Eurovision Song Contest - Belgrade 2008

Doesn't Storbrittanien translate as Great Britain ? Great Britain is not the same as the UK

The UK is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland".

Great Britain, which is the direct translation of Storbrittanien, doesn't include NI...

In Eurovision we enter as the United Kingdom - Royaume Uni (not Grande Bretagne) - as the BBC represents the UK not just GB.

Les Français sont ennuyés, Ils chantent leur entrée en anglais

Un député français a dit qu'il est indigné que le morceau choisi pour représenter la nation dans le Concours Eurovision de la Chanson a anglais paroles.

Plus (en Anglais)....

Oh the french will always be bitter towards the English and anything British. Something to with Waterloo perhaps.

The French want their language to be suprerior in Europe, ok more Europeans speak French as their native language than English but more people speak English as their second language than French. Wouldn't get very far in Tallinn if you said "Bonjour" but would if you spoke English. I remember. I remember at press conference a French journalist spoke to President Chirac in English, Chirac asked why he was speaking English not French and the journalist replied because English is the international language. Naturally Monsieur Chirac wasn't happy but I'm ok .

Furthermore I don't care what language a song is in, I have Eurovision songs in different langauges.

It's something of an anachronism now that French and English are the two official languages of the Eurovision Song Contest. While the EBU don't seem to mind some of the hosts' spiel being in the local language of the host country, they still insist that the bulk of the contest is presented in English and French. Most host broadcasters now choose to have two presenters, bouncing between English and French (think Terry Wogan and Ulrika Jonnson for example when the BBC last hosted). Wasn't always the case, often a well known announcer, newsreader or television presenter presented in English and French (Jan Leeming, in 1982, Angela Rippon in '77 or the queen of the BBC Eurovision Song Contests Katie Boyle who presented for the BBC in '74, '68,'63 and '60!)

For as long as I can remember, the French have always sung in French (though occasionally the chorus has been in English. much to Terry Wogan's amusement ISTR). The Swiss usually seem to sing in French too as do the Belgians I think. Most other countries seem to sing in English now, with the exception of the newer participants who seem to want to promote their language and individuality.

I must say I didn't like the contest much when countries had to sing in an official language of their nation (up until 1999 I think). IMO, German is a horrid langauge when sung (Dutch isn't much better either), though French and Italian songs sound wonderfuly musical.

Yep - some English has been creeping into French entries since the native-language rule was dropped in 1999 (Think it was '99).



Switzerland have entered their fair share of German language entries - and this year have entered in Italian. (Given that Switzerland has French, German, Italian and Romanche speakers in its population they'e quite a choice of native languages)

Belgium alternate their song selection between their two national language broadcasters - French speaking broadcaster (RTBF) and the Dutch language broadcaster (VRT). Often the French speaking broadcaster selects a French language song, but the Dutch speaking one often choses between English and Dutch language (usually English since 1999 ISTR)



Eastern Europe and former Soviets usually chose English, as do most Mediterranean countries (Malta, Greece, Cyprus etc.) as do most Scandinavian and Baltic states. The Balkans often send native languages - and Serbia won with a non-English song - the first non-English winner since the native-language rule was dropped ISTR.



And of course Belgium came second a few years ago with "Sanomi" sung by Urban Trad - which was in a made-up language. (And beautiful)

Also - some of the English songs are sung in such a thick accent that you don't realise they are in English until half-way through...

Can a petition be created to get Eurovison 2008, 2007, 2006 (and others) released on Blu-ray? (I know older contests weren't recorded in high definition, but that should make them easier to fit on a disc - and you could create playlists of songs from different years - but the high definition ones should be put on the disc(s) in full HD at the maximum bitrate).

Also, is the contest recorded in 1080p50 or 1080i50? As the contest is made by/with the EBU, and the EBU make TV standards, is there any chance they could get 1080p50 to be a Blu-ray standard as well (since most European HDTVs will accept this format)?

The french still haven't got over Agincourt

One neat thing that would be possible with BluRay - rights agreements permitting - would be to include some national commentaries as well.

HOWEVER - the DVD is hardly a huge seller, so I doubt we'll see a BluRay for a little while - as the costs in mastering and distributing a BluRay are still HUGELY more than those involved in mastering and duplicating a DVD.



1080/50i aka 1080i25 - i.e. 25 frames per second/50 fields per second interlaced. (If the i comes before the number it is frames, if it comes after it is fields - so 1080i50 doesn't exist at all - as nobody uses a 50 FRAME per second interlaced format)

There is no practical production gear for 1080/50p aka 1080p50 yet - cameras which will output it from their camera head (HDC-1500s for example) but not down their camera cables - whether they are triax or fibre. Similarly only very high-end HDCam SR VTRs and few mixers can cope with 1080/50p content.

In fact the main driving force for 1080/50p recording is actually dual 1080/50i recording (for 3D) - and it is a by product of 1080/50i 4:4:4 recording...

HOWEVER - AIUI there are currently not even any 1080/50i BluRay releases anyway - all the BBC HD BluRay releases have been converted to either 1080/24p or 1080/60i.

