BBC World News from New Broadcasting House

The overhead camera? Yes it is. It's used sometimes on morning Biz Live as an overhead shot looking at the Tablet during the news review. It occasionally makes an appearance during the 0545 paper review too.

At TV Centre the automation had a facility to give counts out of packages and possibly to fixed opt points or the end of the programme in the way that a PA would in a more manual gallery (using Fiona Bruce's voice I think). I assume Mosart does something similar?

I think Mosart has a separate screen that's up on the multi viewer showing the countdowns of packages, the timing left and if your talent takes too long reading a package. I believe Ross OverDrive, which is widely used in the US, the counts are overlayed in the preview / program Windows so you don't have to look far.

The BBC have used several timing "voice" systems over the years. Fiona was the default voice of the timing system within BigTed3, which is still used in almost all English regions. BigTed3 combines automatic creation of captions (though they're often mixed to air manually) and timing functions. At TVC, network news Columbus automation had a timing function known as "Dorothy" or "Digital Dorothy" and had the voice of a former PA ... called Dorothy encoded on it I believe. Mosart has a timing system as part of it that includes a display and a voice timer, which does counts on each item and counts on programme.

Not sure where that Urban Myth sprang from - both voices on the BBC TVC implementation of Columbus - the playout system that generated Digital Dorothy's voice - were recorded by Omnibus Systems staff.

There was a short-lived voice that ran until Christmas 1997, which was then replaced (because it was so terribly depressing) with a new recording from the same person (I think). Certainly the long-standing 'Digital Dorothy' voice that ran post-Christmas 1997 until Columbus was retired was the voice of someone who worked at Omnibus (I think the receptionist).

Very spooky to meet her in the flesh... Apparently everyone asked her to count backwards...

(She wasn't called Dorothy ISTR, and she wasn't a PA)

News Control, which was the other Omnibus system used for playout in BBC News, used to trigger Bigted for timings and caption automation, so when that playout system was being used, Digital Fiona (aka Fiona Bruce's voice from Bigted) was heard. Slightly spooky when Fiona was presenting. (Particularly the strident 'STANDBY TIGHT ASTON - TIGHT ASTON NOW')

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. I'd always had a little bit of uncertainty about Dorithy's back story!! Incidentally, it was entirely possible to replace Fiona with any voice you fancied, as they were just little wav files. I always fancied putting on a Dalek shouting 'Exterminate' in place of 'Aston Now'. Just for fun you understand. Nothing malicious.

Is the fact the gallery overnight is having to sustain the NC, the reason why there is a two second glimpse of the domestic end to the countdown on WN just after the end of that countdown at the TOTH?

You also see some trailers at the BOTH and occasionally a few words right before the sting leading to the newspapers segment.

I know we discussed the directors or PA's counting down to the breaks to Ericsson but is their system set up to automatically switch to the gallery at the TOTH? And I'm curious about World Business Report intro after the BOTH headlines is that played out from Ericsson or the gallery?

I still think BBC World after watching it for so many years still feels a bit rough around the edges, the way it just crashes into the countdown, occasionally opt out of the news feed too early, leaving the weather presenter looking gormless for seconds,that happened last week as well, its by no means perfect really but I guess with several versions to run, it will never be spot on.

It runs like a schedule on any other channel. There'll be a fixed point going to the studio at hr:00:00:00 but this can be moved if necessary like anything else in the schedule (but I'm sure that practically never happens). There isn't anything other than the schedule that automatically cuts to the studio at the top of the hour.

Incidentally, the countdown doesn't run as a clip, it's a loop permanently running on a source in Playout 2 so whatever time the schedule hits it, it will be at the right point in the countdown.

I believe there isn't actually a vision mixer in the World Pres playout suite anymore, so all transitions are cuts. It was always the case previously that only the core service had a vision mixer and all regional opts (including ad breaks) simply cut away, did their thing, then cut back (although the Europe stream got its own mixer in the latter days of TVC operation, and its own schedule, which was a nightmare to keep in step with the core if you weren't completely on top of it). This is why you might find on YouTube a few ads then a crash back to the Breakfiller. However the core service itself, including trails, symbols and countdowns did used to have transitions. Now there isn't really a core service, but a number of regional streams all of which are controlled from Pres, it's simpler to have them all use cut transitions. That's why the countdown is simply cut to, whichever stream you are watching.

The top of the hour is always a fixed point. The bottom of the hour is sometimes an automatic transition when Pres have multiple opts to deal with and sadly if the presenter overruns, they get cut off. Sometimes news can arrange an overrun with Pres, and the transition is held until news have finished. On overnights, when the news gallery are sustaining the news channel, you'll occasionally see flashes of uk trails on the world output - this is unfortunate but is a downside of world pres not having clean studio output to cut to. The news directors aim to hit opt points cleanly but sometimes don't quite get them spot on.

The 0500 hour contains multiple opts for World Pres, while the news channel is sustained with packages, weather forecasts and trails. The bit before the paper review is particularly tricky. WBR ends, pres opt out. The camera has to reframe to the news presenter who links into a package. The news director has to check when world are coming back from the break, do the maths, tell the presenter how long they have to fill (usually with a trail to what's on breakfast and who's presenting), count them back, cut to the wide shot, opt world in and then carry on with the quarter heads. During all of that, the Buisness presenter sits down, the paper review guest and the papers need to get on set, get micd up and the camera positions need to be tweaked. It's unfortunate that occasionally the presenter might still talking when world opt back but there you are.

Posts like these make up for a thousand kiddies posting nonsense about things they don't understand - thanks