BBC World News from New Broadcasting House

Oh dear why do I notice these things, on BBC Business Live titles, just before the BBC Business Live bit appears you can see the letter B of World Business Report, its very subtle although, blink and you will miss it, its also faded out but its there, watch it next time you are watching this show!

Why is the Singapore contribution full 16:9 for Newsday but has slight pillarboxing for Asia Business Report? I'm guessing the latter goes direct to Red Bee.

Could well be 720 vs 702 vs 1920 issues. Are you watching HD or SD?

16:9 SD is 702x576 and 1920x1080 HD should be scaled to 702x576 - except that often it isn't and is scaled to 720x576. Similarly 702x576 should be scaled to 1920x1080, except that sometimes 720x576 is scaled to 1920x1080 instead.

And then some displays show the full 720x576 (which is wider than 4:3 or 16:9) rather than only showing 702x576 (which - if you are being accurate - is the precise boundary of 4:3 or 16:9)

In the original BBC One HD chain (where BBC One SD was master and BBC One HD opted-out for HD show) there was a rogue converter in the chain that caused a few frames of stretched "HD-downconverted to SD-Upconverted to HD" to leak into the HD chain at the end of live programmes. You would see a brief twitch as BBC One HD cut back to upconverted BBC One SD and there was a brief width change.

I'm assuming SD, it's a probably not exactly official online stream.

I'm wondering whether the cameras are fibred back individually to Studio C's gallery for Newsday but mixed locally in Singapore for ABR and it's that mixer that is outputting slightly the wrong shape? The name supers and some VT packages don't quite reach the edge of the screen either.

That said it looked like the Singapore wide shot did fill the screen during ABR.

Removed due to double posting and issues deleting posts.

The simulcast version of Asia Buisness Report after Newsday broadcast on the NC last night had interference from thunderstorms. Not an everyday occurrence it seems. (Babita Sharma told viewers not taking any adverts this afterwords.)

Hopefully this is the right place to put this but I am wondering how automated BBC World News is? I know they use Mosart but in some photos it looks like they run a full gallery. Here in the US broadcasters think of automation as a ways to improve efficiency and reduce work force. In the past they may have had several people run a show but now they can run it with two people. Automation in the US means you frequently won't have someone operating the vision mixer, sound board, play out and cameras but in some of these pictures that the BBC has operators running that equipment.

Or do they just save the full automation for short / overnight bulletins?

IIRC it's automated to the point they can operate on a minimum of three technical staff. The people you see in the gallery at the top of the hour were only there for the recording of that footage. There's hardly ever a vision mixer (person) being used for example. Different studios and different programmes have different requirements - they can scale up to a full normal technical crew for certain programmes if needed.

I think when they moved in sound was always staffed but was there mention of moving this to automation - perhaps not all the time though. Do we know of this did happen or was this reconsidered?

BBC News has run with automation since at least 1997. News 24 (the original domestic equivalent of BBC World News) launched with Columbus playout automation which controlled the Profile playout servers (later replaced by Omneons), vision mixer, aston caption generator, and could control cameras (though this was only used briefly for a top of the hour camera move in the 1998 relaunch) In that era sound was entirely manual, and whilst remote cameras were used they were manually operated by the director. Interviews were manually vision mixed by the director, but headline effects, wipe sequences, and package runs were automated, as were captions.

Mosart has added another layer to this. BBC News Channel, and for most shows, BBC World News, don't use a vision mixer, with Mosart controlling the Kahuna vision mixers in use at New Broadcasting House, remotely. Similarly the Quantel playout servers, VizRT engines, screen feeds, DVE boxes etc. are all Mosart controlled, as are the Furio tracking cameras in some situations. There is some sound control, though I think it is usual for someone to sit at the desk - and I believe BBC World News and BBC News Channel run slightly differently.

There are different levels of staffing for different output - as one would expect.

Ignore the gallery shots that are used in the top of the hour countdowns - they were 'codded' for impact...

Thanks, I wasn't referring to the top of the hour countdowns rather some photos a few different directors have tweeted. I knew how the automation ties and controls things together but some of those photos that I've seen show a different picture of people operating all the above. But come to think of it those photos come from people who direct the big shows such as the 10PM and 6PM bulletins.

For the main bulletins there is likely to be someone in lighting and vision who will also set shots, a sound person, a text producer, a prompt operator, a director, a second director (who assists and handles comms), a sound person, plus at least one or more output producers.

Staffing will reduce for the continuous output at some points.

Studio B has more staff for some shows - and has a vision mixer for Newsnight, Andrew Marr, Sunday Politics.