Pause symbol on BBC channels

At about 2:07, there was a slight jump forward in time on BBC One (as mentioned on the BBC National/News Channel from New Broadcasting House thread) and the ticker disappeared. A pause symbol appeared in the top right corner of the screen. It seemed to be fixed for a bit, but it's now back with a vengeance.

TCOTV in the other thread noticed it had also appeared on other channels, making the DOG disappear.

Here is a cap:
http://bilky.info/bellringer/pause.png

I wonder what it is?

EDIT: It has now gone again, with a slight jump back in time.

RBS testing in progress. It's not as fun as it was when the testcard would make it's annual appearance.

Ah right - I never really read the threads on here about such things before, so I forgot about such things happening.

I like this pause symbol. It'll confuse some people however.

May not be an RBS-style test, could just be identifying circuits in advance of maintenance work to make sure the one they're about to disconnect isn't on-air, or testing the procedure to get RedBee's backup playout centre on air.

In the old days they used to test the network evacuation facilities by routing normal programmes (often Breakfast on BBC1 and Pages from Ceefax on BBC2) up to Pebble Mill on contribution circuits, where they would superimpose a "BM" (meaning Birmingham) DOG. The test was successful if the dogged version made it to the transmitters.

It's a bit on the chunky side, but it is in fact a cue dot!

RBS testing doesn't exist anymore, but there are still regular checks of the backup playout facilities and satellite uplinks.

It's not exactly subtle is it? The one BBC Leeds use as a confidence check that their opt switch has worked is a lot more discrete.

I did notice at one point the picture cut out for about 5 seconds during a switch last night.

Is there any particular reason that the feed with the symbol lacked DOGs, or the news ticker? (The answer is probably obvious, but I thought I'd ask)

Probably a combination of:
a) it's the same feed that would be recorded and repeated in the event of a BH evacuation, so it's useful to not have anything too time-specific on-screen. (Though in TVC days it would include at least a clockless DOG)
b) it's the BH output that would be used for BBC One's network news if Red Bee had to decamp to their disaster recovery centre, so wouldn't have had those graphics.

I don't think these tests are meant to be seamless - that's why they happen in the middle of the night

Ah, that makes sense (and wasn't something I'd thought of either).


Indeed. The screen going blank at around 4 o'clock for a few seconds was the only thing that happened that seemed any different to the other things that happened.