BBC Northern Ireland Presentation

Thought I'd start a dedicated thread, rather than discuss such matters within the BBC One and BBC Two threads.

Good to see that the trail stings are still putting in an odd appearance on BBC Two Northern Ireland.

Not so good to see that there are problems with the opting gear again! For a number of days now, there's a loud audio blip every time the local pres suite goes in/out of circuit on BBC Two Northern Ireland. Particularly annoying when it happens over the opening titles of a programme. The more conscientious directors are at least waiting for a clean point to minimise the impact of this irritating fault.

Sounds like a blast from the past - back to the days when the ident would normally crash into the next programme with a noticeable jump in the picture when the Belfast TC suite opted back into the network.

What's the arrangement now with BBC Two Northern Ireland? Do they still have the separate feeds for analogue and digital?

The lack of picture/audio sync between Belfast and London was an issue until 1992. BBC NI pres couldn't mix between Network and Belfast (although it was possible from one of the other studio galleries - and we only ever usually saw it happen during 'Children In Need'). So, any transition between Belfast and London was usually accompanied by the picture roll that you described.

In addition to this, we also had to tolerate a further picture roll when they took the local desk in/out-of-circuit. So, to get the average junction to air, we'd normally have to put up with four picture disturbances. Which looked particularly horrible on VHS recordings.

The Belfast/London picture sync issue was finally resolved in 1992. However, we continued to suffer picture rolls when they put the desk in/out-of-circuit. This continued until 2000 would you believe. In fact during 1999 and 2000, there were particularly bad vision disturbances when the desk went in/out-of-circuit. We'd even lose picture completely for a couple of seconds on many occasions, which was utterly ridiculous. What other BBC region had to endure such opting problems for so long?!? When I look at recordings of regional continuity in some of the English regions from the early-1980s, they had no such issues.

Even in this digital age, when they put the desk in/out-of-circuit, there is still usually a slight blip on vision/audio. Nowhere near what we had to put up with in the analogue days. It's particularly noticeable where there's constant movement in vision. For example, if they take the desk out-of-circuit during the EastEnders title sequence, with the gradual zooming in on the map, you can see the slight picture jolt very clearly.




No. The split ended in late-2006. They began referring to the station verbally as 'BBC Two Northern Ireland' once again, on analogue and digital.

[quote="The TV Room" pid="614962"]

I see - does the same output on analogue/digital now apply for live GAA matches? I remember having to faff around trying to get a decent BBC Two analogue signal - which had become atrocious by this stage - at my parent's house as the match wasn't carried on digital satellite.

Last time I looked Col (last summer), it was indeed the same output on analogue and digital. I think they got rid of the analogue-only arrangement when Sky started offering the BBC2 nations options. Not much use for us Freeviewers though.

Well, in recent times, GAA matches have been carried on both analogue and digital. They definitely were last year.

Why was that? Surely the NI pres would be genlocked to the incoming network feed in the same way regional galleries are?

I know it sounds incredible, but, they weren't. I have no idea why this ludicrous situation was allowed to go on as long as it did. They just didn't seem to take this kind of thing seriously at all.

Where the in/out-of-circuit picture rolls were concerned, one of the continuity directors would consistently wait until programme title sequences had completed, before pulling the desk out-of-circuit. Most of the announcers didn't care, and would go out-of-circuit seconds after joining Network. BBC NI was definitely aware of the problem, but for whatever reason, chose not to address it properly until 2000.

If that wasn't bad enough, in the mid-1990s they built a cheap pres suite to cater for scenarios where local continuity was required on BBC One and BBC Two at the same time. The on-air results were absolutely dire. There was no vision/audio sync at all. Mixing between frames was not possible. Every time they cut between sources, the picture roll was absolutely terrible. I have some recordings of it.

This fault now appears to have been fixed. The situation seemed much improved in the junctions I saw yesterday.

Hopefully, the reworking of BBC One's idents has provided the perfect opportunity to have the positioning of the 'Northern Ireland' legend corrected.

At present, the 'Northern Ireland' text extends well beyond the 'BBC One' logo on trails...

http://thetvroom.com/images/pool-g/033/main-001-24.jpg

...and to a lesser extent on the endboards and symbols...

http://thetvroom.com/images/pool-g/033/main-001-29.jpg

http://thetvroom.com/images/pool-g/030/main-001-167.jpg

Perhaps breaking up the text over two lines?

http://thetvroom.com/images/pool-misc/misc/main-888-05.jpg

http://thetvroom.com/images/pool-misc/misc/main-888-01.jpg

http://thetvroom.com/images/pool-misc/misc/main-888-02.jpg

Mock-ups courtesy of Martin Anderson.

"Northern Ireland" is still on one line in the re-cut idents and on trails - was the case for the junction going into "Saturday Kitchen".

I notice Radio Ulster have also adopted the "NI" logo; the station now also have promos for their shows with a live announcement by the CA (think it's marksi on duty this morning).

"Corrected" implies that this was an error, when in fact a very deliberate decision was taken to do it this way during the design process.

If the "Northern Ireland" was used in the same proportion on the middle of the screen as it appears on the lower third version, then it would crash through the centre circle and just look clumsy.

If the Northern Ireland was used on the lower third in the same proportion as it currently appears in the centre of the screen- I hope you're following this - then it would be uncomfortably small (I know, it's small on BBC TWO NI, but I don't think that should be held up as an example of great design to anybody)

So yes, what we have is a compromise, but it's probably the best solution - I'm suspect that most people haven't even noticed that two versions are used.

As ever, some nice mocks from Martin, but personally I don't think having "Northern Ireland" on two lines is practical or looks particularly neat.