Talking Telephone Numbers

I guess that is analagous to making physical cuts to tapes to do quick turnaround edits when there isn't time to dub off the bits you want to include.

Like the (frankly scary) stories of VT editors of old editing the second half highlights of an evening football match while Match of the Day is playing out the first half

Yes - though physical tape editing stopped being possible (at a broadcast level) when 2" Quad stopped being used. Think the last razor blade edit was for a Match of the Day cut down in the 80s.

You couldn't cut 1" C-format or B-format physically as the helical tracks made it effectively impossible.



Yes - that's not unusual though - editing across multiple suites, and cross rolling between them, wasn't that unusual, with one edit still cutting whilst the other was on-air.

If you want scary - tape delaying events before servers was pretty hairy, particularly if the delay was quite short. (You had to be hot on how long 1" machines or D3 decks took to rewind...)

With these EDLs on the TX servers where do you Edit are there dedicated suites for them or do they use Avid, Premiere Pro, Final Cut etc? What software do they run on? And in general what does the BBC use to edit packages to air?

They probably use Windows movie maker.

Sorry for getting off track.

The Quantel/SAM/GVG system uses the Quantel-era tools - QEdit, QCut etc. which are effectively cut down versions of Pablo Rio (!). BBC News Jupiter desktops include a QCut for desktop editing, which is cut-only for vision (but with reasonably sophisticated sound editing), and 100% proxy-based. QEdit includes far more effects (dissolves, DVEs, blurs, keying etc.) and edits with native pictures rather than proxies (and you have a choice of localised media or editing 'on the server').

The QEdit craft edit suites have broadcast monitors, fader and jog/shuttle control surfaces etc. The Quantel editing UI was developed with a lot of input from News VT editors.

BBC News edit suite in NBH London #bbcnews #behindthescenes #editing #qedit #sapphire @Quantel @GenArtsInc pic.twitter.com/RXOFH59UR8

— Marc Gibbons (@white_noize) May 16, 2013

Good pic of a BBC News standard edit there. Fader surface closer to camera is off-board mixer, surface further away is QEdit control surface.

Are all BBC network packages cut in a suite like that by a craft editor? I believe in the regions it's a mix and match of craft editors putting more complex stuff together and the journalists themselves editing more straightforward stuff at their newsroom desktops.

More or less yes. Jupiter includes a qEdit or qCut edit within it so you can edit on a desktop pc but most journalists preferred to work in an edit suite, with or without an editor, primarily because they find they can concentrate better when they’re not in a busy newsroom. But it’s perfectly possible to edit a piece on a desktop in the newsroom if you have the full
Jupiter client. However only a couple of English regions have Jupiter (Salford, Plymouth and Oxford) and Cardiff, plus W1 and Millbank.
In sites without Jupiter they use qEdit craft suites and newsroom qEdit stations to edit and publish to the same server for playout. Playout in English regions is handled by IBIS serverplay and is usually manually controlled by the director or vision mixer.

Yes, though some packages are cut 'in the field' where I think FCPX is now the preferred solution (rather than the Quantel Marco software-only editor)

Technology's come on a bundle since I was at college. Back then we had an emac and a dv/vhs deck !

You were lucky, we had three SVHS machines and an edit controller. We could only use them for half an hour a day... if the day of the week had a T in it.

But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

Barnsley did have a pretty advanced system then.