This is because some of the early BluRay players will only replay HD at 24 or 60Hz and not 50Hz...

If the contest WERE to be released on BluRay it would be a standards conversion to 1080/60i (aka 1080i30)



The EBU don't "make" TV standards - they recommend them.

The EBU has recommended 720/50p as an interim standard with an aim of 1080/50p.

However apart from Italy and Sweden nobody is following this advice - as 1080/50i delivers much better quality movie and drama picture quality (it can carry 1080/25p aka 1080p25 losslessly) and many people feel it is better than 720/50p for sport as well...

All major sporting events are using 1080/50i or 1080/60i as a result.

Even though the EBU are suggesting 720/50p as the optimum current HD broadcast format - they are still shooting the contest in 1080/50i. Partially because cross conversion to 720/50p is possible at good quality - but the reverse shows some quality loss.

(This is the same reason that HD shows made for 720/60p broadcasters in the US - like Fox and ABC - are still shot in 1080/24p or on film and telecined to 1080/24p.)

1080/50p is not part of the BluRay standard - and isn't likely to be used for TV production anytime soon.

Also - 1080/50p is not part of the "HD Ready" licensing - and there are many TVs that don't accept 1080p inputs (at 24, 50 or 60p) - in fact most sold until last year didn't support 1080p inputs at all.

So no likelihood of a 1080/50p release as :

1. The contest isn't shot in 1080/50p
2. BluRay doesn't include 1080/50p as a mandated standard AIUI

Thanks that was useful info. Do you work in broadcasting? I didn't know if there was a proper of saying 1080i50/1080p50 (or if there was a broadcast standard way of writing it).

It's a shame they aren't going to create a Blu-ray - I can see how it would be more expensive to make than DVD, including with the license they have to pay to make a Blu-ray (even a test disc). But I thought with the contest taking place with many European countries, there would be quite a big market for it. Also, with it already being broadcast/recorded in high def I would have thought it would be fairly easy to put it onto a Blu-ray disc (unlike many feature films which would require a lot of restoration work etc).

About 1080p50 - my TV can accept (and display it) as well as 1080p60
And I'm sure for people who have a TV which can't accept either of those standards the player could output 1080/50i or whatever resolution their TV was capable of. So maybe the EBU could persuade the Blu-ray group to add 1080p50 into the specs (and they might want to expand the specs anyway because James Cameron wants to make films in 3D and/or 48fps?)

Also, I thought the "Red" cameras can record 1080p50 (they can apparently record 2k at up to 120fps! (http://www.red.com/cameras)) - but it does say "windowed" for the 50p and 120p options so I don't know if that means it doesn't record a full (16:9?) frame.

Blu-ray 1080/50i - I thought there were a few of these Blu-ray discs - I read that one was a film called "Death Sentence" that should probably really have been encoded at 24p. I'm not sure about documentaries - maybe some have been converted to 60i with artefacts, but hopefully they won't need to be converted in future, especially for the European/British market.

Also, on the EBU website at http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/hdtv/test_sequences.php
They have test sequences where they recorded the 2006 Eurovision opening at 1080p50. They've also got a 3840x2160p/50 sample clip! (but they recorded that on film).

OT question, but why can't TV broadcasters allow 24p movies to be broadcast at 24p (especially when newer LCD HDTVs (which are the majority of HDTVs) can show these at multiples of 24 like 48hz/72hz/120hz)? (though for UK dramas etc. recorded at 25fps they would still be broadcast at their original rate).

Also, why can't TV broadcasters allow many different frame rates/resolutions? (eg. Uk broadcasts at 24p/25p/30p/50p/60p and many others - the 30/60hz ones useful for broadcasting some USA content) - or would it cause glitches if you switched between different rates for different source content?

Two main broadcast reasons :

1. Many broadcasters simulcast HD content on SD channels and vice versa. To do this at optimum picture quality requires them both to be running at the same frame rate - which means either 50Hz or 60Hz. The optimum way of showing 24p content for SD 50Hz outlets is to speed it up to 25p and use 2:2 interlacing, rather than standards converting. This also works for HD outlets (and is what the UK HD broadcasters do with HD movies and 24p HD shows - which is most of them - from the US). If you broadcast at 25p for SD and 24p for HD the shows would run different times - meaning you'd end up with the show finishing earlier on the SD network...

2. More importantly - it is only feasible to run a channel presentation area at a single frame rate. Hence HD 50Hz channels are 720/50p or 1080/50i, and 60Hz channels are 720/60p or 1080/60i. Whilst you can playout 24p and 25p content at 60Hz and 50Hz by adding 3:2 and 2:2 pulldown - you can't transmit 24p natively.

Imagine mixing from a 50i channel ident to a 24p movie, or trying to do an end credit promo (I know we don't like them but they are here to stay) with a 24p movie clip over a 50i episode of EastEnders - it all falls to bits.

The other practical issue is that most TVs take a good second or two to resync on frame rate changes - and flash and bang when they do so - often flashing up their on-screen display. Can you imagine how annoying that would be continuously happening on a TV channel?