Me thinks we are now into 'Robson needs to be on BBC ONE' territory for next week too.
At least on Monday it will be justified. Robson will be playing an unseeded player so has a real shot of making the quarter finals, while Murray plays Youzhny in what should be a much more competitive game than the one last night.
Obviously only decided in the last few minutes as Sue Barker ended the scheduled coverage by saying that the rest of the nights coverage would be on BBC2
It does appear tonights early evening schedule was designed to be dropped so why they didn't just schedule the coverage there to begin with and let Glastonbury get a bit more airtime on BBC2 I don't know.
I don't want to get into too much detail or get into specifics, but I can think of a few reasons why it might have appeared like that for a short while, which all basically come down to the fact that it would have been best to get the current programme sorted out first before dealing with the 7:30 slot.
I'll be on EPG duty on Monday evening and will have my fingers crossed that Murray get things finished nice and early!
What software is used to update the EPG? Is it written by/for the BBC or is there some software used industry wide? It seems that the sensible thing would be to link the EPG and the playout system so that the EPG doesn't need sorting out manually but what from I have seen, I suspect that isn't the case. If it does need sorting out manually then why isn't there an option to instantly swap the programmes on one channel with those on another channel? That's a common occurrence during Wimbledon.
There was a 10 minute episode of Coast on BBC Two at about 19:50 that didn't even make it to the EPG on Saturday.
I don't want to get into too much detail or get into specifics, but I can think of a few reasons why it might have appeared like that for a short while, which all basically come down to the fact that it would have been best to get the current programme sorted out first before dealing with the 7:30 slot.
I'll be on EPG duty on Monday evening and will have my fingers crossed that Murray get things finished nice and early!
What software is used to update the EPG? Is it written by/for the BBC or is there some software used industry wide? It seems that the sensible thing would be to link the EPG and the playout system so that the EPG doesn't need sorting out manually but what from I have seen, I suspect that isn't the case. If it does need sorting out manually then why isn't there an option to instantly swap the programmes on one channel with those on another channel? That's a common occurrence during Wimbledon.
There was a 10 minute episode of Coast on BBC Two at about 19:50 that didn't even make it to the EPG on Saturday.
The episode of Coast made it to my Sky EPG.
Part of the complication is surely multiple platforms and added to that any nations and regional variations.
I don't want to get into too much detail or get into specifics, but I can think of a few reasons why it might have appeared like that for a short while, which all basically come down to the fact that it would have been best to get the current programme sorted out first before dealing with the 7:30 slot.
I'll be on EPG duty on Monday evening and will have my fingers crossed that Murray get things finished nice and early!
What software is used to update the EPG? Is it written by/for the BBC or is there some software used industry wide? It seems that the sensible thing would be to link the EPG and the playout system so that the EPG doesn't need sorting out manually but what from I have seen, I suspect that isn't the case. If it does need sorting out manually then why isn't there an option to instantly swap the programmes on one channel with those on another channel? That's a common occurrence during Wimbledon.
There was a 10 minute episode of Coast on BBC Two at about 19:50 that didn't even make it to the EPG on Saturday.
I think that the issue is that there are lots of different EPG platforms - Freeview, Freeview HD (which is separate), Freesat / Freesat HD, Sky, Virgin Media etc. - and all of them will have different syndication systems. Add to that the requirements for regionality (including regional variations in England which don't have playout areas) and it probably isn't quite as straightforward as you might think.
AIUI the latency of EPG distribution is also an issue - as some platforms take a lot longer to update than others.
Don't forget that EPG broadcast is not always in the BBC's control - Sky handle their EPG (so the BBC have to feed data updates back to Sky) and I think Arqiva handle the Freeview platform? (Which is how you get ITV EPG details when you are tuned to a BBC mux)
There is some integration with the playout areas - as the Freeview EIT and Sky+ record start/stop triggers are properly aligned with the playout automation.
The play out system lists every interstitial - trailer, slide and symbol - along with the programming. It doesn't distinguish between these elements, so exporting meaningful information for the purposes of a domestic EPG would always require human editing.
Don't forget that EPG broadcast is not always in the BBC's control - Sky handle their EPG (so the BBC have to feed data updates back to Sky) and I think Arqiva handle the Freeview platform? (Which is how you get ITV EPG details when you are tuned to a BBC mux)
I thought Atos Coding & Mux handled the Freeview and Freesat EPGs?
The play out system lists every interstitial - trailer, slide and symbol - along with the programming. It doesn't distinguish between these elements, so exporting meaningful information for the purposes of a domestic EPG would always require human editing.
Red Bee's Omnibus system can tell the difference, and the Presfax view has different colour coding for programmes and interstitials, but I've seen it get a bit confused, particularly when late schedule changes are involved.
I don't want to get into too much detail or get into specifics, but I can think of a few reasons why it might have appeared like that for a short while, which all basically come down to the fact that it would have been best to get the current programme sorted out first before dealing with the 7:30 slot.
I'll be on EPG duty on Monday evening and will have my fingers crossed that Murray get things finished nice and early!
What software is used to update the EPG? Is it written by/for the BBC or is there some software used industry wide? It seems that the sensible thing would be to link the EPG and the playout system so that the EPG doesn't need sorting out manually but what from I have seen, I suspect that isn't the case. If it does need sorting out manually then why isn't there an option to instantly swap the programmes on one channel with those on another channel? That's a common occurrence during Wimbledon.
There was a 10 minute episode of Coast on BBC Two at about 19:50 that didn't even make it to the EPG on Saturday.
I think that the issue is that there are lots of different EPG platforms - Freeview, Freeview HD (which is separate), Freesat / Freesat HD, Sky, Virgin Media etc. - and all of them will have different syndication systems. Add to that the requirements for regionality (including regional variations in England which don't have playout areas) and it probably isn't quite as straightforward as you might think.
AIUI the latency of EPG distribution is also an issue - as some platforms take a lot longer to update than others.
Don't forget that EPG broadcast is not always in the BBC's control - Sky handle their EPG (so the BBC have to feed data updates back to Sky) and I think Arqiva handle the Freeview platform? (Which is how you get ITV EPG details when you are tuned to a BBC mux)
There is some integration with the playout areas - as the Freeview EIT and Sky+ record start/stop triggers are properly aligned with the playout automation.
Yep, that's pretty much it (although, as thegeek mentioned, it's Atos who handle Freeview/Freesat), we're linked up to Omnibus so that the programmes trigger on time, but there's an awful lot of metadata that we add outside of that - not just the descriptions but also things that drive iPlayer and the online stream for example - which mean we need to do things manually. For example, when there's a late change switching Wimbledon from one channel to another, from a playout director's point of view that means calling up the outside source, for EPG that means creating a new programme. And then the added compilations with nations and regions, and as mentioned the delay between saving the schedule and the platforms updating. We do our best and I think most of the time it works out well.
I vaguely remember that the DVB spec allows for an event (programme) to start on one channel and move to another - and recordings can, in theory, follow. Can this happen with BBC programmes, or is it just a bit too complicated with all the nations/regions?
(I suppose it's easier to do on Freeview, where the box only has one BBC One and one BBC Two, but on DSAT, how's the box to know which of the BBC Ones to switch to if a programme moves there from BBC Two?)
