All the studio CG work is held in computer, and the positions of the cameras (which are mounted on remote control heads) are relative to the CG backgrounds (which themselves are inserted using chroma key matting techniques). When a camera is moved, the CG system will automatically make perspective modifications to the CG to give the appearance of being real. Very clever.
Unfortunately, I find the ITV1 news a case of "style over content". The flash graphics gets in the way of the message, and the cheesiness of the presenters ("look at me - I'm clever and gorgeous and you're not") gets my goat. I used to like Trevor McDonald when he was a proper "News at Ten" newsreader, but I find his style of presentation really patronising now.
Still, that's the way TV is going. Especially "ITV PLC". Yuck.
All the studio CG work is held in computer, and the positions of the cameras (which are mounted on remote control heads) are relative to the CG backgrounds (which themselves are inserted using chroma key matting techniques). When a camera is moved, the CG system will automatically make perspective modifications to the CG to give the appearance of being real. Very clever.
Unfortunately, I find the ITV1 news a case of "style over content". The flash graphics gets in the way of the message, and the cheesiness of the presenters ("look at me - I'm clever and gorgeous and you're not") gets my goat. I used to like Trevor McDonald when he was a proper "News at Ten" newsreader, but I find his style of presentation really patronising now.
Still, that's the way TV is going. Especially "ITV PLC". Yuck.
CB
Yep - the ITV News current look is actually pretty cold, and also the graphics, though technically very clever, are very flat and lack depth. The chromakeying is also a bit odd - it doesn't look real - which may convey a subliminal lack of reality in the rest of the coverage.
One major issue is that they now use lots of very wide shots, where the presenter is very small in frame. This makes them seem more distant, and certainly reduces the ability of the viewer to connect with the presenter, especially if you can't see the newsreaders eyes clearly. Certainly the main stood-up shots used by ITN are much looser than the BBC's stood-up-at-screen shots.
Last night Bill Neely was presenting and it was such a wide shot for the headlines and intros into the first two reports you actually couldn't tell WHO the newscaster was. He looked like a stick figure. It wasn't until about 5 mins into the programme that you got a head and shoulders shot.
The newscasters are the News Channel's only unique selling point and yet you can hardly see them. They have a couple of very attractive women who are wasted with such wide framing and poor lighting.
I think it's got something to do with all those dots on the floor. Presumably a virtual studio exists in the computer - whack the graphics into the vitual studio then as the cameras move around the real studio the position of the cameras tells the computer what to replace the green with. All guess work of course!
I'm sure there's someone who can give us a more technical (not too technical though) explanation.
Of course the real question we're all desperate to get answered is 'Who is presenting on the News Channel now? Oh no... hang on.... I've just realised that I can find that out by ... wait for it... bit radical this... turning the television on and watching the ITV News Channel.
Don't think that it is the dots on the floor. I think ITN are now using the "FreeD" system to detect what the cameras are looking at.
This sensing system was invented by the BBC, and is marketed by Radamec. It uses a combination of lens sensors (to judge the amount of zoom on the shot) and also possibly pan and tilt sensors on the camera head to detect the direction the camera is pointing.
There is then the issue of detecting where the camera is in the studio. This is done using the clever bit. The lighting grid in the ceiling is covered with circular discs with bar codes on them. Every camera that moves around on the floor has a small CCTV camera and cluster of bright LEDs mounted on it, pointing straight up towards the ceiling, and as long as this little camera can see enough discs in the ceiling it can work out where it is on the studio floor, and in what direction it is pointing.
Tie all this information with a 3D model of the real studio, add in the video/graphics feeds you want to include, splurge it all through very powerful computers, and you get a virtual background rendered that matches the real camera shots. This is then composited together using traditional chroma-key technology - with a slight twist. The BBC use a similar system for the Peter Snow Election VR graphics.
The only downside is that the processing and rendering takes time, so there is a delay in the camera moving and the background moving. To compensate the foreground camera video is delayed by the same amount prior to chroma-keying, as is the audio from the studio microphones.
A bit OT - but is this how BBC News did the virtual studio titles in the mid 1990s?
I think it's got something to do with all those dots on the floor. Presumably a virtual studio exists in the computer - whack the graphics into the vitual studio then as the cameras move around the real studio the position of the cameras tells the computer what to replace the green with. All guess work of course!
I'm sure there's someone who can give us a more technical (not too technical though) explanation.
Of course the real question we're all desperate to get answered is 'Who is presenting on the News Channel now? Oh no... hang on.... I've just realised that I can find that out by ... wait for it... bit radical this... turning the television on and watching the ITV News Channel.
Don't think that it is the dots on the floor. I think ITN are now using the "FreeD" system to detect what the cameras are looking at.
