Headline Sequences

Not just cock-ups - some sequences require so many facilities (bits of vision mixer, VT machines or server ports etc.) that you can't do them live and then carry on with the programme at full pelt as soon as they've finished.

The cock-up issue is significant though - as clean headlines are important to keep viewers watching.

Look East pre-rec's their heads, and Norwich and Cambridge play out their own at 6:30, so one headline can come from the Cambridge opt.

They need to be exactly the right length though, so Cambridge can opt back to Norwich in time. Sometimes Norwich have screwed playing the headlines out, which has led to the presenters apologising - even though half the region didn't see the mistake!

Reporting Scotland at 1330 do, we once got the headlines played over Jackie shuffling with her papers, obviously trying to look like she didn't realise. The picture also has the 'pre-recorded look' to it: where it is slightly fuzzy, if you know what I mean.

However, the 1830 bulletin's headlines are live, I think...

time_warp Could you please up-load the LN COCKUP file again as it would not play when i downloaded it ?

Although it seems better somehow for Headlines to be live, cock-ups, especially on the BBC's Six and Ten, look very shabby.

The Six has an unusual Headline sequence but it may be an advantage to pre-record as it looks and indeed sounds very messy. Although it is very clearly live as when Blunkett resigned seconds before 6pm, on the stoke of 6 o'clock George was looking at his laptop and then started with a Blunkett resigns headline.

Last night's Ten was messy, the 'thunderbolts' were all out of sync, sounding half way through a headline drowning out Huw.

Here in the North West after a regional ident into the news, or when the regional opt hands back, the headlines/titles/sting seem to re-start. At the start of the 6 titiles following the regional headlines we often get the 'explosion' then they jump back to the begining and the picture ratio changes and they titles start from the begining again. Any reason for this, it happens on most bulletins, or did anyway?

Here it is again on putfile this time....hopefully it will work this time!

ITV Luchtime News Error

Points West pre-record theirs.

Sounds like a fault on the fixed delay on the digital chain which all the regions have.

The regional studio output, and the switching signal thatcuts between network and the local studio, are - or should be - delayed by the same amount that the digital network feed lags behind the analogue network feed, so that the switch happens at the same "point" in the programme, not the same time. The opt-out is still driven by the analogue network in timing terms - as analogue arrives before digital (as a result of the delay created by MPEG2 encoding and decoding)

Sounds like the delay in the switching signal or the video delay aren't correctly set at the moment, if you are getting analogue network leaking onto digital, and a time-slip effect... This will be a Manchester issue...

Are the regional inserts into the six heads and the coming up pre-recorded or are they live?

Are the headline sequences on the ITVNC prerecorded, as I've often seen things go wrong, such as the chimes play whilst the presenter is talking.

Varies region-by-region I think. Some pre-record the 1800 and 1815 inserts at the same time as they record their opening titles (usually afer 5pm) - meaning the presenters don't have to sit in the studio during the Six to do the headlines and promos live.

Others do all of the inserts live I think.

Given that the ITV headlines are recorded andthe regional headlines need to be inserted, is the headline sequence therefore a regional output?