The NEW Central West and BBC Midlands thread

BBC WM having a football phone in special at the moment discussing the Aston Villa situation.

Earlier, on tonight's MT, you had a chance to see what WM's Dan Wheeler looked like, when he was interviewed by Nick & Suzanne, to trail said phone in.

Popped up BBC Birmingham today, after a chance remark by Mollie on WM yesterday, mentioning there was a mummy on display. (Apparantly it 'scared' her at 6am, seeing it in the Public Space, prompting a text from yours truly along the lines of 'Nice to see you're still off the planet as usual, as I don't catch you much thesedays! LOL')

Me & 'sad trekkie' sister (as she's into that sort of thing!) went & had a look, plus took pics of ourselves with the Tardis & Dalek based there.

(As both the Dalek & my sister have seen better days, thank god there was no opportunity to recreate a certain Katy Manning & Dalek pic from the 70's! LOL!)

Also spotted, Chinnie closing his show on WM & while we were upstairs with the Dalek, I happened to spot a fairly familiar face in the newsroom, as I recognised the blue coat she wore sometimes, Nadine Towel.

While I was explaining to my sister who Nadine was & what she did on Midlands Today, a security guard(presumbly?) piped up & said 'Her name's Nadine TOWERS!'

Was security guard talking out of his arse, or is Nadine known under 2 names?

(On screen, she is certainly known as Nadine Towel, as verifed today with the West Brom car crash report!)

(She did follow me & sister down the stairs too!)

BBC WM having a special phone in on the Birmingham football situation between 6 & 7 tonight & Midlands Today will 'pop in' live during tonight's show, so a rare chance to see Paul Franks, WM's Drivetime & Saturday football host, in vision.

Central Tonight breaches Broadcasting Code
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/enforcement/broadcast-bulletins/obb184/

Another WM bashing thread started on Digital Spy!

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1493331

Well its Digital Spy, what do you expect? Must you post their horsesh!t here?

This surely sits alongside their most popular thread of the day, "Isn't Sue Barker Looking Old?".

Garbage.

Just an observation, was watching Midlands Today out of the corner of my eye last night and noticed the screen was looping badly and ended up with what looked like either a DVD player menu OR source display on screen:


EDIT: On posting this I realise just how horrid that rounded wall is. Then again, the walls have been in since October 2004, they're bound to be a bit tired and boring now. I actually think that Midlands Today's studio would benefit from having Barcos, as it's small enough without the rear projection screen/room needed for it.

Barco screens (the modern ones at least, not the 2005 models used by N6) are only one foot wide and so would be more spatially economical (is that even a phrase?) than the current setup.

Perhaps what could maximise space is if they built a similar setup to the other regions but rotated the entire set 90 degrees, it'd have to stop to allow for the door at the far end of the studio (that goes into the corridor to the gallery, not the glass door) but I think the studio is longer than it is wide. The way things are at the moment the next set refresh might not be for another 6 years, so might as well make do with what they've got.

Thought my eyes weren't deceiving me over that black mark.

Quite a few regions use DVD players to provide looping backgrounds and generic images like that - it's a cost-effective way of doing it. The original plasma loop provided by Lambie-Nairn in 2008 was so long, the ramcorders in the vision mixers regions have (generally GVG Zodiaks) simply couldn't handle it. I seem to remember it was over 2 minutes in duration. Generally speaking a designer might make a looping background last 20 or 30". Some regions overcame this by editing out a chunk of the middle of the loop and putting in a slow mix, reducing the loop to something their vision mixer could handle, others chose to use a DVD player or similar as the source.

What's behind the wall? Would extending the window (even if it was frosted as part of the swirls design) and putting a big plasma like the One Show have in front of it work?

Barco (other manufacturers are available) projection cubes are available in numerous sizes and aspect ratios. The choice of cube depends on numerous factors, including price, brightness, heat & power capactity and space.

Behind that wall, ISTR is just a computer, projector, mirror on a cube and then a black wall, the window does stretch all the way to the other wall

EDIT: I was watchning breakfast this morning and noticed a lack of something during the Midlands Breakfast opts; Kay and her TIS (Travel information system), so I did a little mockup to see what would happen if the TIS had made it as far as the 2008 rebrand;


It's not 100% and is missing Kay's Travel Tips and Birmingham New s Street (Just a little dedication to Ison's dream there!)

Danke dosxuk for the weather glyphs, much appreciated!