BBC World News - to 14th January 2013

Something rather unusual turned up in the office this week: a COW.

But not any COW I've seen before: when it was plugged in to a monitor,
it did this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/nonstick/vlcsnap-2011-06-26-18h13m02s158-1.png

Does anyone know if it was ever used on air? WSTV is a bit of a mysterious beast, and there isn't much evidence of it online. Transdiffusion has a few screengrabs, but only with a fairly stylised version of the COW.

If anyone's interested in what they look like, by the way, it's a rather large box. You can see one here. (Along with a GNAT, one of which turned up too)

Yep the World Service Television service adopted the COW until well into the early 90's, well into when we started using the Smokey world.

Example here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B-UynV02l0

That's really fascinating, and it still worked which seems like it was built to last.

I wonder if any of the BBC1 ones are knocking around anywhere?

Talking of "blasts from the past", how fantastic it is to see Sue Lawley presenting on the channel today! I don't recall seeing The Reith Lectures before. Does she present it every year?

Thanks for that really high quality capture, any chance of video? I know that would be pushing it slightly, but if I never ask, I'll never get.

What does the GNAT produce when its turned on? Anything previously broadcast?

You should take the cards out and see what happens, that article states it won't render a thing, so if you took out the right one you could show what the COW would have looked like if it had made it to the year 2600....

Have a mock to keep you occupied:

BBC World being inventive at weekends!!! Ros Atkins is the duty presenter, and is stood at the newswall to intro at least the first story. Unheard of at weekends. Also, using the newswall behind him to run film, as opposed to statics depicting the story.

Furthermore, he was "astoned" (is that a word?) as follows:

ROS ATKINS
Twitter @RosAtkinsBBC Facebook: BBCRos


Inventive indeed. One wonders just how much of a say Ros has in the production of today's bulletin. He tends to always bring something "pacey" to World bulletins.

Do I like it? Hmmmmmmm.

The boxes have both been sent away (to BBC Heritage, I believe), but we've got recordings on server, so I'll see if I can get a little bit off and onto YouTube. I've had a play with a COW elsewhere (the Midlands one - see if you can guess which BBC site it might have retired to), and removing some cards does indeed give you a blue or gold globe.

The GNAT had a balloon background (and flicking a switch changed the ident to add a 'South East' line). It's quite a simple bit of kit - and has a processor card for each hand. You can set the positions of the hands individually, and it required a bit of fiddling to get them positioned correctly, as the clock face wasn't quite centred on the screen! You can read more about the GNAT on the BBC R&D info sheet [pdf].

Off Topic, but have you seen this 16:9 version of the COW?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchanddevelopment/tc0_500.jpg

Who's in for Matt Frei on World News America now? I would assume it's been a load of BBC US-based correspondents with Katty Kay every now and then. I hope they choose his successor wisely.

Should be in presenters thread, but has he actually left and when can we expect him to start at Channel 4? I think he finished his Americana show on BBC Radio last week.