BBC Select

Back in the early 1990s, the BBC ran a service called BBC Select, as a service to corporate clients, educational services etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZbbFfDaRD0

Seems to have only lasted a couple of years. Did anyone ever watch any of the encrypted shows? I videoed the 1992 Cable and Wireless AGM, which was broadcast in the clear in highlights form.

In addition, I recall when I watched it, the programme finished at 05:58, and then the BBC select ident came up with a little music, before a fade to black, then a glitch, and then fade into ceefax. So, this was on BBC1, where was the BBC Select service broadcast from? It couldn't have been London, if there was a glitch.

How much was the decoder and how much was the subscription, just out ot interest?

Nice orchestral music ...

http://www.theidentgallery.com/misc/misc/music/select.mp3

(No video, music only)

A 'glitch' just means something was being switched at that point. It would have been from TV Centre, but whether it was from presentation I doubt. It was probably just an overnight engineer routing a VT machine to air and pressing play at the appropriate moment.

Any picture disturbance could also have just been the encryption equipment being taken in or out of circuit.

The beginning and end of an (presumably unencrypted) BBC Select broadcast here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfUJGjzhVu4

This is how they tested the service before launch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRFAFsEg0MI

BBC Select was transmitted from the OU Con suite featured towards the end of the video featured in the Regional Pres Desks thread. By this time BBC One and Two were transmitting from the 2nd floor NTA so the glitch was possibly the switching over to the ancient 4th floor presentation area.

So it wasn't like the glitch when TV-am ended each day and the local ITV contractrs, such as STV went on air?

Incidentally did a search on Ebay, nothing comes up for BBC Select!

There's a BBC Selector in a cupboard at my University. Or at least there was, I imagine it may have been chucked now that building has been refurbished.

The glitches are technically the same thing, which is the broadcast being switched from one circuit to another which aren't in sync, resulting in a glitch while the TV resyncs itself with the picture. Given that both came from TV Centre, I would have though the BBC would have synced the two together, so it's quite possible the glitch is the encryption equipment being added and removed from the circuit.

There's a very thorough explanation of this somewhere (The Mausoleum Club?).

I seem to recall it being described as akin to 2 wheels of different sizes with a marked point, turning at the same speed - to avoid the glitch you had to try and catch the two wheels at the exact point the marked point was at the top of both.

It's more to do with the type of switching, Something like a vision mixing desk is timed so the cut happens at exactly the right point and looks smooth. If its just a switch between 2 sources then it can look messy at times even if they are sync'd. Modern digital routing systems are a lot better but in those days it would have been push button analogue routing - fine for switching video not on air

http://www.mausoleumclubforum.org.uk/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=17097