Playout systems

Well of course, every case will be different. It would depend if the setup they have is just a generic playout system for a basic channel or something more complex. Every channel is different



It is, after all they'd be the ones left with the equipment and staff redundant and earning no income. Though again it depends on what happens and what the contract is/was.


Incidently I think there might have been a misunderstanding with the last sentence of my post: 'Of course if the channel has closed because the company has gone under then the component parts will just be sold'. There I was thinking more of a channel that does it's in-house,

Same here - though I've heard cases of channels acquired by other companies, moving playout to other companies or doing it in-house.

I may be wrong on this, but channels with playout outsourced will have it reused for channels to go full time or fully replace the closed channel. Someone mentioned about Challenge and Living moving for Red Bee to Sky on the day of the 2011 overhaul - integrating what was left of the Living TV Group. They were left off air for a few hours before returning to usual programmes an hour before the said overhaul happened. Channel One though, experienced no such move and was closed at Red Bee.
Another case was Dave+1 using up the airtime left behind by UKTV Bright Ideas when that channel closed in 2007.

I'm not sure what you're asking, but yes channels do move from one playout provider to another. Channel 5 recently moved from the facility that's played it out since launch to Ericsson/Red Bee for example.


What the playout supplier that's not providing that service any more does with the facilities that have been left behind is up to them. Red Bee would have been left with playout suites and systems that were used for the Flextech contract, what happened to that is anyone's guess - chucked, reused, used as spares or became home to another contract.

Of course a couple of years after they lost that contract they got the one for BT Sport. Maybe the physical space they left was reused for that, but they wouldn't have wanted a second hand playout system for their expensive new channel, not that one for Living would necessarily be suitable for BT Sport 1



Airtime is a different matter, and of course in that case it was just a new channel from the same broadcaster coming from the same playout supplier. They wouldn't have reused the same playout system as Dave+1 continued and it's only a time delay anyway

My first proper job in telly was a Media Management Operator - basically tape monkey in playout. One of the jobs was to check that the in and out points on the database matched the media on server, and to input a timecode for the start of the credits.

Not long after I started, I watched a programme on one of my channels at home, and thought that the continuity announcer came in a bit abruptly after the end of the programme. Then realised it was triggered from the automation from the timecode I'd entered myself. So I made sure to leave a bit more breathing space from then on.

I seem to remember that the first system the BBC used for automatic end credit announcements worked by starting it at x number of seconds into the programme. Went wrong fairly often as it was so easy to work out or enter the figure wrongly...... V/O comes in at 3485 seconds into the programme is a silly way of doing it

The first BBC 1/2 automation system also calculated transitions in a weird hybrid of seconds and intervals of frames denoted by letter. So you'd get a Mix of 0A (5 frames), 0B (10 frames), 0C (15 frames), 0D (20 frames) or 1- (1 second). Sound Leads and Lags were similarly denoted in the system. Directors doing their prep would get used to looking at the start of the programme and putting in transitions like L-0A, X0B. Mind bending. But if you coupled that with the knowledge that the system wasn't frame accurate and you had to allow for a few frames slippage either way things got very messy indeed. Many a pres op got caught out by a VT clock appearing to cue up at -7", only to look in the system and find the director wanted a long sound lead and a slow down and up into it ...

Didn't some equipment for one of Granada's defunct Sky channels get sent from Manchester to Leeds when Central's playout was moved there? Seem to recall reading that on here way back.

Kit being redeployed is not a new thing; Deejay will know better than me but I think BBC Oxford was kitted out with stuff from Woodhouse Lane, Leeds and then Oxford Road Manchester when they respectively closed and moved to newer premises.

Well remembered! Yes Oxford had second hand kit from a few places. The original monitor stack, Aston, and talkback system was from the Hull subopt installation in Leeds. The cameras were from Southampton Studio-B. The original vision mixer (GVG M2100) was a new panel for an old crate from Southampton. The original graphics kit (Collage TG) was from Southampton too.

Old gallery:


When the gallery was refurbished, the kit was ex Studio-B Manchester (GVG DD2 vision mixer, Evertz multiviewer, Trilogy tb, matrix) though the Aston and cameras soldier on! The Aston must be around 25 years old, it's a Motif ESP.

New gallery:

I


I could watch this behind the scenes stuff all day. Thanks for posting @deejay

It looks more like a playlist to me.

What does "L -0A, X0B" mean?