The Newsroom

Sky News

Relaunch & beyond (October 2005)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
NG
noggin Founding member
harshy posted:
derek500 posted:
Spencer For Hire posted:
Apologies if this has already been mentioned, they now appear to be displaying only the 'Active' graphic in the bottom-left corner, and no longer cycling between the web and email addresses.

Presumably this is to address the issue of the URL/email being cut off on some TVs, as was promised on Jeremy's blog. It's still not ideal though, as if I switch to 4:3, I can still see '...ve' in the bottom left corner.


Why don't they put the 'active' first and then the red dot, then 4:3 viewers would just see the red dot and not any text.


It makes you wonder why Sky put the active graphic there in the first place, they must think all of us have 16:9 sets or something. Evil or Very Mad


No - they probably hope that people watch in the aspect ratio that they are broadcasting in - and thus have their receivers set-up for 4:3 letterboxing? I could never watch 16:9 material in 4:3 centre-cut out - and didn't before I had a 16:9 set. Unless you have a tiny display, surely the benefits of seeing an uncropped picture, outweigh the black bars? In 4:3 centre cut mode you may fill more of your screen, but you are doing so with less of the picture...
NG
noggin Founding member
derek500 posted:
Spencer For Hire posted:
Apologies if this has already been mentioned, they now appear to be displaying only the 'Active' graphic in the bottom-left corner, and no longer cycling between the web and email addresses.

Presumably this is to address the issue of the URL/email being cut off on some TVs, as was promised on Jeremy's blog. It's still not ideal though, as if I switch to 4:3, I can still see '...ve' in the bottom left corner.


Why don't they put the 'active' first and then the red dot, then 4:3 viewers would just see the red dot and not any text.


Only some 4:3 viewers would see the dot though. The BBC News 24 Dog is right hard up against 4:3 graphics safe - that is the area that is guaranteed to be visible to 4:3 centre-cut viewers even if their TV has a reasonably high level of overscan / cut-off. The Sky News logo and clock are in a very similar position for the same reason.

Anything to the left of the News 24 tower/Sky News logo+clock is potentially in 4:3 cut-off and not guaranteed to be visible on all 4:3 sets. The further it moves to the left, the less likely it is to be visible - until it leaves 4:3 cut-off entirely (i.e. the gap between graphics safe and the extreme edge of 4:3)

Sky have obviously put the bottom left active/web/mail cycling text there precisely because it ISN'T important, and they don't mind if 4:3 viewers can't see it. It is there to balance the ticker+clock+dog for 16:9 viewers, as otherwise there would be a gap, as you couldn't have the ticker reappearing.
NG
noggin Founding member
archiveTV posted:
Sput posted:
archiveTV posted:
An insignificant sample doesn't become significant just because it's all you've got


Actually it becomes more accurate - the margin of error declines with an increase in the number of measurements.


What increase of measurements? The rate of sampling is exactly the same for News24, sky and BBC1

However while BBC1's rating will be based on the viewing habits of 500 people,, Sky's and News24 will be based on those of about 5. If one of them goes to Auntie Violet's 80th Birthday party one Thursday night, it knocks 20,000 off the figures


Or in the case of Living TV - one long distance lorry driver with a Barb box...
HB
HBox
cat posted:
Erm... why? Because you don't like politics?

It's standard procedure on US news channels, and has been for years.

Newsnight is mostly politics, and has been doing it successfully for 20 years.

P.S. What is a ''daily hourly'' political show, by the way?


Erm, because there is already an hour of the sky report, an hour of world news tonight, i think it would take up too much of the schedule.

P.S. I meant an hourly politcs show that is on daily.
CA
cat
HBox posted:
cat posted:
Erm... why? Because you don't like politics?

It's standard procedure on US news channels, and has been for years.

Newsnight is mostly politics, and has been doing it successfully for 20 years.

P.S. What is a ''daily hourly'' political show, by the way?


Erm, because there is already an hour of the sky report, an hour of world news tonight, i think it would take up too much of the schedule.

P.S. I meant an hourly politcs show that is on daily.


Not sure I'm following you here. Possibly because you're making your points quite badly.

I'm not sure how a political news show would ''take up'' (or waste) time on a 24 hour news channel's schedule. The Sky Report and World News Tonight do not have a remit to specifically cover politics in the UK; the former is a magazine/sideswipe at the news job, and the latter is an international news and current affairs programme.

P.S. I think what you actually mean is a daily political show that lasts one hour. NOT an hourly show that is on daily. It is either on hourly (i.e. every hour), or daily (i.e. once a day). Not both.
PS
Psythor
Not wanting to be off-topic, but how do interactive "press red" applications work with aspect ratios? I might have missed something, but I've never seen anyone on here complain that they can't see any of the Sky News Active screens, or anything.

Do they use relative widths (percentages and that) like a web page might do, or are the designers just really, really 4:3 concious?
PE
Pete Founding member
i think MHEG fits the TV screen no matter what
hence subtitles being fatter in 16:9 than 4:3

I'm pretty sure all the games that involve highlighting parts of the screen with MHEG were done in 4:3

Then again I might be talking crap as I've been eating Lockets all day.
JA
jamesmd
Hymagumba posted:

Then again I might be talking crap as I've been eating Lockets all day.


so you're the reason I've got a cold then. You bar steward.
AN
Ant
Whenever they show Sky News Active on-air, it has a nice animated background. Anyone know why it isn't animated on screens?
BR
Brekkie
While acknowledging alot of viewers cut to 4:3, I think though now they've got to begin acknowledging that most content is now broadcast in 16:9 - so some bits may be cropped off!

You could also argue that putting a red dot next to the active logo is no use to viewers watching in black and white!
ED
edward
Antz posted:
Whenever they show Sky News Active on-air, it has a nice animated background. Anyone know why it isn't animated on screens?


You'll also notice it's in 16:9.

This is probably designed for broadcast and is not the actual one you use.
NG
noggin Founding member
Psythor posted:
Not wanting to be off-topic, but how do interactive "press red" applications work with aspect ratios? I might have missed something, but I've never seen anyone on here complain that they can't see any of the Sky News Active screens, or anything.

Do they use relative widths (percentages and that) like a web page might do, or are the designers just really, really 4:3 concious?


Depends on the platform and how the interactive app is implemented.

The BBC Multiscreen on DSat is usually broadcast as a 4:3 service - so on both 4:3 and 16:9 displays it is displayed as a 4:3 source and thus the text overlays work. If the sources in the multiscreen are 16:9 the small multipics are displayed in 16:9 within the 4:3 frame. If they are 4:3 they appear 4:3. Once you select a screen then the aspect ratio of the screen takes over - and this is usually 16:9.

AFAIK most MHEG (on DTT) and OpenTV (on DSat) text systems are natively aspect ratio agnostic - they are 720x576 based - and their pixels are different ARs dependent on the ratio they are displayed in, or the ratio they are overlaid over - or a combination of the two.

Usually - if the video has to tie in with an overlay, the video and overlay will be forced 4:3 - as 4:3 is guaranteed to display the same on both 4:3 and 16:9 receivers.

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