The Newsroom

New BBC Singapore studio

I thought that splitting it from the main thread might be nice... (July 2015)

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NG
noggin Founding member

This would be a hard camera and this would be a soft camera. Cameras like the P1 are called box cameras.


Ah - never heard that distinction used before. Must be a US thing. Here an HDC-2000 would be called a 'full size' and and HDC-2500 would be called a 'lightweight'. In the early days of lightweights they were often described as 'handhelds' because they were often only used when handheld working was required, as they sometimes had compromised picture quality.

However once we switched to CCDs that distinction had pretty much gone, as they delivered identical picture quality, and many broadcasters and facilities stopped buying 'full size' cameras and ran entirely with 'lightweights', using box lens conversion cradles for big lenses if needed. This was particularly the case for outside broadcasts where running an entirely light-weight fleet of cameras allows you greater flexibility of deployment. The same was also true of some, but not all, studio operations. The BBC moved to be entirely lightweight, whereas some facilities houses, like TLS, still run a mix of full-size and lightweight.

'Box' in the UK is used to describe lenses. 'Brick' is the univeral term for cameras like the P1 here. In fact the P1 is at the larger end of the scale for those kind of cameras.

There is also a special class of lightweight - called a 'splittable', where the optical block and CCD+basic processing is removable from the camera, and connected via a multi-way cable, to allow for operation in confined spaces etc. Sony brand this as a T-variant, http://cvp.com/index.php?t=product/sony_hkc-t1500 It's a good alternative to the P1 when you need a full facility camera (triax/fibre connectivity, reverse vision, talkback etc.) but have limited space. The SD version - the T70 - was used a lot for sport and music by the BBC (providing the whip pans on the Bob/Luge coverage that the BBC were host broadcasters for in the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer for instance)

Suspect the P1 HAS replaced the T-series in a lot of situations though - particularly as running HD-SDI over fibre is now quite trivial, so the benefits of a SMPTE or Triax connection are less important..

Quote:

I'm not sure how the Panasonic camera would shoot in a standard studio operation but the PQ at the brightly lit NYSE looks comparable to the studio.


Suspect if all the cameras are Panasonic you have fewer issues of camera matching between brands, and if the lighting is favourable they should do an OK job. It's difficult to buy a dreadful camera these days, but Sony and GrassValley are the mainstays here (with a little bit of Ikegami and Hitachi on the margins and at the lower end)
RK
Rkolsen

This would be a hard camera and this would be a soft camera. Cameras like the P1 are called box cameras.


Ah - never heard that distinction used before. Must be a US thing. Here an HDC-2000 would be called a 'full size' and and HDC-2500 would be called a 'lightweight'. In the early days of lightweights they were often described as 'handhelds' because they were often only used when handheld working was required, as they sometimes had compromised picture quality.


I first learned terms from some veteran camera persons who have posted on a website called Eyes of a Generation. But then as a started researching more and more I found that manufacturers such as Sony use the term hard and box cameras in their product descriptions for the HDC-2000 and P1.
DE
derek
I'm curious to know what people think the budget for a studio like Singapore is. Talk about £50k cameras, £100k set monitors and £500k robotics systems is very interesting, but shows a distinct detachment from reality.

News is there to tell a story, thr important thing is the journalism, not the look. Cameras you use for a period drama are a little overkill for finding the share price over your morning coffee, don't you think?

There are 6 cameras in the new studio including that PTZ.
RK
Rkolsen
derek posted:
I'm curious to know what people think the budget for a studio like Singapore is. Talk about £50k cameras, £100k set monitors and £500k robotics systems is very interesting, but shows a distinct detachment from reality.

News is there to tell a story, thr important thing is the journalism, not the look. Cameras you use for a period drama are a little overkill for finding the share price over your morning coffee, don't you think?

There are 6 cameras in the new studio including that PTZ.


Spending £50k for cameras is pretty cheap. One of my local stations when they went HD spent $500k on cameras plus god knows how much on the required equipment such as the control panels and CCU. Another local station when they went HD they decided to do it on the cheap buying $10k prosumer HD cameras for studio use and the difference is night and day. Granite prices have come down but quality news cameras cost more than £10k a pop.

They probably get a good picture quality but I was trying to make a point that £50k is cheap when it comes to five cameras.

I imagine the set itself if probably more than £200k.
Last edited by Rkolsen on 30 July 2015 6:12am - 2 times in total
DE
deejay
It's amazing how much attention paying for a studio refit gets. People always grab onto headline figures about how much cameras cost but forget that they'll be in use for a decade or longer. News sets are similarly used for a comparatively long time, compare with a set for something like a gameshow that might be built for one series that then gets axed.

Yet if a set survives longer than a few years, you'll also get people moaning that it's time for a revamp and is looking tired.
Independent and bilky asko gave kudos
NG
noggin Founding member
derek posted:

News is there to tell a story, thr important thing is the journalism, not the look. Cameras you use for a period drama are a little overkill for finding the share price over your morning coffee, don't you think?


Absolutely - I don't think anyone is suggesting News studios are shot on Arri Alexas (though I'm sure Ikegami would love to sell you one for multi camera use)...

