BBC Music Live - Beautiful Night

LOL - I've digitised the stuff in at near uncompressed 2:1 on my Composer, and it can go to 30:1 if I want it to, but it's the quality of the final delivery I want to see if I can bend 10:1 out of it - which is sky digital quality really!

They want it all stuff like that on digiBeta - but I don't know why I bother setting it up with timecodes and all the 10:00:00:00 stuff as it looks crap on TX.

No such thing as "Sky Digital" quality... the bitrate used varies so much depending on which channel you're talking about... also have a think about how many encoding processes there are between you and the viewer at home.

Speaking of UTV trailers...

I've noticed a few recent trails haven't bothered telling UTV viewers what programme they are for on the end animated slide, only the time.

e.g. The recent Mission: Impossible 2 trailers left out the film title, although the "Tonight 9.30" version shown yesterday featured the programme name, as well as Julian on V/O instead of Audra - was that trail required to be remade?

And have UTV not got Swiss/Helvetica Black on their Flame/Aston machines they can use on their trails? I'm sure they had it on their old Aston generators up until 1999, and I'm also sure I spotted it in use on a regional ad slide.

However, I am pleased to see that UTV are expanding the use of different fonts on-screen

I was referring to the quality of picture the average viewer would see at home when watching UTV, and when it goes through their servers (and we know what they're like)

Plus it's also worth thinking of the quality of those processes between me and the viewer

They don't seem to have grasped the concept of SDI fully yet...

They got a whole bunch of new Astons not that long ago - Aston Reds. Nice machines, but unfortunately the graphics department are still in the age where "brush script" can still be used as a font on a name strap.

Oh and look out for ridiculous amounts of North West 200 coverage starting next week as usual - the only main sporting rights they have so it's time to milk milk milk!

When I think about those Aston Reds sitting round there doing bugger all I just feel ill. Mind you, people aren't buying Astons these days, they're way too dear for what they do and are a bugger to use.

Same goes for AVID, they nearly went under last year too.

Well 1500 for a bit of DV editing software compared to Final Cut Pro at 600 is taking the pi** a bit and you can do a hell of alot more in FCP and you can Xpress DV.

I've seen a few places with a Pinnacle CG which are quite good, and the effects you can do with captions on NLEs in external software kinda makes Aston's look, as you say, overpriced!

Nothing wrong with Brush Script - if it's good enough for the Neighbours logo...

I noticed on Sunday that UTV have given RPM a makeover, with new titles (still the same theme tune) and new graphics - and for a UTV programme, the graphics blew me away.

It certainly looked like effort and time had been put in styling and creating the graphics, especially with the maps showing the different rally stages, nice to see UTV have the "old phone book"/1997 Channel 5 news font!

That'll be Bell Gothic then They're a killer to do as the maps aren't big enough res to zoom right in even though they were 300dpi so you have small stages as you'll see next week.....