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Switching to Birmingham

(January 2009)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
BH
Blake Hill
Birmingham still has a bit of a role to play in the big picture - if the whole of W12 has to be evacuated, playout can move to its disaster recovery site; but the DR site still needs to be switched to the transmitters, and this is what can be switched in from Birmingham, should there be nobody left in TV Centre to do this.
Their capability to flick the switch still gets tested occasionally; I believe one such test may be scheduled for this week. You won't see much on air, though it's possible that the DR site's output will have cue dots.
DE
deejay
noggin posted:
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Beep posted:


What is a BM DOG? (Well what does BM stand for?)


Bear in mind that each major BBC building has a two letter code, generally based on its location, it shouldn't be *that* difficult to work out it out based on the title of this thread!


Yep - though even the Beeb got confused between NC, NT and NO and Norwich, Newcastle and Norwich when they launched the BBC One English regional variants... (They were wrong during the initial testing... )


I think even you have got confused there noggin! NC=Norwich, NT=Newcastle and NO=Nottingham isn't it?
GE
thegeek Founding member
deejay posted:
I think even you have got confused there noggin! NC=Norwich, NT=Newcastle and NO=Nottingham isn't it?
That's right. NT for Newcastle upon Tyne.
NG
noggin Founding member
deejay posted:
noggin posted:
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Beep posted:


What is a BM DOG? (Well what does BM stand for?)


Bear in mind that each major BBC building has a two letter code, generally based on its location, it shouldn't be *that* difficult to work out it out based on the title of this thread!


Yep - though even the Beeb got confused between NC, NT and NO and Norwich, Newcastle and Norwich when they launched the BBC One English regional variants... (They were wrong during the initial testing... )


I think even you have got confused there noggin! NC=Norwich, NT=Newcastle and NO=Nottingham isn't it?

Yep - oops!

Originally the BBC One English regions were up as :

BBC One NC Newcastle
BBC One NO Norwich
BBC One NT Nottingham

whereas it should be :

BBC One NC Norwich
BBC One NO Nottingham
BBC One NT Newcastle
JS
Janner south west
Interesting thread there.. Is it just me who would find the situation of the BBC having to relocate to It's DR Exiting? or is that the little boy inside me exited by the word disaster Laughing

I would like to see this actually happen on-air.. but it probably isnt going to happen for real for a long time.. We've had a break of 9 Years already! and it's a shame no deccent full length copies of the BBC's Power Cut in '00 Exist on YouTube etc..
JO
Joe
Janner south west posted:
Interesting thread there.. Is it just me who would find the situation of the BBC having to relocate to It's DR Exiting? or is that the little boy inside me exited by the word disaster Laughing

I would like to see this actually happen on-air.. but it probably isnt going to happen for real for a long time.. We've had a break of 9 Years already! and it's a shame no deccent full length copies of the BBC's Power Cut in '00 Exist on YouTube etc..

Careful what you say Janner! You'd hate it if people had to die in order for you to see it! Smile
DE
denton
noggin posted:
Hymagumba posted:
is that on an internal channel? And does London put the graphics on or is it a clean feed that the nations then tinker with?


Alongside the 9Mbs MPEG2 network 1 and network 2 feeds introduced with digital TV there was a 9Mbs "clean feed" stream added as well for each nation, that allowed them to see any port on the pres router.

The 9Mbs feeds may have been replaced with Raman 270Mbs feeds now - but I suspect there is still a clean feed channel for each nation available.

Don't know if they take clean trails or not. One of the advantages of the permanent box was that you could just superimpose a national variant over the top.


There are two clean feeds from Red Bee to the Nations.

The first is a 'BBC 1 Programmes Only' feed.

The second is the output of a router in London, which the Nations can remotely switch between dozens of sources (server ports, VTs, playout streams, OSs, TV Centre Studios) however in normal use the Nations would leave this feed switched to a 'BBC 2 Programmes Only' feed and use it to leave and join BBC 2 programmes cleanly.

Overnight they switch this feed to a playout stream in London which plays all of the following days trails. The Nations record this, and early in the morning they (in NI it is the director/announcer) edit on their branding 'NI', 'Wales' etc to these trails, and put these on to their own local servers for playout that day.

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