Channel Breakdowns: Faults during Programmes etc.

I agree, the speed at which they picked it up was impressive.
I think they'd had a heads up during commercials though. It was This Morning's technical fault and not transmission - their sound board had crashed.

We entered the break with no music from the sting, and the microphones were still live. Aparently the wait after the break was due to them rebooting the board!

Strange how they didn't just put extra ads on - or do commercial slots not have that amount of flexibility?

It seems to be an epedemic - it seems to be happening everywhere this month...

http://www.migvideo.co.uk/living.jpg

Which would be a bit of a problem these days given where ITV1 continuity is...

[quote="Matt"]It seems to be an epedemic - it seems to be happening everywhere this month...

Agreed. As if the staff cant be bothered anymore..

Last I checked their were laws regarding how many minutes of ads could be shown per hour, which is why networks like abc1 pad them out with many promo's to fill the american ad break timings (as promo's aren't considered to be ads).

Yep there is a limit on how many ad's can be shown (per hour I think). The only time you'll see them going to an ad break during a fault is when they're due one anyway or when there is a problem with a live programme and the people making that programme have contacted the people playing out the ads.

E4+1's DOG hasn't been in the right aspect ratio since, well, ever. Apart from the time when the DOGs ended up stuck on the screen permanently a few weeks back. The E4+1 DOG for E4 Music is in the right aspect ratio, but then again it has a mind of its own, that one. Anyway E4's DOGs aren't 4:3 safe.

Different channels have different ways of adding the extra +1 bug - some just record the original output and stick a +1 DOG on top of that (see Discovery for example), others generate an entirely new DOG altogether (E4 and Disney Channel for example) - E4's is an entirely new DOG, Disney's is cloned off the original with +1 stuck on it.

As previously stated, timeshift channels run off a server which has had the original output fed to it, so in theory for channels that do widescreen the aspect ratio setup signal for the time shift channel should be able to set the DOG up exactly as it originally went out an hour earlier, but I believe it depends if said signal was recorded to the server and said server is set to recognise it. This doesn't seem to apply to E4+1, as its stuck in the wrong ratio, yet More4+1 doesn't have a fat DOG on it.

The big breakfast did a sketch called 'this morning has broken' on another occasion the programme went AWOL

The big breakfest did recorded programmes for any times they were off air, not sure if they ever used any though

ISTR reading somewhere either Chris or Gaby saying one morning something had broken(some uplink?) & they were considering prerecording the programme (at 5am?), until ITN came to the rescue with some vital bit of kit!

Not sure if it is the same incident we are talking about but I remember the Big Breakfast fell off air once for a bout 20 minutes and Channel 4 filled time with the Clangers and an extended Big Breakfast news.

That's pretty much it - airtime for ads is pretty strictly controlled, and broadcasters have limits of ad minutage per hour. Taking a break when it's not scheduled could lead to all sorts of problems.

There was a power cut on one occasion, I think they wheeled out a best of tape.

The ITN thing was that the signal from Lock Keepers Cottages to C4 went via a midpoint on top of a block of flats, and that system had failed for whatever reason. ITN provided some other method of getting them on air, at a guess they might have either reversed the circuit that brought the news into the BB gallery and had ITN's bulletins "opt in" to that feed, or they might have supplied an OB truck or similar.