BBC One Cambridge in 14:9 Tonight

I'm not sure how long it has been like this, but all output tonight from BBC One Cambridge has been in 14:9, with the exception of the BBC One East ident and the Cambridge news output. All the other regions are in 16:9 as normal, including the main BBC One East service from Norwich. It's been like this since at least Holby City was on. Analogue seems to be broadcasting as normal, it's as if they are ARCing the analogue feed on the digital broadcast.

Does network normally appear in 14:9 just before and after they opt-out (like Hull does)? In which case I wonder if they are stuck in an opt-out.

No, it's always 16:9, Hull is the only one to my knowledge which changes to 14:9 to do the opt-out. They are definitely broadcasting the analogue feed ARCed to 14:9, as tonight's film One Way Out has the 'postage stamp' effect as a result of the analogue feed changing to full 16:9 letterbox for the film (in other words, bars on every side of the screen).

From what has been said over on Digital Spy, it seems to have been like this since at least the BBC News at One. Looking at my recording of The Apprentice, it changed back to 16:9 during one of the promos before the show, resulting in a brief breakup and freezing of the picture. During the last 10 minutes, when they were in the board room, it changed back to 14:9, in which the video briefly repeated itself, which would suggest to me they switched it to Norwich or London for The Apprentice, and then changed back for the local news bulletin.

When will Hull upgrade their network switcher? It looks a mess all over the end of EastEnders when they get ready for the 8pm update.

Leeds does as well.

I know the network feeds for Cambridge analogue are a bit wierd - they opt out of a dirty feed from Norwich, which makes it interesting that Look East bits from Norwich were going out in full 16:9 given that Norwich output is treated as network in Cambridge.

Also their analogue opt switch is actually at Sandy Heath, because the circuit isn't permanently in use, it also handles the OB receiver. The switch is remotely operated at the studio end - I'm not sure whether they soft opt or just crash in and out.

Not sure how it works on digital?

I think Hull have to do it because it comes through Leeds.


edit: someone on DS has illustrated that South Today from Rowridge does this too.

The paths for analogue and digital are different AIUI.

The analogue "network" feed that reaches Cambridge is a part-time feed of BBC One Norwich fed down a microwave circuit from Sandy Heath which was used (though may no longer be) also used to feed the Sandy Heath microwave receiver for OBs to BBC Cambridge, and into the BBC internal video network.

Thus BBC One analogue Cambridge is an opt-out of the Norwich opt-out. There is (or was) no clean feed of the BBC One analogue network.

Digital BBC One is handled differently I believe - with a more complicated arrangement of circuits from Norwich to Cambridge.

ISTR that when BBC Norwich opts out of digital network a circuit between Norwich and Cambridge carries the Norwich contribution and remotely switches it IN Cambridge into the digital transmission feed, and away from the BBC One network feed otherwise present and fed directly to the Cambridge DTT and DSat encoders, so bizarrely the Norwich opt-out switches takes place both in Norwich and Cambridge.

When Cambridge opts out it switches away from the output of the Norwich remote-switched feed, effectively there are two opt-out switches for digital in Cambridge - one controlled by Norwich, upstream of the locally controlled Cambridge one.

One useful side-effect of this is that when NORWICH isn't opted out the Norwich->Cambridge circuit that feeds the Norwich opt-out switch in Cambridge can be used as a vision circuit. Before digital opt-outs began there were no circuits into Cambridge other than the Sandy Heath microwave receiver - meaning any pictures had to be biked (and it meant that recording the lunchtime news was VERY important)



Always used to soft opt - analogue "network" (actually BBC One Norwich) was remotely routed from Sandy to Cambridge via the microwave receiver. The local operation then genlocked to it, and the studio (with incoming "network" sound and vision on the output) was fed back up a fibre to Sandy Heath, with a remotely controlled switch at Sandy Heath switching to this fibre feed (locally synchronised back to the local "network" feed) at the soft opt point. If the network feed into BBC Cambridge failed it was possible to crash opt - and the presence of a synchroniser softened the crash if Cambridge was non-sync compared to "network".

This problem has been driving me up the wall, i've been talking about it on another forum and people on there are also very much annoyed with the state of the picture... moreso that it STILL hasn't been rectified.

Yep - just watching Educating Rita on BBC One East (W) on DSat - and it sure looks like the PAL analogue 4:3 "network" feed is being permanently ARCed to 16:9 using a 14P16 conversion and left routed to the DSat (and I presume DTT) encoders?

In most set-ups this shouldn't be possible (as the digital opt should only trigger when analogue network is NOT present on the vision mixer) - so unless someone has gone to great trouble, there is a problem somewhere. I wonder if one of the two opt-switches has been permanently enabled.

Hi noggin,

Don't suppose you are able to contact any of the people you may know at the Beeb to get it fixed at all? BBC Reception Advice are not very useful.

Somebody on the other forum quoted an email from somebody at BBC East stating that they're aware of it and engineers in both Cambridge and Norwich are scratching their heads.