the dots that you can see are indeed from a playback machine that's playing in pal into the vision mixer. The dots are time code, and if you watch you'll see clusters representing hours minutes seconds and frames in binary. The reason you see it is because the playback machine isn't timed properly into the router or and the vision mixer. The time code line should appear in field blanking, but has been shoved down in frame. This doesn't happen with digital mixers as there have dynamic assigned frame synchronisers, so don't need to be time in. Hope that helps!
the dots that you can see are indeed from a playback machine that's playing in pal into the vision mixer.
Do you (or anybody else) have any idea what the two circular white and black dots - one above the other - signify?
These are seen on BBC One Leeds during network programming, it drops to 14:9 with these dots in the top left corner of the screen for a few seconds, often before something regional.
My guess is that it's a test ahead of the opt out, but I'm not sure what the dots are all about? Possibly to indicate which gallery is in curcuit?
Leeds use these cue dots literally to check they're 'on-air' and it's part of their soft-opting procedure before regional opts. It's pretty old fashioned! Apart from Hull, I don't think any other region does this (except on the odd occasion when the opt chain has to be tested). Seeing a cue dot coming back off air is a sure-fire way of knowing everything's working. That said, dropping to 14:9 should not be happening. Clearly Leeds and Hull don't have a 16:9 DNET1 feed. One wonders why, if that's the case, they are opting in such a mannar and making it pretty obvious! Southampton and Oxford don't have DNET feeds either, but since they went 16:9 a few years ago, they haven't soft-opted at all, only going on-air when they cut away from Network in the gallery.
visual confidence that the opt has taken place on all platforms. You don't actually need them for analogue as an ident is placed in line 19 which can be seen on a tv wave form monitor. This isn't transmitted on digital however so dots are needed.
Clearly Leeds and Hull don't have a 16:9 DNET1 feed. One wonders why, if that's the case, they are opting in such a mannar and making it pretty obvious!
Thanks for the explanation. I suspect they use the 4:3/14:9 NET1 feed because the timings are all set up so that there won't be a jump on analogue? From what I've gathered, DNET1 is delayed with respect to NET1 due to the coding.
The cue dots from Leeds appear a lot earlier than the opt out takes place, some 10-15 minutes, and not before ever single opt. I don't think I've seen them during the six o'clock news, but I've seen them during the One Show on evenings before Inside Out is played out and during the programme before the one o'clock news.
It's very different to Hull where it's clear a traditional soft-opt is taking place.
It's possible then that Leeds are using them to test each time they reconfigure the opt out chain. Isn't the same Inside Out shown across both Yorkshire/Yorks and Lincs?
different day, different person. Everyone has there own way of doing things, so there's no real pattern. You don't need to test opt, but will certainly have egg on your face if the opt fails and you didn't.
