Olympics 2012: Live Coverage

Why do they show 'Live: Aquatics Centre' etc captions at seemingly random intervals?

I've only ever seen that at Wimbledon before so I'd assumed it was because the BBC is host broadcaster and that is for the world feed when they opt in anad out, but they are doing it at the Olympics as well.

I doubt it would go on the world feed. It's for pushing the BBC Sport brand.

I apologise if this has been covered elsewhere (I did do a search), but to what extent are the BBC involved in producing the actual raw coverage?

From what I can see all of the cameramen are OBS-branded, are they really BBC personnel, or is it like Formula 1 in that the whole thing is put together by the Olympic organisers? Obviously I'd expect the BBC to be involved in some way, providing resources etc., but to what extent? Is it their gig?!

http://www.tvforum.co.uk/tvhome/olympics-2012-nonbbc-specific-33399/page-11

Thanks guys. I had a feeling my search hadn't been thorough enough!

So here's another question, again hopefully not already covered. I was watching the synchronised swimming yesterday (ahem) and I was intrigued as to how they were creating the split underwater / above-water shots. At first I thought it was simply a camera on the water-line but as it panned and titled, it started to seem like they were coming from 2 different places. I'm guessing there are 2 cameras involved, locked together in terms of movement / zoom / focus, with possibly some clever bit of kit in the chain to keep the border between the two in the right place?

Ok I've answered my own question.

Twin-cam to film synchronised swimming at London 2012 Olympics

I'll just stop talking now!

The BBC are providing production personnel to OBS for some events, the Beeb have very few of their own OB trucks, what they did have were sold some years ago to SiS. SiS I'm sure are there, providing facilities for OBS, (as well as the Beeb's own domestic injects) and other production teams. For instance Finland's YLE and Sweden's SVT are producing the track and field events, with OB trucks from Alfacam and Prisma.

Anybody wearing an OBS jacket could be working for any number of production or OB companies.

Outside of BBC News (which now includes English Regions), and the BBC Nations, the BBC have almost no cameramen (and women) on-staff. There are a few employed by BBC Studios at TV Centre, but not that many.

The BBC sold their Outside Broadcast division (and transferred their OB cameramen and women) to SIS (Satellite Information Services) about 4-5 years ago. SIS were predominantly an uplink operator and horse racing coverage producer - and the expanded operation is now branded as SISLive. They have also bought O21 Outside Broadcasts (formerly owned by ITV) and Dales (a smaller OB operator) As a result SISLive have quite a large fleet of pretty decent HD trucks (and some pretty grotty ones as well)

SISLive are still a preferred OB provider for BBC Sport, and do a large chunk of BBC Sport OBs.

So the reality is that the BBC don't actually have many camera people on staff in the first place.

The BBC are producing the host feeds for rowing, boxing, football and tennis. The technical facilities will be from SISLive and other European OB providers, and the production team and crew will be a mix of staff, freelance and contract I suspect.

It seems to be a pretty recent obsession. I guess it is to try and drive home the 'live-ness' - but I'm not sure I really see the point. They don't do it on football matches do they?

It seemed to arrive when Roger Mosey (currently Head of BBC 2012 - soon to be acting Head of BBC Vision) moved from News to be Head of Sport - it's quite a newsy thing to do.

They did them last time around too, and always do them at Wimbledon. In all cases they're completely unnecessary as it's completely obvious what you're watching. My theory though is perhaps they're used instead of a DOG, allowing them to put the BBC Sport logo on screen every 15 minutes or so or during a big race.

Does the Live bug include a BBC Sport logo though? Doesn't it just animate on to say live, the location then animates out of the bug, and then the whole thing disappears again? Don't think a BBC Sport logo is involved?

I agree that they are pretty pointless. Equally - they are also pretty subtle and only on-screen for a short period. NBC apparently stick a live bug up on all of their live stuff - not that there is that much of it...