SP
According to MediaGuardian, the BBC is to make a formal complaint to Uefa over the faults last night.
MA
Indeed. I think we all discussed radio commentary a few weeks ago and some people wondered whether Red Bee Media would still have the wherewithall to put radio commentary out in such circumstances. Clearly they do and hats off to them.
However hats back on for the idiotic idea of talking all over the commentary stating the bleeding obvious. What was the point of that, we could see the pictures had been lost. They really are obsessed with superfluous VOs and sound of their own voice.
deejay posted:
Indeed. I think we all discussed radio commentary a few weeks ago and some people wondered whether Red Bee Media would still have the wherewithall to put radio commentary out in such circumstances. Clearly they do and hats off to them.
However hats back on for the idiotic idea of talking all over the commentary stating the bleeding obvious. What was the point of that, we could see the pictures had been lost. They really are obsessed with superfluous VOs and sound of their own voice.
DE
Indeed. I think we all discussed radio commentary a few weeks ago and some people wondered whether Red Bee Media would still have the wherewithall to put radio commentary out in such circumstances. Clearly they do and hats off to them.
However hats back on for the idiotic idea of talking all over the commentary stating the bleeding obvious. What was the point of that, we could see the pictures had been lost. They really are obsessed with superfluous VOs and sound of their own voice.
Well, yes for a long time the presentation department has made a habit of apologising as often as every minute during breakdowns. Years ago when lengthy breakdowns were not uncommon, it was perfectly clear to the audience that there was a fault, one apology from the announcer was enough and the audience then enjoyed some cheesey music for a bit while the boffins fixed the TK or whatever. Nowadays, pres seem to have to state the bleedin obvious all the time. Remember the power failures a few years ago? Breakdown slides & music for huge amounts of time along with repetitive announcements every minute or so.
To be fair to those in Pres, although they clearly had told 5Live that they were one BBC One (because Greeney made some announcement to that effect), they wanted them to apologise that the pix had gone again. Clearly the commentators were in the middle of doing what they do and so maybe the NC1 director asked the announcer to butt-in and do it for them. Timing wasn't great, but then it's hard to predict when it would be possible to get an apology in and out cleanly I suppose.
At least the BBC were able to offer commentary. Had the match been on ITV1 - I doubt that anything like that would have been possible.
I think the BBC is right to complain to UEFA about the failure. It was a high profile sports event and one that would have got a decent audience no doubt. I would have thought that to have such limited power resiliency at the IBC is pretty poor on the Host Broadcaster's part.
Markymark posted:
deejay posted:
Indeed. I think we all discussed radio commentary a few weeks ago and some people wondered whether Red Bee Media would still have the wherewithall to put radio commentary out in such circumstances. Clearly they do and hats off to them.
However hats back on for the idiotic idea of talking all over the commentary stating the bleeding obvious. What was the point of that, we could see the pictures had been lost. They really are obsessed with superfluous VOs and sound of their own voice.
Well, yes for a long time the presentation department has made a habit of apologising as often as every minute during breakdowns. Years ago when lengthy breakdowns were not uncommon, it was perfectly clear to the audience that there was a fault, one apology from the announcer was enough and the audience then enjoyed some cheesey music for a bit while the boffins fixed the TK or whatever. Nowadays, pres seem to have to state the bleedin obvious all the time. Remember the power failures a few years ago? Breakdown slides & music for huge amounts of time along with repetitive announcements every minute or so.
To be fair to those in Pres, although they clearly had told 5Live that they were one BBC One (because Greeney made some announcement to that effect), they wanted them to apologise that the pix had gone again. Clearly the commentators were in the middle of doing what they do and so maybe the NC1 director asked the announcer to butt-in and do it for them. Timing wasn't great, but then it's hard to predict when it would be possible to get an apology in and out cleanly I suppose.
At least the BBC were able to offer commentary. Had the match been on ITV1 - I doubt that anything like that would have been possible.
I think the BBC is right to complain to UEFA about the failure. It was a high profile sports event and one that would have got a decent audience no doubt. I would have thought that to have such limited power resiliency at the IBC is pretty poor on the Host Broadcaster's part.
