Some HoDs in Amsterdam have pretty much confirmed to All Kinds of Everything that they will be combining the results of the jury vote on the Friday night and televoting patterns from previous years to come up with a dynamic voting order meaning that the revealing of the results could/should be more exciting than usual.
For those of us, who have ready the M&M Productions' Eurovision Diary for the past 2 years, it seems the guy who ran it, Ola Melzig, will have a new position and a blog on eurovision.tv.
There's going to be a documentary on More4 called the Secret History of Eurovision on May 7th. It's a co-production between several European broadcasters and SBS in Australia according to ESC Today.
On Your Country Needs Blu, why does the BBC zoom/crop every 4:3 clip to 16:9? Aren't they making the older Eurovision clips (<2005) look worse?
edit: just read that in a BBC worldwide guideline it says they should be zoomed to 16:9 where possible without compromising the image quality and composition - but aren't they lowering the quality of both - and isn't this a bad guideline and thing to do?
Last edited by Neo on 16 April 2011 7:10pm - 4 times in total
On Your Country Needs Blu, why does the BBC zoom/crop every 4:3 clip to 16:9? Aren't they making the older Eurovision clips (<2005) look worse?
edit: just read that in a BBC worldwide guideline it says they should be zoomed to 16:9 where possible without compromising the image quality and composition - but aren't they lowering the quality of both - and isn't this a bad guideline and thing to do?
It's not just a BBC Worldwide guideline - it's in the pan-UK tech specs as agreed by BBC, ITV, C4, Five and Sky I think now...
You are correct that cropping and zooming 4:3 source material to 16:9 reduces the vertical resolution (and this can be quite noticable when the source material is low quality and covered with composite artefacts) which could be described as dropping the quality. However there is also a strong argument that intercutting pillarbox and full-screen material is visually jarring and can be distracting - which drops the quality of the show in an editorial way.
Worse is a tricky word to use - as whilst cropping/zooming 4:3 to 16:9 may make the picture quality worse, but not pillarboxing may make the footage editorially worse (by making it jar).
Personally I think that if the original composition is ruined by cropping and zooming, then pillarboxing to a degree is preferable. However if the crop/zoom is not compromising framing - then I think you can argue that it is justified as a less distracting solution.
Pillarboxing 12F12 material to 12P16 (full pillarbox) is also an issue for 14:9 commissioned shows (which go out on analogue in 14:9 letterbox and are AFD flagged on Freeview to be displayed 14:9 on 4:3 displays) - as you end up with 'floating'/'postage stamp'/'window box' as the result - a small 4:3 picture surrounded by black (or whatever is in the pillarbox bars left and right) (This is why News have always 14P16 pillarboxed material they ARC themselves)
ISTR that the new BBC/ITV/C4/Five/Sky specs ask for the pillarbox to be black - but personally I think you can make things less jarring, often, by filling the pillarbox with a blurred version of the central section.
Great documentary just, however
1 - I take it there is no clean feed from the mixer in the main OB scanner on the night, available to broadcasters, which doesn't have the performing country and appearance in running order number?
2- Nice work by the researchers to get the Sandy Shaw 'Puppet on a string' start - the original as broadcast didn't have her mic faded up for the first couple of seconds.
3- I'm pretty sure Norway's entry in 2009 DID have a very slight key change
4- Odd that one clip of a performance which originally went out in 16:9, was cropped for this show to 14:9.
Still, first time I've heard this years UK entry and I hope it does well. Slight concen that we seem to be playing on the popularity of Blue in europe from almost a decade ago - but, there's no harm in trying...
Still, first time I've heard this years UK entry and I hope it does well. Slight concen that we seem to be playing on the popularity of Blue in europe from almost a decade ago - but, there's no harm in trying...
The song's not too bad, fairly standard boy-band stuff but one of our better recent entries
Incidently, that roof they're performing on in their video.... anyone else recognise it?
Great documentary just, however
1 - I take it there is no clean feed from the mixer in the main OB scanner on the night, available to broadcasters, which doesn't have the performing country and appearance in running order number?
The host broadcaster MAY retain a clean copy (as they may use elements of it during the reprises, though this is likely to be in EVS rather than on tape and they may not feel the need to relay the clean EVS recording back to tape I guess - though I suspect it may get recorded to tape as well).
The BBC will definitely have a copy of their broadcast of the show - with burned in graphics AND Terry's commentary - as that will be the PasB recording (Programme as Broadcast). This will be the first hit on a search of the library.
I suspect the BBC also make a recording for the library of the incoming Eurovision feed, without Terry's commentary and without any graphics added in the UK gallery (so it would have the phone/SMS vote suffixes but NOT the UK specific phone/terms and conditions details AND would have unblanked sponsorship logos on the scoreboards if there are any) - but it would have the little 'country name/number' bit during the performance and the introductory strap. This is likely also be in the library for more recent contests I would imagine - but wouldn't always be the first choice for a researcher, as Terry's commentary is often what is wanted.
However I don't think the EBU separately uplink a graphics-free version of the contest (I'm about 99.9% sure they don't) so the BBC wouldn't have access to an entirely clean feed on-the-night. I very much doubt anyone in the BBC would go to the trouble of arranging to get copies of this if it existed at the host broadcaster, and I doubt a researcher for this kind of show would approach previous host broadcasters and pay them to dub off a copy when a perfectly useful copy (albeit with graphics) is in the BBC library. (Hardly good use of licence fee etc.)
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2- Nice work by the researchers to get the Sandy Shaw 'Puppet on a string' start - the original as broadcast didn't have her mic faded up for the first couple of seconds.
Haven't watched the doc yet - did they make a big thing about unearthing the start? Or was this a recording of a rehearsal (or worse - different audio relaid on top to 'fix' the fault because the people making the show were unaware of the original issue and may have thought it was drop-out?)
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4- Odd that one clip of a performance which originally went out in 16:9, was cropped for this show to 14:9.
Which performance was this - it wasn't from the 'fake' 16:9 contest in Norway was it? 2005 in Kyiv/Kiev was the first proper 16:9 contest - the Norway stuff was only ever broadcast and recorded in 4:3 (with a letterbox) ISTR.
However I don't think the EBU separately uplink a graphics-free version of the contest (I'm about 99.9% sure they don't) so the BBC wouldn't have access to an entirely clean feed on-the-night.
