The Newsroom

Sky News

Sky News HD Launches 9pm tonight (February 2009)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
FO
fodg09
Presumably this means the next set of new graphics will come in Spring next year?
FU
fusionlad Founding member
Presumably this means the next set of new graphics will come in Spring next year?


It would be nice if 4:3 safe areas could be relaxed.
SP
Spencer
Presumably this means the next set of new graphics will come in Spring next year?


It would be nice if 4:3 safe areas could be relaxed.


It'll be interesting to see how they do the graphics. For Obama's inauguration, they had separate graphics for the HD and SD channels, with the HD graphics smaller and using the full screen.

I wonder whether this would be practical on a day-to-day basis, or whether they'd just have the SD channel as a simple downscaled version of the HD one. If that's the case, I would expect the graphics to remain 4:3 safe. I suppose though they might work on an automated system whereby the HD and SD graphics are separate, but display the same information.
LR
Lost The Remote
Interesting to note Five are now carrying an extra hour of Sunrise per week. Now on Five every Saturday and Sunday from 0600-0700 instead of just Saturdays.
BA
bilky asko
rob posted:
jay posted:
Sky News has announced Sky News HD for next spring. They are upgrading their broadcast equipment both here and abroad.


Could we have a link to a source please? Very Happy


http://corporate.sky.com/media/press_releases/2009/sky_news.htm

Also here:

http://blogs.news.sky.com/editorsblog/Post:27b95c83-2e98-4553-ad3b-101a2ca0f8f6

So more changes to the Sky News studio by the sounds of things. A new newswall maybe?


It's pretty high resolution already - well above HD, I think.


I think the screens are, but the physical graphics that are shown on them can look bad on SD, it looks shoddy and pixilated.


I did have a look and the resolution is 2448×432, which clearly shows why there's pixelation!
NG
noggin Founding member
Yep - the Newswall is DEFINITELY not HD vertically. It is made from relatively low-pitch LED I believe - which means it always has to be shot wide - as any close-ups go horribly pixelly.

In comparison the BBC Barcos in the two news studios are something like 1680x1050 for each 3x2 cube block - and they are fed from a number of HD players - which means that the resolution of the entire wall is something like 9000 x 1050 (possibly a bit higher resolution horizontally - and the larger studio has a few more Barcos) - and the active portion of the wall is smaller than the Sky News wall. This means that when they are fed with the HD backings (the general newsroom backdrop) you can take quite tight close-ups without seeing pixels. If you look at the Andrew Marr Show backing, which was shot on HD video, you can go quite close on the backing and it still looks quite smooth and clean. That was shot with 7 or 8 separate 1440x1080 HD Cam shots and stitched together I believe. (The original Sunday AM backing was static and shot with higher resolution digital stills - but the lack of movement was unconvincing)

However the dropped in windows used on the News programmes in those studios are fed using SD video sources - and if these windows are wider than 16:9 they are usually cropped, and thus the resolution drops further - as can be seen with the very jagged chroma edges (as colour is carried at 1/4 the resolution of brightness information in a broadcast TV signal) when they use an image across an entire wall.
SM
SM21
Anna Jones on AL again today Very Happy
NG
noggin Founding member
[quote:0557344067="Spencer For Hire" pid="619710"][quote:0557344067="fusionlad" pid="619706"][quote:0557344067="fodg09" pid="619704"]Presumably this means the next set of new graphics will come in Spring next year?[/quote:0557344067]

It would be nice if 4:3 safe areas could be relaxed.[/quote:0557344067]

It'll be interesting to see how they do the graphics. For Obama's inauguration, they had separate graphics for the HD and SD channels, with the HD graphics smaller and using the full screen.

I wonder whether this would be practical on a day-to-day basis, or whether they'd just have the SD channel as a simple downscaled version of the HD one. If that's the case, I would expect the graphics to remain 4:3 safe. I suppose though they might work on an automated system whereby the HD and SD graphics are separate, but display the same information.[/quote:0557344067]

I would expect that they will have 4:3 safe HD graphics - probably. Monitoring two independently automated graphics feeds would be a real pain (though it is possible) - and full-screen graphics for recorded packages etc. would need to remain 4:3 safe.
LR
Lost The Remote
Big gig for Jason De La Pena on Iran Decides. Looks like they may have lost the link to Tim Marshall.
FE
Felek
Big gig for Jason De La Pena on Iran Decides. Looks like they may have lost the link to Tim Marshall.


I really like Jason's style, he comes across as really professional without being cold.
I enjoyed seeing him on the skynews.com show earlier, he did make a funny slip up and accidentally said "and visit the website, skynews.cum" at one point!
BA
bilky asko
Yep - the Newswall is DEFINITELY not HD vertically. It is made from relatively low-pitch LED I believe - which means it always has to be shot wide - as any close-ups go horribly pixelly.

In comparison the BBC Barcos in the two news studios are something like 1680x1050 for each 3x2 cube block - and they are fed from a number of HD players - which means that the resolution of the entire wall is something like 9000 x 1050


According to Barco, each cube is 1024×768, so the whole wall in N6 would be 16384×1536, and the whole wall in TC7 would be 21504×1536, according to what they say the layouts are.
FO
fodg09
Just looked at the webcam and strangely they seem to be showing the Lions Rugby game on the newswall.

Newer posts