MA
I think the BBC is right to complain to UEFA about the failure. It was a high profile sports event and one that would have got a decent audience no doubt. I would have thought that to have such limited power resiliency at the IBC is pretty poor on the Host Broadcaster's part.
I'm making some enquires at the moment, because I've got a feeling it was rain fade on the satellite uplinks, more than any electrical problems.
That said, no excuse for not having a redundant uplink site elsewhere.
deejay posted:
I think the BBC is right to complain to UEFA about the failure. It was a high profile sports event and one that would have got a decent audience no doubt. I would have thought that to have such limited power resiliency at the IBC is pretty poor on the Host Broadcaster's part.
I'm making some enquires at the moment, because I've got a feeling it was rain fade on the satellite uplinks, more than any electrical problems.
That said, no excuse for not having a redundant uplink site elsewhere.
OV
It's certainly not rain fade, it's fairly well established by UEFA and the broadcasters that there were power failures at the IBC. If it were rain fade, there would have been noticeable breakup on the picture, rather than the loss of sync that was seen.
Markymark posted:
I'm making some enquires at the moment, because I've got a feeling it was rain fade on the satellite uplinks, more than any electrical problems.
That said, no excuse for not having a redundant uplink site elsewhere.
That said, no excuse for not having a redundant uplink site elsewhere.
It's certainly not rain fade, it's fairly well established by UEFA and the broadcasters that there were power failures at the IBC. If it were rain fade, there would have been noticeable breakup on the picture, rather than the loss of sync that was seen.
MA
It's certainly not rain fade, it's fairly well established by UEFA and the broadcasters that there were power failures at the IBC. If it were rain fade, there would have been noticeable breakup on the picture, rather than the loss of sync that was seen.
When medium to high bit rate signal paths fail, in my experience the 'digital cliff' is much sharper, than with low bit rate /Long GOP, such as emission level DTH stuff. In other words don't expect the same effects as you get when rain wipes out your domestic satellite reception. From what I hear on my grapevine, rain fade is being considered as a contributory factor..
Orry Verducci posted:
Markymark posted:
I'm making some enquires at the moment, because I've got a feeling it was rain fade on the satellite uplinks, more than any electrical problems.
That said, no excuse for not having a redundant uplink site elsewhere.
That said, no excuse for not having a redundant uplink site elsewhere.
It's certainly not rain fade, it's fairly well established by UEFA and the broadcasters that there were power failures at the IBC. If it were rain fade, there would have been noticeable breakup on the picture, rather than the loss of sync that was seen.
When medium to high bit rate signal paths fail, in my experience the 'digital cliff' is much sharper, than with low bit rate /Long GOP, such as emission level DTH stuff. In other words don't expect the same effects as you get when rain wipes out your domestic satellite reception. From what I hear on my grapevine, rain fade is being considered as a contributory factor..
GE
I think the BBC is right to complain to UEFA about the failure. It was a high profile sports event and one that would have got a decent audience no doubt. I would have thought that to have such limited power resiliency at the IBC is pretty poor on the Host Broadcaster's part.
I'm making some enquires at the moment, because I've got a feeling it was rain fade on the satellite uplinks, more than any electrical problems.
That said, no excuse for not having a redundant uplink site elsewhere.
There was indeed rain fade on the satellite uplink in Vienna. However, that didn't really have any effect on the main programme output, which was being delivered by fibre.
The programme went off air when the IBC's power went down. This also caused both the satellite and the fibre to fail.
I've heard that the make-good circuit was a hastily arranged uplink from a BBC sat truck at the ground.
thegeek
Founding member
Markymark posted:
deejay posted:
I think the BBC is right to complain to UEFA about the failure. It was a high profile sports event and one that would have got a decent audience no doubt. I would have thought that to have such limited power resiliency at the IBC is pretty poor on the Host Broadcaster's part.
I'm making some enquires at the moment, because I've got a feeling it was rain fade on the satellite uplinks, more than any electrical problems.
That said, no excuse for not having a redundant uplink site elsewhere.
The programme went off air when the IBC's power went down. This also caused both the satellite and the fibre to fail.
I've heard that the make-good circuit was a hastily arranged uplink from a BBC sat truck at the ground.
WI
It was certainly very common when I was at the beeb. The bookings into presentation used to have many parts - a main, a back up and, when available, alternative radio commentary.
