BBC Parliament is showing (at the moment) what seems to be a live shot of Westminster, with ceefax style characters superimposed on top of it saying that the channel will be back at 0900 on 30 August 2003. Never seen this on the channel before, and there are meant to be repeats of various parliamentry events as well, is their some kind of work going on at Millbank or something?
Certainly intriguing isn't it? That shot of Westminster is gorgeous though with the lights twinkling - if only they could stream that live 24 hours without the text, it would be good viewing when there's nothing else on. I wonder if the clock at the bottom is so we can count down to when BBC Parliament returns to air?
Test card fiends may like to know that BBC Parliament is presently transmitting Test Card G, or it is on satellite, anyway. The digital terrestrial feed is blank.
It was very odd. The text generator looked quite low quality, but to show a clock with seconds seems very unusual. When daylight reappeared the image seemed very high quality. This was present on DCable and DTT , don't know about DSAT.
Anyone know why they were doing this? Were they using the equipment for something else
or had there been an equipment failure. Or was equipment being changed around for the new seesion of Parliament?
It was very odd. The text generator looked quite low quality, but to show a clock with seconds seems very unusual. When daylight reappeared the image seemed very high quality. This was present on DCable and DTT , don't know about DSAT.
Anyone know why they were doing this? Were they using the equipment for something else
or had there been an equipment failure. Or was equipment being changed around for the new seesion of Parliament?
It was on DSAT because I was watching it - had it on in the background while working overnight. Quite nice to see the sunrise in central London! They should do it more often.
They did this last year, though without the Westminster backdrop.
It was just a black background, white text and that continuous beep noise that wakes up your cat.
I only remember because I was doing something with the camcorder at the time, and it displays a menu on-screen that looks... this is an increadibly boring story. It's not even a story, it's just nothing. I'll stop now.
Quite nice to see the sunrise in central London! They should do it more often.
Actually, this is an interesting point. Or at least interesting in the context of this forum, which perhaps doesn't say a great deal.
Anyway, British broadcasters are so... almost scared of showing shots of central London for no obvious reason. In the US it is routine for them to dip in and out of camera shots across various cities - not just New York or Washington - to see a sunrise or the weather situation. NBC end their news programmes with flyovers of New York at night, and it looks fantastic.
Sky very occasionally do it with their Westminster camera, but not often enough in my opinion. London looks superb at night and at sunrise, and yet there's a total reluctance to use skylines as presentational features (don't give me BBC Breakfast opt-out crap, please).
London Tonight are the only ones to use a city skyline effectively, and it's a great shame.
London Tonight are the only ones to use a city skyline effectively, and it's a great shame.
But of course they only broadcast in London. A national broadcaster using a shot of London would risk getting even more complaints from viewers in other parts of the UK about the media being too Londoncentric.
As a person who has spent less than 1% of his life in London/South East, I can say, as a true Northerner, I really don't care.
I KNOW it's produced in London, so does everybody else. I KNOW the mainstream media coverage is always going to be London-centric. I KNOW that!
They could do it in Manchester or Birmingham or Edinburgh for all I care - if it looks nice, there shouldn't be a problem using it. Frankly, it is a wonder that anyone in the UK knows what anywhere else looks like, given the broadcasters reluctance to show us.
Viewers aren't totally stupid. Should we give them the impression that their news is being presented from a vacuous hole in the middle of nowhere? No.
They all (some exceptions) say grarse and glarse, not grass and glass. I know they are 90% southern, 80% university educated, 70% white. Why try and hide it and make newsreaders look and sound all hip and wiv da kids?
One of the great assets of television is that it can show the viewer what is going on, where it is and who's doing what. If you're going to stick a presenter in front of a fake, mocked up backdrop (a la BBC Breakfast) then they might as well be on the radio. A piece of cardboard doesn't give a great sense of atmosphere.