They can be quite entertaining, too. Some highlights from a couple of weeks ago included someone singing "I'm on the hedge of glory" and Dermot asking the audience to "get it up for Kitty".
As the problem was with Tower this evening we very swiftly uplinked via Satellite from TVC into Chiswick and Chiswick also latched onto a Satellite feed intended for TV3 in Ireland. By the time the first break was reached in the Emergency VT however power had been restored at Tower and our main circuits were available again.
If Chiswick got access to both the feed for TV3 and the one via TVC, why did they wait until a break in the filler prog and not pull and go live to Fountain as soon as they were ready?
When your main and reserve disappears, it's always a bit of a panic to find something to fill the airtime with. At least one person will probably be fielding all the "do you know you're off air?" phone calls, while everyone else will be working out what's broken, and how to get it back. By the sounds of it, TNS weren't already downlinking the TV3 feed, so would have needed to find out the satellite parameters (and perhaps even move a dish to point at the right satellite), while the folks at TVC were trying to work out a way to get the terrestrial feed to Chiswick by some other means.
Basically, if it's not all thought about beforehand, it takes time to get up and running. It's possible that the main Fountain feed wasn't restored until after the ad break had started - and coming back after a break is a fairly clean way to do it anyway.
Surely subtitling for live shows done live? I admit I don't know much about subtitles but I would have thought the judges comments aren't set in a subtitle file made before the programme airs?
I don't watch The X Factor but I would expect it to be normal practice for the ITV1 show to be subtitled live and then the same subtitles played out again for the various repeat showings. This evening, the subtitles for the ITV1 programme included 15 minutes of filler at the beginning and an apology from the ITV1 continuity announcer in the middle. I assume neither of those things were part of the ITV2 repeat, so the subtitles would need to be edited before they could be used for the repeat.
The lack of subtitles on the repeat makes me think that no one edited the subtitle file in time, but I am only guessing as I don't know if the ITV2 version ever has subtitles.
I'm basing the above on common sense, but I remember when Lenny Henry swore on The Paul O'Grady Show a few years ago. The swear word was bleeped on the morning repeat but instead of just editing the subtitle file to reflect that, the repeat was subtitled again as if it was a live programme. This didn't seem like common sense to me, but I expect there was a good reason for it. You could tell that is what happened because the subtitles on the morning repeat had different mistakes to the version shown the previous night.
That all sounds about right.
The delay will be because the if live subtitles are repeated there wouldn't be a file, they'll be recorded with the programme for the repeat. To produce a normal subtitle file for it as they would for something pre-recorded takes some time to do, it's not an overnight job (and of course the subtitling supplier might not have someone on shift to do it). The easiest way to do it is just to get a live subtitler to do it
Interesting to read what went on, I imagine there was a fair bit of panic last night. Wonder if it was ever in their minds to begin the show and record it as-live, had it gone on any further?
As an aside I thought the set dressing was really good last night, they don't half put the effort in. Really liked everything about Craig's performance.
Ta for the explanation! (Always nice to hear from people in other MCRs - I'm in CCA in TVC, though was safely in the pub by the time this all hit the fan.)
The radio link via CP & TVC is great, but it does still keep BT Tower as a single point of failure. But BT Tower
never
fails, does it? It looks like my colleagues actually sent the CP feed up to Arqiva to do an uplink - though if there's already a distribution feed on satellite for TV3, then I'm a bit confused why Chiswick aren't already downlinking that as a matter of course. Maybe they will from now on!
On behalf of us and our on-site SiS engineer I must really say a huge thank you to TVC because you were our only hope if Tower hadn't come back online. Interesting to know that it went via Arqiva - I didn't really get involved at all in the booked of the uplink from TVC into Chiswick as I was at neither location so it didn't really make sense to - other than to tell them pictures were available going into TVC.
Again, not sure why Chiswick don't automatically downlink the TV3 feed but that's one for them.
