The Newsroom

New Meridian Set - preview tonight!

(December 2004)

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IS
Inspector Sands
GaryC posted:
[

Are there DEFINATLY 3 studios? Has anybody seen them together??

Given the technology involed, I find it odd that they did not build the new kit into Maidstone...as one live show from Whitey need the same staff as one from Maidstone? Of course, If the sub-regions were pre-recorded at any point....1 set of staff....?


Having 2 studios, one in Maidstone and a one in Whiteley needs more staff and costs more to build/run than having 2 studios in the same place in Whiteley. It's the same economy of scale that ITV are taking advantage of in Birmingham.

A studio need a huge back end of technical equipment, as well as other production areas, they also need support staff to maintain them. If 3 studios are in the same place they can share staff and infrastructure
NG
noggin Founding member
Inspector Sands posted:
noggin posted:

That gallery shot is depressing - it looks like they have given up on a decent quality monitor stack and shoved a few plasmas in fed with mult-screen devices.

They aren't full TV resolution, and have very poor lip-sync. They have the advantage that they are cheaper, need less power, and less space.


And they burn in easily. The idea is that they are configurable - you can have lots of small screens or big and small, but after a while the white lines and TCRs burn in so badly that you can't see anything if you move round the pictures


Yep - and you can't judge the quality of any source because you are looking at a low resolution version. If you have a VT (or server clip) with a "tight in" - you can't judge when to cut because the picture in the stack is too late.

It is bad enough to use full-screen plasmas (or LCDs) for monitoring - as they are not displaying an interlaced picture and thus not showing you a true representation of what is being broadcast.

Really depressing to see that this is the "future" of ITV News. The new BBC regional galleries look quite a bit better - though the studios are still quite small (and using cheap "ProPed" style mountings rather than decent studio peds)
LO
Londoner
Nick Harvey posted:
I think there are still some timing issues to be sorted out.

On Monday's south edition, Fred handed to London for the national teaser and we got about ten seconds of the idiotic London pair stomping about and twiddling their thumbs, waiting to be told to start, before they finally launched into the national headlines.

Whitely must have recorded the WHOLE feed and not trimmed the front bit off before transmission.

Same happened on Meridian North, but Andy and Mary gave up waiting before Mark and Nina started speaking, apologised for the "lack of sound" from London and carried on
BC
BlackCat Founding member
Slightly off-topic, but there's an interesting snippet on TV-Ark [URL=http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/presenters/presenters_w2.html#Jane Wyatt]here[/URL].

So, where did Debbie disappear to for those 4 years?

EDIT: Oops, I think I may have just found the answer, [URL=http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/presenters/presenters_w2.html#Debbie Thrower]here[/URL].

EDIT Again: What's up with those links?

Also from TV-Ark - I never knew Natasha Kaplinsky started at Meridian South THIS long ago:

http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/presenters/presenters_k/natashakaplinskymt90s.jpg
I always wondered why they used a different logo on the monitors than the one in the titles...
AD
Adam
Nick Harvey posted:
I think there are still some timing issues to be sorted out.

On Monday's south edition, Fred handed to London for the national teaser and we got about ten seconds of the idiotic London pair stomping about and twiddling their thumbs, waiting to be told to start, before they finally launched into the national headlines.

Whitely must have recorded the WHOLE feed and not trimmed the front bit off before transmission.


Tyne Tees often have problems with it. It's live.
JD
jdtech
I'm quite sure it is pre-recorded, because the different News teams have it on at different times, Meridian tend to go for 6:15, but when I was in Wales, ITV Wales News went for something more like 6:20, although this may have changed. All the beginning titles of the ITV Evening News are pre-recorded too, when Nina walks to the desk and Mark walks a bit forward, he has no paper, but suddenly when the camera fully centres on him he has paper! Not to mention light changes when it goes "on the road"... take Brighton for an example...

John
NH
Nick Harvey Founding member
SOME regions might possibly take it live, but others definitely record it, as I've been channel hopping before now and managed to see it four times over.

Strangely, the ones to use it the latest seem to be London.
BE
Ben Founding member
I'm sure they've just played out the 'coming after the break' trail instead of the regular opening of the programme on the South Edition. Confused
NH
Nick Harvey Founding member
Ah, it's these newfangled server things, you see, Ben.

Never used to happen at Northam. You just threaded up the reel of VT, pre-rolled it and away you went.
DJ
DJ Dave
Granada Reports play it at something like 6.17pm so their's is not live.
BC
BlackCat Founding member
Poor Gemma (who I am finding it very difficult to connect with as she never appears in the studio) had a very shiny arse today, as well as dark grey hair and matching pale skin. The "haloing" seems to be getting worse and worse each day.
PT
Put The Telly On
Bless her! They're like a bunch of puppy dogs at Meridian (SE inparticulary). Phil Hornby, Gemma Humphries, Mike Debens......ok he was.

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