Just wondered if anyone knew how sports clips from broadcasters like Sky are sourced for use on regional news, BBC specifically?
Are they recorded from the regional newsroom or requested from the main newsroom in London?
Reason why I ask is that a clip was shown on BBC Spotlight tonight from British Eurosport HD. Had this been sourced from the Plymouth newsroom I wouldn't have thought it would be taken from the HD version as Spotlight can't broadcast in HD yet, so it got me thinking it may have been requested from NBH where they do broadcast in HD?
Chances are off-air clips are sourced one of two ways :
1. Recorded off-air from a receiver in the regional centre
2. Clip is downloaded (via file transfer) or played out (via line feed) from another centre which has recorded it off-air (for Sport this is likely to be Sport News in Salford or News in NBH in London)
Suspect if it had an HD bug then it is likely to have been sourced via Salford or London.
Yes, recorded off air in most cases, in other cases file-transferred (or line playout) from another centre who has recorded it. In the case of Football League Goals, for which the BBC has the rights for highlights, Late Kick Off etc, the goals and highlights from each match are filmed by each region and played out to IMG in a thing galled 'Goals Exchange'. A lot of regions get across this booking so that they can get 'clean' goals of their teams.
Just because the programme doesn't broadcast in HD doesn't mean they can't have an HD Sky box. In fact do sky even supply SD boxes now?
(Although I'd say it's very likely that they got the footage from else where in the BBC)
Yes - though most regions are still SD, and will have installed their off-air kit a while back. You're correct that there are SD analogue outputs (i.e. SCART etc.) on Sky HD boxes. However I doubt SD regions would pay extra for the HD pack when they are SD (even though the HD downconversion will look a lot better in SD than the SD broadcast I suspect)
I'm not very technically minded, but I'd be quite surprised if any regional newsroom was using Sky+ boxes as a way to make off-air recordings.
Most have the ability to downlink TV transmissions directly from any number of satellites given the right co-ordinates, and even if channels are not yet broadcasting in HD, I think most would prefer to downlink HD at source, and then either down-convert to SD in their own MCR or via the BT Tower.
Perhaps this only applies to newsrooms in London though?
I'm not very technically minded, but I'd be quite surprised if any regional newsroom was using Sky+ boxes as a way to make off-air recordings.
Most have the ability to downlink TV transmissions directly from any number of satellites given the right co-ordinates, and even if channels are not yet broadcasting in HD, I think most would prefer to downlink HD at source, and then either down-convert to SD in their own MCR or via the BT Tower.
Perhaps this only applies to newsrooms in London though?
Well Broadcast Support/MIC watch the off air from each region over a multitude of Sky boxes, they also get the direct output from each BBC Centre over fibre...
I'm not very technically minded, but I'd be quite surprised if any regional newsroom was using Sky+ boxes as a way to make off-air recordings.
Most have the ability to downlink TV transmissions directly from any number of satellites given the right co-ordinates, and even if channels are not yet broadcasting in HD, I think most would prefer to downlink HD at source, and then either down-convert to SD in their own MCR or via the BT Tower
The bigger centres have satellite downlink facilities but they're for SNG or feeds and not suitable for receiving something like sky sports which is encrypted. Also using a resource like that for an off air is a bit of a waste.
A regional newsroom I used to work in had a Freeview+ box for off air recording, mainly because the timer function on the server system was rubbish but also because at the time sky wouldn't give Sky+ boxes to commercial customers (we had a pub subscription). I don't see why a domestic box would be used, if there was the demand for lots of sports clips. It can be lot easier and cheaper than booking lines etc. especially when there are only two short short clips in a 90 minute match you need. Also you can just give the remote to the reporter and get them to skip forward and find the bits they want
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 25 July 2013 8:17pm
Yup, all regional centres use a variety of domestic and some more professional receivers for recordings of off-air sports clips. You can get rack-mounted Freeview boxes for example, which provide off-air confidence check feeds and/or switchable feeds for recordings. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, and the quality can be surprisingly good (even if it's just wired PAL into the router). Even at TVC (and I strongly suspect W1) most off-air recordings were as simple as a receiver plumbed into the matrix.
I can't remember the brand, but there's a company who take Sky and Freeview receivers, gut them, and stick them into a 1RU box (with a built-in PAL to SDI converter). Rumour has it that when the BBC were building centralised coding & mux, all the Argos stores near this company's base entirely sold out of Freeview boxes...
Yes, we have a few 'Freesat' receivers in our racks that are apparently just domestic boxes in different boxes. The main difference is the interface, channel selection is done by 3 digit manual dials on the front. The idea being that they are fixed on certain channels and won't change due to stray remote commands or rebooting after power cuts.