Derren Brown: The Events

Yep - analogue is still VERY useful for off-air confidence... (Most galleries monitor off-air on analogue - as digital with the umpteen seconds of MPEG2 coding/decoding delay is enough to drive you bonkers...)



Yep - I'd be VERY surprised if they even considered attempting to get across the incoming line and routing it to their studio. That would ride a coach and horses through the legal "fair dealing" that they probably used to show the result at all. For that you have to use off-air I think...



Assuming analogue BBC One off-air has zero delay (in reality it may have a couple of frames relative to the originating studio - but not much) and is the reference, and assuming roughly similar encoding GOPs are used on both BBC One and More 4 MPEG2 encoders, then the only difference between a digital BBC feed and a digital C4 feed will be the extra delay that is involved with getting the BBC One analogue feed to a screen in the Derren Brown studio (flat panels usually introduce a frame or three), the delay via the camera and mixer in that studio (often just a few lines?), and the delay via the circuit (again not that much), and a frame synchronise or two into the playout area at Red Bee. Could easily be around 5 frames?

That reflection is blurred, so of course you're not going to see any numbers.

Wouldn't you be able to see an outline though or a blur of the numbers?

I doubt it - a quick test I've just done produces a blur just like the one in the image.

Riverside Studios - Studio 1.
The former home of TFI Friday, and Full On Food. It's the exposed backwall brickwork that gives it away.

Of course, the ironic thing about this 'event' and the lottery is - no-one won it and Saturdays draw is a rollover!
A nice twist to all that would have been for someone from Objective productions to run upto the WH Smith store in the Hammersmith shopping centre above the tube station, and put £1 on the numbers Derren predicted coming up - then on the Friday show, announce he was the only winner (which he would have been) and donate the £2million quid to a load of charities of his choice.

But that would have required Derren to have predicted the numbers that were to be drawn. That is not what he did - Derren is an illusionist, not a psychic.

Yes. I know. And I've read his 'tricks of the mind' book as well. Fell for that one. Sorry - cynical hat back on now..

I really think there is more than just a bog standard tv camera trick involved here. But if you think tomorrow evening you are going to get a full 45 min explanation, then you are going to be dissapointed.

The system programme he did last year (or was it earlier this?) featured a subject close to my heart Horse Racing, and whilst I knew there is no real system to win a the horses - most of that show was set pieces and long set-ups to the final scene which basically involved low level hyponsis and slight of hand palming by Derren.

'How to win the lottery' show will just be that again. Switch it on at 9.45 and you still won't have missed how he did it.

One more thing - has anyone picked up on the amount of time the Samsung HD tv took to produce a picture after he switched it on - and the thick black cable snaking out of the back of it - which didn't appear to line up when it went behind the clear perspex podium holding the 6 ping pong balls?

I firmly believed that the unsteady-hand effect was digitally applied, but now I'm not so sure after watching the clip several times.

Just when the Dream numbers are about to be drawn a lens reflection appears between the top left of the TV screen showing BBC1 and the top of the picture, you'll have to look carefully to see it but once you've identified it it then stands out. This reflection comes and goes dependent on the level of zoom, but more importantly doesn't jitter with the picture, i.e. it remains fixed in position on my TV screen whilst the picture jumps around, suggesting that the unsteady-hand effect could well have been genuinely due to (possibly intentional) camera movement, making the split-screen method difficult to implement successfully.

Chris

I loved the moment in his 'Evening of' show (which was repeated last night) where he's trying to communicate with an audience member at the top of the theatre and said:

'you'll have to speak up, I'm not a ****ing mindreader!'

This guy has noticed that the camera pans & tilts randomly, but never rolls, as a wobbly hand held would do...

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

However it was (or indeed wasn't) done, I bet Camelot are rubbing their hands in glee. This is the best publicity the Lottery has had for years, and there's bound to be a slight boost in ticket sales this week at least from suckers believing they can do it for themselves.

Sooo know the answer to this, but really scared to say it as it will destroy the whole of the act

Put it this way, Someone will win the lottery on Saturday, by following Derrens advice!!!

I just hope it’s me