The TV Question Amnesty Thread

In my experience it depends on the timescale and the outlet.

Presenters on 24 hour channels often don't get to see scripts until they appear on the prompter in front of them, as they may not have been written until minutes (seconds!) before they are read. That said, many presenters will constantly be in the newsroom computer system reading and revising scripts in advance to make them fit their reading style (or to correct errors - whether grammatical or factual) These scripts are often written by newsroom production journalists.

Presenters on the main 'appointment to view' bulletins (BBC Six and Ten O'Clock News) will often write their own headlines, and write or re-write scripts, based on guide scripts that have been already input. This is trickier for 'last minute' bulletins like the One O'Clock News, as there is less prep time (the running order is more fluid and stuff is often moving much faster), with more scripts going in at the last minute. For the One O'Clock News, there was a 'Chief writer' role who was one of the senior production journalists on the team, working with the programme editor, their deputy, and the presenter, to ensure scripts were written and checked in time.

The BBC's rule is, for all but the most immediate scripts/rewrites, for mainstream bulletins that at least the presenter, editor and original producer all sign off a script before it is flagged as 'ready to air'. (The editor's deputy may also check - either for the editor or in addition to the editor)

Also - if a script has been passed by the lawyers this will be clearly indicated in the body of the script so that everyone knows it can't be rewritten without checking again with the legal team.

Why do shows like GMB, This Morning and Loose Women provide clothes for the presenters but news programmes don’t?

Yep, for fast-turnaround edits an EVS down the line to playout happens routinely in some places, for example edited highlights of a football match on a sport channel only a few hours after the match has finished so it hasn't had time to get across to the playout servers yet.

As mentioned, VT is rarely used these days, in recent years the only times I've had to use it were when there were problems getting a lines record onto server so a tape backup was used instead.

How does EVS work in that kind of situation? Is it like say Premiere in that you have to wait for the sequence to render or is it more real time?

Is there actually any guide on what a programme can be called. I ask this because of the stink that Sky News kicked up when GMTV were going to broadcast under the name Sunrise.

(TBH I thought Sunrise would have been a better name)

well i wouldn’t think so, outside of the obvious qualms regarding copyright, trademarks and possibly viewer confusion.

I’ve often wondered whether there was something that prevented a channel being broadcasted in a different country without the channel owners permission? So say Turkmenistan (random example) just decided to transmit Sky Sports Premier League, free to air - would either Sky or the Premier League be able to do anything about it?

That's what I thought. AFAIK you can't copyright a word. As for the confusion surely people can tell the difference between a programme and a station name.

Like for example BeOut Sport:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/sports/bein-sports-qatar-beoutq.html

You can't copyright a word, but you can trademark it

In the case of Sunrise as a programme and Sunrise as a station, the average viewer didn't know/realise/care that TVam or GMTV was a different TV station, it was a programme

EVS is more of a server that can edit, than an editing platform. It's key selling point is that you never render anything once it is in the box (though file-based ingest of content may need to be transcoded if it's not in the EVS's native codec - which is a set-up option) You can't do live production with kit that needs to render - particularly sports. All the main production servers are instant Playout devices.

You can do basic cuts/mixes in EVS, and some audio split editing, and it's incredibly good at creating sports highlights using clip lists (where each clip will automatically play after the previous one (with a cut or a mix as required), with the operator still retaining the ability to ramp Playout speed, in real time.

You can also quickly play a sequence of clips, moving manually to the next one on-air, should you need to for analysis.

EVS was initially design to replace VTRs for slow mo replays (the original product name was LSM = Live Slow Motion) and immediacy has always been a key factor in its design (along with reliability - it has a very good reputation in that regard, at least compared to the GVG K2 rival product...)

These days in the UK pretty much every live studio or OB show outside of News will be using EVS for play in, and many will use it for recording too (or K2 if they are unlucky, or LiveTouch if they are trialling it) EVS is 'the industry standard'

As I understand it, the file would render from the editor in the normal way but it is then locally sent directly to the EVS to be played down the line. This saves the time needed to send the file across to the playout provider and for it then to be copied across to the main and guard servers, which could take an hour or two in total depending on the duration of the programme. I think they also send it to the EVS a part at a time, before the full edit is complete, which also saves time. From a playout point of view it's not unlike a live programme, with a live source coming in and counts in and out of breaks.

It's not too uncommon for the file to arrive half way though the programme, so you might get parts 1 and 2 as an EVS and parts 3 and 4 from server. In the most extreme cases you might have to start part 1 while still waiting for the editor to send part 4 to the EVS, but that's rare.