MY
I'd have expected Rico to step in and take over from whoever this guy was. Sounds like he was really messing things up.
To be fair, Rico has had moments like that too.
As pointed out, it's the communication delay, not so much on competence. Mariko used to present from Singapore on Newsday some years back pretty regularly until she was stationed as correspondence at various countries and then went to NBH for a while, went on maternity leave (if memory serves me right) and back again to Singapore where she is now.
I noticed Babita closing the show with "I'm Babita Sharma in London" and she waited for Mariko to close, but Mariko didn't and she was just smiling and Babita smiled for 5 seconds waiting
I'd have expected Rico to step in and take over from whoever this guy was. Sounds like he was really messing things up.
To be fair, Rico has had moments like that too.
As pointed out, it's the communication delay, not so much on competence. Mariko used to present from Singapore on Newsday some years back pretty regularly until she was stationed as correspondence at various countries and then went to NBH for a while, went on maternity leave (if memory serves me right) and back again to Singapore where she is now.
CI
It's not a stupid question, in fact some broadcasters do this already. ESPN's Around The Horn has contributors from Los Angeles to Boston, and they use fibre connections, to minimise delay between the central hub in New Yotk, and the various contribution studios.
Excuse the stupid question but would using fibre provide a reduced delay?
It's not a stupid question, in fact some broadcasters do this already. ESPN's Around The Horn has contributors from Los Angeles to Boston, and they use fibre connections, to minimise delay between the central hub in New Yotk, and the various contribution studios.
MA
It's not a stupid question, in fact some broadcasters do this already. ESPN's Around The Horn has contributors from Los Angeles to Boston, and they use fibre connections, to minimise delay between the central hub in New Yotk, and the various contribution studios.
To explain why fibre does reduce the delay, it's simply that the signal path is much shorter than using satellite hops. It takes two hops to reach the Far East, so that's 22,000 miles up to the satellite, and 22,000 back, two hops, total path 88,000 miles. Signals travel at slightly less than the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second, so just under a half second delay. That's discounting any coding and decoding delays, which can be a fraction or two of a second too.
Fibre paths are obviously much shorter, London to Singapore, 8 to 10000 miles, and you're often not having to cram and compress the signal, as much as you might through a satellite channel.
I make quite a few intercontinental phone calls, and over the last five or so years, delays are far less (even considering that the routing is increasingly IP these days).
Satellite links, and terrestrial microwave links are used less and less for all comms, and don't forget that the BT Tower (and all of its cousins around the UK) have virtually no microwave dishes on them, and those remaining are no longer used I suspect
Excuse the stupid question but would using fibre provide a reduced delay?
It's not a stupid question, in fact some broadcasters do this already. ESPN's Around The Horn has contributors from Los Angeles to Boston, and they use fibre connections, to minimise delay between the central hub in New Yotk, and the various contribution studios.
To explain why fibre does reduce the delay, it's simply that the signal path is much shorter than using satellite hops. It takes two hops to reach the Far East, so that's 22,000 miles up to the satellite, and 22,000 back, two hops, total path 88,000 miles. Signals travel at slightly less than the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second, so just under a half second delay. That's discounting any coding and decoding delays, which can be a fraction or two of a second too.
Fibre paths are obviously much shorter, London to Singapore, 8 to 10000 miles, and you're often not having to cram and compress the signal, as much as you might through a satellite channel.
I make quite a few intercontinental phone calls, and over the last five or so years, delays are far less (even considering that the routing is increasingly IP these days).
Satellite links, and terrestrial microwave links are used less and less for all comms, and don't forget that the BT Tower (and all of its cousins around the UK) have virtually no microwave dishes on them, and those remaining are no longer used I suspect
NG
noggin
Founding member
Yep - fibre can help reduce the delay, as the signal path is shorter. However it doesn't guarantee no latency - though everything else being equal it could improve it.
However if you run at a low bitrate over fibre, you may well end up using a long GOP codec config (to improve the picture quality) which will mean an increased coding/decoding latency. If you want low latency fibre you pay for it with either reduced picture quality or increased bitrate requirements - everything else being equal. In my experience codec delay is now as significant as path delay (though if you are using satellite links for talkback as well that can add significant latency too)
At the end of the day, you can have low latency if you are prepared to pay for it.
(Often you can reduce the number of satellite hops you need by replacing one of them with fibre. So if you have a satellite contribution in the Pacific, you could use a single hop to get it to downlinked in the mainland USA and then fibre it back to the UK. If you don't decode the MPEG2/H264 in the US and instead backhaul the received transport stream untouched over fibre you can remove a decode/code delay as well)
However if you run at a low bitrate over fibre, you may well end up using a long GOP codec config (to improve the picture quality) which will mean an increased coding/decoding latency. If you want low latency fibre you pay for it with either reduced picture quality or increased bitrate requirements - everything else being equal. In my experience codec delay is now as significant as path delay (though if you are using satellite links for talkback as well that can add significant latency too)
At the end of the day, you can have low latency if you are prepared to pay for it.
(Often you can reduce the number of satellite hops you need by replacing one of them with fibre. So if you have a satellite contribution in the Pacific, you could use a single hop to get it to downlinked in the mainland USA and then fibre it back to the UK. If you don't decode the MPEG2/H264 in the US and instead backhaul the received transport stream untouched over fibre you can remove a decode/code delay as well)
NG
Satellite links, and terrestrial microwave links are used less and less for all comms, and don't forget that the BT Tower (and all of its cousins around the UK) have virtually no microwave dishes on them, and those remaining are no longer used I suspect
Microwave is nowhere near as widespread - but it is still used for broadcast. Point-to-point temporary links are still used for contribution circuits from OBs, and in some cases to link multiple locations within an OB site.