Indeed, the CP/TVC radio link does keep Tower as a single point of failure - something we are now seriously looking at alleviating. This evening we had all usual circuits in place into Tower plus a BT-provided Sat Truck in our car park uplinking directly into Chiswick as a back up to the back up if you like.
Steve in Pudsey posted:
If Chiswick got access to both the feed for TV3 and the one via TVC, why did they wait until a break in the filler prog and not pull and go live to Fountain as soon as they were ready?
As Chiswick were hurridly 'locking on' (not sure of the accurate satellite terms I'm afraid!) to the TV3 intended feed with their satellites they were having problems getting pictures to lock up. There was a very short amount of time then between them accessing our Back Up via TVC Uplink and Tower coming back online. By this point there was approximately a minute or so remaining on the Emergency VT before Pres were going to go to a commercial break. Pres asked the Script Supervisor at Fountain what she wanted to do and she said to go to the break. In a situation like that the production gallery need to get as much notice as possible as to when they are going to go on air. By going to a break it enabled Pres to give us an offical 'on air' time. It also looks much more pleasing at home than a harsh cut into an Emergency VT and an awkward continuity announement.
Quote:
Interesting to read what went on, I imagine there was a fair bit of panic last night. Wonder if it was ever in their minds to begin the show and record it as-live, had it gone on any further?
There was certainly a lot of quick thinking having to go on to establish where the problem was and then of course (from my point of view) to try and assist from afar in getting a stable feed into Chiswick by whatever means possible. There was never any question of starting the show as live and doing a delayed playout simply because of the voting situation. Even small things like the 'voting closing' times on all of the Astons being wrong are taken extremely seriously by Production. I don't think we would have had facilities in place either to start the show and then start to play the show to Chiswick on a delay as all EVS channels available are already in use on the show.
I assume the TV3-intended feed is there for the different phone numbers etc for the Irish audience (assuming they can vote).
Would be interesting to hear what happened on TV3. @TV3Xfactor on Twitter mentions the technical problems and it seems Irish viewers didn't get the opportunity to vote anyone in.
Ta for the explanation! (Always nice to hear from people in other MCRs - I'm in CCA in TVC, though was safely in the pub by the time this all hit the fan.)
The radio link via CP & TVC is great, but it does still keep BT Tower as a single point of failure. But BT Tower
never
fails, does it? It looks like my colleagues actually sent the CP feed up to Arqiva to do an uplink - though if there's already a distribution feed on satellite for TV3, then I'm a bit confused why Chiswick aren't already downlinking that as a matter of course. Maybe they will from now on!
On behalf of us and our on-site SiS engineer I must really say a huge thank you to TVC because you were our only hope if Tower hadn't come back online. Interesting to know that it went via Arqiva - I didn't really get involved at all in the booked of the uplink from TVC into Chiswick as I was at neither location so it didn't really make sense to - other than to tell them pictures were available going into TVC.
I can give you my boss's email address if you like Having had a chance to speak to the late shift, it seems that the line to Arqiva was a bit of a stab in the dark at something that might get the programme on air: it goes to Crawley Court, and there's apparently a direct line from there to TLS Lines... but, er, it's involves one very old circuit, and it's PAL. I'm sure that would have looked fantastic once it was decoded and upconverted to HD!
In the meantime, they were preparing an uplink chain to get something a bit better (and digital) on satellite from TVC, but "the problem went away" before they had a chance. All this while dealing with the fallout of all of the BBC's tower ends having gone black too.
I have to say, I do rather like the ensuing chaos when something big breaks in broadcasting. It brings back a bit of fun to working in an MCR. (And at the end of the day, it's only television, and nobody dies.)
It looks like my colleagues actually sent the CP feed up to Arqiva to do an uplink - though if there's already a distribution feed on satellite for TV3, then I'm a bit confused why Chiswick aren't already downlinking that as a matter of course. Maybe they will from now on!