This sensing system was invented by the BBC, and is marketed by Radamec. It uses a combination of lens sensors (to judge the amount of zoom on the shot) and also possibly pan and tilt sensors on the camera head to detect the direction the camera is pointing.
There is then the issue of detecting where the camera is in the studio. This is done using the clever bit. The lighting grid in the ceiling is covered with circular discs with bar codes on them. Every camera that moves around on the floor has a small CCTV camera and cluster of bright LEDs mounted on it, pointing straight up towards the ceiling, and as long as this little camera can see enough discs in the ceiling it can work out where it is on the studio floor, and in what direction it is pointing.
Tie all this information with a 3D model of the real studio, add in the video/graphics feeds you want to include, splurge it all through very powerful computers, and you get a virtual background rendered that matches the real camera shots. This is then composited together using traditional chroma-key technology - with a slight twist. The BBC use a similar system for the Peter Snow Election VR graphics.
The only downside is that the processing and rendering takes time, so there is a delay in the camera moving and the background moving. To compensate the foreground camera video is delayed by the same amount prior to chroma-keying, as is the audio from the studio microphones.
A bit OT - but is this how BBC News did the virtual studio titles in the mid 1990s?
Nope - although pretty universally called "virtual" - the BBC mid-90s system didn't use any VR kit in the modern sense. There was no camera tracking or live background generation kit at all - it was all pre-rendered and pre-designed as a one-off. (Much cheaper!)
The system relied on laser disc players slaved with digital video effects devices to create the huge "virtual wide shots" - the DVE inserted a much smaller studio shot into a bigger CGI studio played from laserdisc - because the DVE and laserdisc were linked the studio shot could be moved in-synch with the backing so it looked like a clever pan across a big studio (but with no requirement for the cameras to be linked to any form of graphics system, and no expensive VR tracking kit to be used)
The close-ups were just traditional CSO - albeit with some clever masking on the Nine - the down-the-lines were CSO + DVE + Graphics combinations (with a real floor monitor in the presenter eyeline but out of shot) One of the neat things was making a real set with shades of blue that worked in-vision, but was also good enough to key from.
Most CSO studios are designed for the set elements painted the CSO colour to be entirely replaced - this was different and designed for the CSO elements to also work in-vision. (The masking was really clever on the Nine - where the backgrounds behind the presenter were only pure CSO blue around the edge of the presenter, swiftly moving to orange in the map elements, which thus required a mask)
The real tour-de-force was the first generation Working Lunch set-up. This came from the 3rd (incredibly small) News studio - which was by this time mainly used as a back-up for the two larger studios on the 6th floor. The studio was entirely blue - with a small version of the BBC One / BBC World desk in it - but the entire floor, desk, ceiling etc. was replaced with a fake office/loft look - with moving people in the background. This was done entirely with CSO, Laserdiscs and DVE, with no VR kit at all, incredibly clever for its time.
The real tour-de-force was the first generation Working Lunch set-up. This came from the 3rd (incredibly small) News studio - which was by this time mainly used as a back-up for the two larger studios on the 6th floor. The studio was entirely blue - with a small version of the BBC One / BBC World desk in it - but the entire floor, desk, ceiling etc. was replaced with a fake office/loft look - with moving people in the background. This was done entirely with CSO, Laserdiscs and DVE, with no VR kit at all, incredibly clever for its time.
Does anyone have any pictures of Working Lunch from this era?
Or to hold the floor up... assuming it's a glass/perspex floor supported on top of the lights - as if it was just a lighted floor it would get pretty hot!
I think the ITV News set is pretty good for the bulletins on ITV1. However i dont think it works for the news channel. It just gets boring to look at on the news channel after a while.
Or to hold the floor up... assuming it's a glass/perspex floor supported on top of the lights - as if it was just a lighted floor it would get pretty hot!
The floor with the lights underneath will be what is commonly called in the construction industry a "raised floor" It will have the lights housing fixed to a base, then there will be a whole series of supports like little legs about 10cm or more if desired supporting a floor glass or floor perspex sheet which is screwed into the top of the legs. Raisded floors are extremely common in call centres as they are used to hide the millions of cables under the physical floor. If you walk on a floor and there are lots of little access panels (or floor boxes as they are known) then it will most likely be a raised floor. Its just a real pain when one particular wire doesnt work and you need to feed a new wire through, very time cosuming. In fact i bet most news centres haved raised floors on them. Ok boring mesage complete.
I have to say I like the way Mary stands model-esque, with one toe pointing ahead and one out to the side.
Damn you, I'm now finding myself deliberately looking for this. And we weren't let down again this evening, doesn't Mary wear pointy shoes ?
Also, perhaps we could start a new line of conversation in the other ITV News thread whether or not Mary & Mark make it back to the desk by the close of the programme. Tonight they never, so Mark never got chance to slam down his papers on the desk.