IP contribution circuits are beginning to be used - where a high-bandwidth internet connection is used to get stuff back to base. This is the case particularly with News, though other areas of broadcasting are also using them.
noggin
Founding member
Satellite links, and terrestrial microwave links are used less and less for all comms, and don't forget that the BT Tower (and all of its cousins around the UK) have virtually no microwave dishes on them, and those remaining are no longer used I suspect
Microwave is nowhere near as widespread - but it is still used for broadcast. Point-to-point temporary links are still used for contribution circuits from OBs, and in some cases to link multiple locations within an OB site.
IP contribution circuits are beginning to be used - where a high-bandwidth internet connection is used to get stuff back to base. This is the case particularly with News, though other areas of broadcasting are also using them.
WO
Satellite links, and terrestrial microwave links are used less and less for all comms, and don't forget that the BT Tower (and all of its cousins around the UK) have virtually no microwave dishes on them, and those remaining are no longer used I suspect
Microwave is nowhere near as widespread - but it is still used for broadcast. Point-to-point temporary links are still used for contribution circuits from OBs, and in some cases to link multiple locations within an OB site.
IP contribution circuits are beginning to be used - where a high-bandwidth internet connection is used to get stuff back to base. This is the case particularly with News, though other areas of broadcasting are also using them.
Yes, our radio station uses a variety of microwave and Band 1 links. Our main studio to TX link is 5.8ghz microwave and for O/B's we tend to use Band 1.
Satellite links, and terrestrial microwave links are used less and less for all comms, and don't forget that the BT Tower (and all of its cousins around the UK) have virtually no microwave dishes on them, and those remaining are no longer used I suspect
Microwave is nowhere near as widespread - but it is still used for broadcast. Point-to-point temporary links are still used for contribution circuits from OBs, and in some cases to link multiple locations within an OB site.
IP contribution circuits are beginning to be used - where a high-bandwidth internet connection is used to get stuff back to base. This is the case particularly with News, though other areas of broadcasting are also using them.
Yes, our radio station uses a variety of microwave and Band 1 links. Our main studio to TX link is 5.8ghz microwave and for O/B's we tend to use Band 1.
MA
Satellite links, and terrestrial microwave links are used less and less for all comms, and don't forget that the BT Tower (and all of its cousins around the UK) have virtually no microwave dishes on them, and those remaining are no longer used I suspect
Microwave is nowhere near as widespread - but it is still used for broadcast. Point-to-point temporary links are still used for contribution circuits from OBs, and in some cases to link multiple locations within an OB site.
IP contribution circuits are beginning to be used - where a high-bandwidth internet connection is used to get stuff back to base. This is the case particularly with News, though other areas of broadcasting are also using them.
Yes, our radio station uses a variety of microwave and Band 1 links. Our main studio to TX link is 5.8ghz microwave and for O/B's we tend to use Band 1.
Yes, I'm sure you do, although Band I links can suffer badly from interference during atmospheric lift conditions, BBC 1 from Crystal Palace on Band 1 Ch 1 was sometimes received on other continents, including an SABC monitoring station in South Africa, which is why it is no longer used for direct to home broadcasting in most countries now.
The microwave backbone BT operated that connected TV and phone lines between the major cities
has all but gone now, the bandwidth requirements for TV, telephony, and of course the internet means that
fibre has to be used, microwave links just don't have the bandwidth. Fine for OBs, temporary set ups, and local radio where you're just transporting a few feeds, but not for national backbones.
Satellite links, and terrestrial microwave links are used less and less for all comms, and don't forget that the BT Tower (and all of its cousins around the UK) have virtually no microwave dishes on them, and those remaining are no longer used I suspect
Microwave is nowhere near as widespread - but it is still used for broadcast. Point-to-point temporary links are still used for contribution circuits from OBs, and in some cases to link multiple locations within an OB site.
IP contribution circuits are beginning to be used - where a high-bandwidth internet connection is used to get stuff back to base. This is the case particularly with News, though other areas of broadcasting are also using them.
Yes, our radio station uses a variety of microwave and Band 1 links. Our main studio to TX link is 5.8ghz microwave and for O/B's we tend to use Band 1.
Yes, I'm sure you do, although Band I links can suffer badly from interference during atmospheric lift conditions, BBC 1 from Crystal Palace on Band 1 Ch 1 was sometimes received on other continents, including an SABC monitoring station in South Africa, which is why it is no longer used for direct to home broadcasting in most countries now.
The microwave backbone BT operated that connected TV and phone lines between the major cities
has all but gone now, the bandwidth requirements for TV, telephony, and of course the internet means that
fibre has to be used, microwave links just don't have the bandwidth. Fine for OBs, temporary set ups, and local radio where you're just transporting a few feeds, but not for national backbones.
SP
Product Placement to be allowed on World - looks like just the back half hour programmes, rather than News proper
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/32339152
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/32339152
DE
News cannot be sponsored. I think ofcom rules apply to BBC World News because it's up linked from the UK. Regardless, I am sure editorially there would be no desire for a BBC News programme to be influenced
during
the programmes by commercial money. Centre breaks are slightly different because of the distinct separation between news output and commercials. The BBC.com website is also slightly different editorially because the ads are in specific and separate windows, and not part of the news stories AIUI.