The Sky Presentation Thread

Sky have switched to using the "Pixel Power Clarity" promo system which can do the promo stuff 'on the fly'

Even if they stretched out the address a bit more it would help.

Can you go into a bit more detail about this playout system? What is so good about it and why would Sky need to change?

The primary reason is that it does both HD & SD output at the same time, while also working off templates.

All the user has to do is define the text,, upload the clip and set the tags and the system will generate the promo live as required.

Sky use a large number of Clarity systems across their output, for example they now deploy 3 Clarity systems to run the video presentation on the Sky Sports Interactive service.

Could this be the reason why the new graphics appeared on sky 1 & 2 over the past couple of weeks before launch?

How are they handling mulitchannel menu's. The previous sweeping circular motion worked greatly in my opinion.

EDIT: I've just seen the examples of the vimeo site. I think that looks even better. Having not seen much on screen, am I right in thinking that the programme pictures stay inside the rectangles as they fly off?

The end credits look like a great idea, but just watched the end credits of last nights Gladiatiors, and you can't read them. Saying that the size ratio looks better on the vimeo example, where as on screen it looks a lot smaller. You don't get the full effect when credits have a black background either. I was going to say that the credits would have to be made larger much like the BBC's, but the credits on Gladiators weren't even that small.

Yep - Red Bee use Clarity as well to render stuff for the BBC playout areas.

Clarity is replacing Astons in quite a few areas, particularly those that don't need the power of Viz. (Clarity doesn't do full 3D stuff - though it can do some fakery to make stuff look 3D AIUI)

With the right set-up you can automatically render the ends of trails live rather than having to make specific versions for different TX times and days. (So rather than a "Today", "Tomorrow', "Next Monday" etc. trail having to be separately edited, you can make one core trail and render the right end caption live. Some systems even allow you to leave space for the different voice overs)

Clarity is also used by Channel 4 for end credit sequences AIUI and a couple of English Regions have them too. They're flexible devices and can be used as graphics engines, still stores, DVEs and character generators. Quality for some of those elements might not be quite as good as stand-alone devices (the DVE can look a bit soft for example) but for the money they're a good solution.

Having said that the other day, now 4:3 programmes are being shown in full pillarbox on Sky1 HD. At last, finally they've stopped cropping to 14:9!

Now it means all of the simulcast HD channels are showing 4:3 material correctly, except for Sky Sports which still stretches the picture (apparently us sports fans are idiots who don't care about the aspect ratio being correct!)

In my experience it's the sports fans who seem most likely to have their TVs set up correctly.

The DOGs have now been moved, and now fit nicely onto my TV.

Same on mine, they're much better.

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/5337/sky3dogup7.jpg