BTW do they receive all ITV regions at TVC? And how did they do so in the days before Sky if that's the current setup? Off topic I know but still.

Yes, but an off the shelf set top box for a tenner (a) isn't going to last very long being switched on 24/7 in a non-domestic setting and (b) isn't going to have the required output (like SDI) to go straight onto a broadcasters matrix without a converter and audio embedder. Dedicated professional DTT receivers with the appropriate outputs are available at reasonable cost (they're often based on domestic set top boxes but with upgraded power supplies and output cards and so-on.)

As for regional reception at TVC, I'm not sure all ITV regional stations were ever ordinarily received at TVC before Sky (I'm not even sure that all are received now except on an as required basis). It's true that the London ITV contractor was recieved from CP and fed to matrices for monitoring purposes. I've a feeling Hannington might have been available too but ISTR it was pretty low quality DX reception and was more often than not used to check that BBC Southampton had opted. I would imagine ITV London is still available in the matrices at the centre.

Apart from Elstree, none of the other BBC Regional sites were ordinarily 'received' at Television Centre AFAIK either. If one was required then it had to be booked and fed down the line. There were only a finite number of circuits between sites so it might not technically have been possible to have all the regions available at TVC at the same time. Those round-the-Regions things during Children in Need had to be carefully contructed so that the major switching centres at Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester had time to route on the appropriate regions in turn (Plymouth and Cardiff's circuits (possibly Southampton's too, I can't remember) went to Bristol before being routed on up to the centre for example). Nowadays the entire structure of the circuits between regions and the transmission routing has changed completely.

Outputs I'll grant you, but most set top boxes are used to running 24/7 - I mean, does anyone ever switch theirs off?

And I know racks build up heat, which can make PSUs die rather quickly - but my own setup is hot enough to fry an egg, and my box seems to cope.

Don't know why I'm arguing the toss though - when I was in equipment sales I said precisely the same thing!

I think it is a legacy from ITV off-air kit being installed in the days of analogue TV (when there was no digital ITV to record) - and it is still an off-air analogue feed (you can see the ghosting on it)

Another issue is that if you record analogue off-air you can guarantee the aspect ratio - recording Freeview or Freesat/Sky Digital ITV1 means you have to cope with both 4:3 and 16:9 video - and run with dynamic ARCs somewhere in the chain - or record two feeds... Very easy to get the wrong shape pictures that way - which happens on the Sky Digital feeds now and again... (For years the BBC One recorded feed was also 4:3 analogue - but there is now a permanent 16:9 feed internally, with 4:3 content pillarboxed rather than full-width)

Is it a case of let's play with the daytime newsroom backdrops? One day its all grey, the next day it has some blue on the fake floor beams?

I'm sure the viewers are outraged at this obvious increase in blue.

Clearly this is subliminal BBC advertising for the conservative party.

You may laugh. BBC News went from blue to red a couple of years after Labour came to power. Now the Tories are about to take over again...?

I do laugh, because if you check the history of BBC News looks, there isn't a direct correlation. 1976, the colours were yellow and red, 1979, it did go blue, but 1981, and the chinese lantern look, went red again, 1985 went back to blue, though the 9 was gold and black. In 1988, the standard BBC News look was actually black and cyan. 1993, the main colour was blue, but it wasn't until 1999, that it went red again, in this case red and beige. 2004, it was changed to red and black and 2008, red and white.

Quite honestly, the conspiracy theories about BBC News colour schemes and political party in power seem to come from the same camp that thinks the BBC is a hot-bed of liberalism. Enough with the easily disprovable silly conspiracy theories already!

Which gallery was controlling what output during the Bafta build up period?

NC was broadcasting the build up.

BBC One was broadcasting the news bulletin at 535 from the N6 studio.

Obviously N6 was doing the one thing, but was it TC7 or N9's gallery doing the other thing?

I'm guessing N6 did the news bulletin, but TC7/N9 did the Bafta's?

There was no simulcast.

There was, it was on BBC News Channel & BBC World News.