Radio and TV Simulcasts

The FM Radio 1/2 Mix also simulcast a BBC broadcast of Jean-Michel Jarre's Rendezvous Houston concert, where a lot was made about the sound coming from a digital source (not sure if it was a modified 1" deck with PCM or a separately slaved uMatic with the PCM->Video converter that recorded digital audio as pictures - in a very similar way to the Betamax PCM-F1)

A couple of years later Capital Radio in London did the same with a broadcast of (I think) Destination Docklands.

I remember connecting the FM tuner to the external inputs on the VHS HiFi deck to record them both!

(Well and truly off topic now)

Right up until 2002 or 2003, BBC Radio 3 and BBC TV shared a commentary feed for the Last Night of the Proms. We always used to watch it with the pictures on the telly and FM sound through our hi-fi, because our TV wasn't connected up to the hi-fi and so we got a far better audio experience. I believe that it was the first Alan Titchmarsh-presented year (either 2003 or 2004) that TV and Radio finally got a different commentary feed.

Having said that, I don't know if the audio feed was identical on both TV and Radio up until then? I went to a (very interesting) talk by some BBC Radio 3 audio engineers a couple of years ago who confirmed that for the main televised Proms concerts, the TV feed is mixed separately, with instruments being faded up/down to match the pictures (e.g. if the flute has a melody, and the camera cuts to the flautist, the flute is brought up *ever so slightly* in the mix to match the picture emphasis). I've absolutely no idea when this innovation came in, and whether or not it was being done when TV and Radio shared a commentary feed or whether the TV and Radio audio feed was completely identical.

Historically there has been a separate TV and Radio mix (with some - but not all - microphones shared) for the Proms - so the shared commentary would have been mixed with separate music mixes on Radio and TV. The TV coverage is usually mixed in a separate TV sound truck (not in the sound end of a scanner).

These days the TV mix is - I think - 5.1 as well - so very different to a 2.0 radio mix.

Capital and C4 networked to all the ILR stations a Queen Wembley concert in the late 80s. Tyne Tees recorded the gig, and C4 played the concert out, with the radio feed going round the corner to Capital. They encoded
the audio using a Sony F1 PCM encoder, and that (now a 625/50 video signal) was uplinked to a satellite transponder. Each ILR station had a downlink dish, and F1 decoder, so they were able to rebroadcast the audio as a simulcast with C4. The audio tracks for radio were recorded advanced by 14 frames to compensate for the sat delay. Up until then the only way to economically network programmes on ILR was using the mono 9.8 kHz circuits from LBC/IRN that fed each station for news feeds. Fine for speech, but lousy for music, as they were mono, and had horrible group delay effects (gritty distortion), worse the further you were from London.

That had however been used since 1984 for the Network Chart Show on Sundays (in completion with the BBC chart), but after the Queen concert Capital and the network established a satellite feed system (not quite as exotic as the Queen rig) but a great deal better (and stereo). The company formed that ran it was SBS ?

Yep, it was quite good, Josie Lawrence played the radio and Peter Cook the television, there was a documentary about radio to TV transfers and audio from the programmes travelled between the two. very clever

I recorded most of that on VHS and cassette, I think I digitised it when I ad a sort out but couldn't be bothered to edit all the bits together that only appeared on one or the other medium.

Yes. Lots of other countries launched analogue stereo systems in the 80s (Germany used a Zweiton / Zweikanalton system that sent mono on the normal carrier and the right channel (not stereo difference as you might expect) on a secondary carrier OR a second mono language on that carrier (which could carry the original sound track on a dubbed movie or TV show)

A UK variant of the system was developed - and TVs (and possibly VCRs) were sold with it (even though it was never selected for use in the UK). Our 1983ish Philips Matchline system (29" monitor with separate tuner unit) had it.

NICAM took longer to develop - but was ultimately capable of far higher quality results. (Arguably higher quality than today's 256/192kHz MP2 audio on SD channels, which although higher bitdepth and sampling rate, use a crude psychoacoustic compression scheme, whereas NICAM was bit depth companded but otherwise uncompressed)

The BBC actually ran NICAM 728 as a 'trial' service for a long time before the formal launch, and Crystal Palace had it running for many years prior to the officail launch. The BBC made huge amounts of stuff in stereo in the 80s ( VT editing stereo without a dub was a challenge that usually involved small digital storage boxes - aka Bel boxes - ISTR) We had a home made NICAM receiver bodged into our VHS HiFi deck (it fed the audio out and back into the Simulcast inputs, and tapped off the NICAM carrier from the IF found internally in the VCR's tuner, and was neatly mounted inside the lid of the VCR) by the mid-to-late 80s. (87? 88?)

NICAM lives on, it's still used to feed the BBC's national FM transmitters, (very recently BBC R&D commissioned new codecs, to replace 30+ year old kit)

I think the only place where direct to home over the air broadcast NICAM exists now is South Africa, where analogue TV lives on (not for much longer I think)

The BBC used to use PCM F1s for stereo audio distribution over satellite for TV shows sent to the US and Japan. One vision circuit carried the pictures, and another carried the digital stereo audio. A lot nicer quality than FM analogue audio carriers with pre-emphasis etc.

And I think for some Radio OBs, using standard vision circuits/links back to London ?

This thread has gone beautifully off topic. And I love it!

It's a shame there is no easy way to delay analogue radio to match tv to allow you to watch football with the vastly better BBC local radio commentary instead of Sky's.

There's an easy way, but it's expensive (300 quid)

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/537943-REG/Kramer_VA_256XL_VA_256xl_Audio_Delay_for.html

Might make an interesting project to build one, for these dark winter nights !