The Newsroom

Election 74

on BBC Parliament on Friday 10th October (October 2014)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
BA
bilky asko
WW Update posted:
(Meteorologists are instructed not to wear anything remotely green when using a green screen, for instance.)


The BBC still use switchable blue/green screens in their CSO weather studios, I believe, which would help in some cases.
NG
noggin Founding member
bluecortina posted:

The only Philips LDK series I worked on were the 90/91's with the modified domestic camera sensors and rotating mechanical shutter. Sounds horrendous on paper but I have to say they worked very, very well. We had 5 of each type and in all the years they were in use we only had one failure, and only on one camera, and that was a classic dry solder joint on a pcb.

The mechanical shutter was a feature of the LDKs for a long time. As you say, sounded horrendous but in reality worked rather well. Unless you had to shoot single-chip DLP Barco projectors that used a spinning colour wheel. You could get some horrific colour beating if you didn't have things perfectly set-up. I believe that was one reason that BBC News replaced their LDK 100s with BVP-E30s when they introduced the Barco screens in 2003ish.

Quote:

Thinking about it, I think we also had some LDK 200's, but they never went wrong - a few talkback level issues at times but no faults - that's why I have trouble remembering anything about them - because they were so reliable. I was a great admirer of Philips camera products.


Great pictures, but their MCP/RCP camera control was a lot laggier than the equivalent Sony MSU/RCP system ISTR. Not popular with VSs.

And camera operators seem to universally prefer Sony cameras when running handheld.
BL
bluecortina
When I went on the LDK 90 maintenance course in Breda, Holland, the lecturer pointed the camera directly at a 5k lamp (fully on) and focussed up nicely and pinpoint clearly on the burning filament inside the lamp itself. I'd never seen anything like it in my life, incredible! On the other hand, lunch was bit odd, a planopy of cheese and thinly cut meats, thank goodness we made our own arrangements for breakfast and evening meals.

I believe if anyone reported no picture output from a camera the first thing to do was cock your head to the side of the camera case and listen for the rotating shutter, if it wasn't spinning because of a fault, it could well be stopped right in the optical light path. But as I say, we had pretty much zero faults on all these cameras and never experienced it!
Last edited by bluecortina on 17 October 2014 7:55pm

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