However there is a base level of quality that you'd come to expect from a news studio that is broadcast in HD, and if you start off with clean and clear pictures they survive better at the other end of the encoding chain than stuff that is edgy, noisy, aliasy etc.

Sony HSC300s and HDC2500s (as used by BBC News and ITN in their studios in London) are pretty much what you'd expect to be used in a broadcast news studio, though you could easily use P1s in automated studios where there is no need for manual operation. I'd argue that the HSC300 is better value (particularly now there is a SMPTE version) for News studio use, as the benefits of the HDC-2500 are not hugely relevant. (The HSC300 probably wouldn't last as well in an OB situation...)

AIUI ITN went for HDCs as they offered uncompressed SMPTE connectivity, whilst the HSC300s (at the time) were digital triax with some light compression only. (There is now a fibre HSC300). Because ITN are VR based, I suspect they wanted to ensure that their camera outputs were as clean as possible for keying.

More than anything using this level of camera will deliver excellent pictures in a consistent manner - the picture quality (even in SD) of the studios in W1 is streets ahead of the picture that used to come out of News studios in TVC.

I agree that the journalism is vital, without that you have nothing in News. However the look is not irrelevant either (and I'm not suggesting you said it was).

Poor lighting, poorly executed sets with poor eyelines (not that I'm suggesting the BBC sets have any of these - they don't), mismatched cameras delivering poor quality pictures are all barriers to telling that story. Craft skills matter too.
Last edited by noggin on 30 July 2015 1:11pm
NG
noggin Founding member

This would be a hard camera and this would be a soft camera. Cameras like the P1 are called box cameras.


Ah - never heard that distinction used before. Must be a US thing. Here an HDC-2000 would be called a 'full size' and and HDC-2500 would be called a 'lightweight'. In the early days of lightweights they were often described as 'handhelds' because they were often only used when handheld working was required, as they sometimes had compromised picture quality.


I first learned terms from some veteran camera persons who have posted on a website called Eyes of a Generation. But then as a started researching more and more I found that manufacturers such as Sony use the term hard and box cameras in their product descriptions for the HDC-2000 and P1.


Interesting. Had a quick look - saw reference to 'hard body' cameras (which is a term I've heard before - though 'full size' is more common here), but have never heard 'soft' used to describe a lightweight/EFP camera, nor have I seen Sony use either term on their European websites (though I may have missed them).

This side of the pond 'Box' is usually used to describe the larger lenses (the ones that fit onto 'hard body' cameras or require a lens adaptor cradle etc. to be used with a lightweight/EFP model. P1s are usually described as "bricks"... (Because that's what they look like!)
NG
noggin Founding member

Spending £50k for cameras is pretty cheap. One of my local stations when they went HD spent $500k on cameras plus god knows how much on the required equipment such as the control panels and CCU.


If you were building a main studio used for network bulletins day-in, day-out, you'd be looking at reasonable cameras like the HSC-300.

With a camera head, lens, viewfinder, CCU and RCP, that runs to around US$60-70,000 per channel, list-price. That is a basic lens (better lens will cost more than the camera head), basic LCD viewfinder (though OLEDs are much better) etc. That's a wet finger in the air list-price estimate. If you are a broadcaster or corporation who buy a lot of these things then you'll have a procurement deal in place that will give you very significant discounts on these prices.

You can buy cheaper heads (saving about $8k list) but the ancillaries are likely to be the same. You might look at HSC-100s for instance, or even CMOS HXC-D70s...

if you run entirely remote cameras then you don't need the viewfinder, and could go for P1s, but the P1 is not a dirt cheap camera head (though you don't need a CCU for it - just a network cable to get you to an RCP/MSU network). You then have to factor in the cost of a remote PTZ system (and in many cases add remote elevate too)

Obviously you can go cheaper. There are people using Sony EX3s and their replacements with RCPs and fibre connectivity - and they can generate good pictures in controlled situations, but they really aren't quite in the same league.
Last edited by noggin on 30 July 2015 12:52pm - 5 times in total
SR
SomeRandomStuff
From the final promo before launch...
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DT
DTV
From the final promo before launch...
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Looks fantastic, something that we've been hoping for for years. Now just got to wait for Washington to update their studio from it's odd 2006/2008 hybrid look. Hopefully Newsday will be getting it's own audio identity at last, it always seemed like they forgot to tell David Lowe that their was a new programme in the works.
SR
SomeRandomStuff
DTV posted:
Looks fantastic, something that we've been hoping for for years. Now just got to wait for Washington to update their studio from it's odd 2006/2008 hybrid look. Hopefully Newsday will be getting it's own audio identity at last, it always seemed like they forgot to tell David Lowe that their was a new programme in the works.

I always got the impression that it was done 'on the hoof' and that they perhaps didnt think Newsday would be the success it has turned out to be. Would also perhaps explain why its taken until now for them to invest in a new Singapore Bureau. There is also the possibility that they have been forced out and took the opportunity to upgrade. Their view at Shaw was dwindling as there was a huge development going up right across the street. That could possibly be one of the reasons, but i doubt we'll ever know the reality behind it.
BA
Bail Moderator
Live from the Sky News center... oh wait, wrong voice over...
dosxuk and SomeRandomStuff gave kudos

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