The new NEW Central West and BBC Midlands thread

Seems Midlands Today have a new vision mixer (source: Toby Horwood on Twitter) - sign of a refit or did the old GVG one finally pack up and there were no spares dotted around English Regions to harvest?

Obviously with the ViLoT (not an official name but why not) plans for English Regions going forward, and given that Brum pilots most new technology for English Regions could this be an early testbed for the new tech?

Ah, I did spot animated graphics during one of yesterday morning’s Breakfast bulletins so that would explain it.

Seems to be back to normal today though so maybe it was all just a dream.

Sooner their Thompson cameras die the better. Horrible, blurry, washed out picture. When they were in the CSO studio for the refit the quality was noticeably better (as it was I believe the same HDV cam the VJs use locked onto a bracket)

Not living in the region anymore I can't really keep up to date on the regional programmes

Do you not have Sky all the regions are on it

A look at Mike W's profile would have prevented you needing to ask this question
And they're not Sky exclusive anyway, a Freesat box or any Free-to-air receiver will get them too.

Well it did die on air quite spectacularly a few months ago so that's probably connected


Are there actual plans for that? If it's happening then it's first I've heard.


And surely it would be ViReT? Virtual Regional Television?

There's a technical RFI (Request for Information) to be released this summer I'm told. So obviously still
a long way off (if it's to be implemented that way at all, though that seems the most likely scenario)

Either Central's studio has gotten larger or they've just invested in a new wide angle lens.

The ending wide shot at the end of tonights programme made the studio look a lot more huger than usual.

It's been discussed on here before (from memory) that Central's studio is a less permanent setup that other regions with one side of the set on castors so the other businesses within the Gas Street studios can access the larger doors to get larger items into the building.

Not quite, Studio W/E (W was always larger) were created in 2004 by chopping the only studio at Gas Street in half and obliterating the CITV half of the studio. There were larger (not quite scene dock) doors on both sides. All of the regional sets have panels on castors to allow for inventive presentation.

Zeiss have moved out of Studio E (now called B) - can't see the owners of 22 Gas Street letting Central knock through. They're looking at letting it out as a TV studio.

Is there a reason why Central’s studio lighting always seem’s to be variable? Some nights it’s very cool white, other nights it’s quite warm, or is it the cameras?

More likely to be the camera racking I’d have thought, if they still have TMs (Vision Sups) then possibly they have one that likes it warm, one that likes it cool... lamps tend to work at the same colour temperature most of the time (though fading a tungsten lamp can affect it) and I’d have thought it was a fixed lighting preset for most or even all programmes.

Midlands Today must've finally binned their Aston CG, animated straps during Breakfast, a check of iPlayer shows they were the old fade on/off last night.

The kerning and alignment of the 1 and 2 line name astons has sorted, the text now lined up with the BBC logo on the red band at the bottom and the typeface tracked slightly wider