Most sports come through studio 5 so the main would be from there, the backup of a feed direct from the event by a diffrent route to what Studio 5 had, and the radio commentary from 5 live (or Radio 4 LW when they did cricket). There'll be a similar setup with Wimbledon - albeit much more complicated as there's more than one match at a time.
In the old days the 5 radio stations were available on the router in the presentation area so it didn't even need to be set up, of course now Five live and other stations (local stations) are usually available on the red button during football so there's alternative commentary available easily again
However there's not much can be done when the entire broadcast centre is lost. I'm presuming that Swiss TV took their coverage straight from the stadium as it was easier.
The international feed had a replay of the second half after the match so stations could get the bits they missed. Good job they recorded it at the stadium!
Indeed. I think we all discussed radio commentary a few weeks ago and some people wondered whether Red Bee Media would still have the wherewithall to put radio commentary out in such circumstances. Clearly they do and hats off to them. The people in NC1 worked really hard last night and even managed to get to the Ten more-or-less on time. I understand at one point they were preparing to put filler programmes out after the UEFA pool coverage of the actual game had ended, because there were questions over whether the BBC studio out there would be available for the post-match analysis. In the end all came good, but what a night for all concerned!
I guess the next question is do Red Bee have any kit they can route the audio (or video, if necessary) through to deliberately introduce a delay, so they can get the pictures and commentary in sync? (Of course its not necessarily that easy if the delay is going to be slightly different for every uplink)
I haven't been watching the interactive coverage of the tournament, but the last time I see for a sporting event the picture and the optional 5 Live commentary were still slightly out.
william
Founding member
deejay posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
scottishtv posted:
With 'the whole world losing their pictures', according to John Motson, I guess it was actually fairly slick of BBC One to switch quickly to the Five Live commentary over an animated slide.
I assume that's a bit of a standard back up measure then? Can anyone confirm?
I assume that's a bit of a standard back up measure then? Can anyone confirm?
It was certainly very common when I was at the beeb. The bookings into presentation used to have many parts - a main, a back up and, when available, alternative radio commentary.
Most sports come through studio 5 so the main would be from there, the backup of a feed direct from the event by a diffrent route to what Studio 5 had, and the radio commentary from 5 live (or Radio 4 LW when they did cricket). There'll be a similar setup with Wimbledon - albeit much more complicated as there's more than one match at a time.
In the old days the 5 radio stations were available on the router in the presentation area so it didn't even need to be set up, of course now Five live and other stations (local stations) are usually available on the red button during football so there's alternative commentary available easily again
However there's not much can be done when the entire broadcast centre is lost. I'm presuming that Swiss TV took their coverage straight from the stadium as it was easier.
The international feed had a replay of the second half after the match so stations could get the bits they missed. Good job they recorded it at the stadium!
Indeed. I think we all discussed radio commentary a few weeks ago and some people wondered whether Red Bee Media would still have the wherewithall to put radio commentary out in such circumstances. Clearly they do and hats off to them. The people in NC1 worked really hard last night and even managed to get to the Ten more-or-less on time. I understand at one point they were preparing to put filler programmes out after the UEFA pool coverage of the actual game had ended, because there were questions over whether the BBC studio out there would be available for the post-match analysis. In the end all came good, but what a night for all concerned!
I guess the next question is do Red Bee have any kit they can route the audio (or video, if necessary) through to deliberately introduce a delay, so they can get the pictures and commentary in sync? (Of course its not necessarily that easy if the delay is going to be slightly different for every uplink)
I haven't been watching the interactive coverage of the tournament, but the last time I see for a sporting event the picture and the optional 5 Live commentary were still slightly out.
SP
Guess you have to spare a thought for a subtitler - subtitling a TV commentary must be hard enough, but to suddenly change to a full ball by ball radio commentary must have been a shock! I assume the subtitles continued through the bit when the pictures failed?
BR
Isn't it largely automated nowadays?
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Guess you have to spare a thought for a subtitler - subtitling a TV commentary must be hard enough, but to suddenly change to a full ball by ball radio commentary must have been a shock! I assume the subtitles continued through the bit when the pictures failed?
Isn't it largely automated nowadays?