The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Printable Version

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RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Stooky Bill - 29-08-2023

(29-08-2023, 11:45 AM)Bluecortina Wrote:  ITV has its own dedicated studio at Millbank from where they ‘do’ the weather and monthly local political programmes/interviews etc. I cannot speak for the BBC.

The BBC, Sky and ITN all have their Westminster offices and studios in 4 Millbank. 

It's also home to facilities companies used by other broadcasters whenever they needed crews or studios at Westminster. At one point this was Millbank Studios owned by ITV but I'm not sure what the situation is now. In fact for a long time BBC Parliament was played out of Millbank Studios by ITV employees

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RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - TV Insider - 29-08-2023

(29-08-2023, 09:08 PM)Stooky Bill Wrote:  The BBC, Sky and ITN all have their Westminster offices and studios in 4 Millbank. 

It's also home to facilities companies used by other broadcasters whenever they needed crews or studios at Westminster. At one point this was Millbank Studios owned by ITV but I'm not sure what the situation is now. In fact for a long time BBC Parliament was played out of Millbank Studios by ITV employees

LBC also have a studio at 4 Millbank.

4 Millbank is also 1 minute away from College Green, which is also sometimes used for the morning round. Most broadcasters have permanent circuits here. The new GB News studio is 8 minutes away from the other broadcasters, so I suspect that they will still have to use College Green.

Both GB News and TalkTV used Victoria Tower Gardens this morning, which is also 1 minute away from 4 Millbank.

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RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Stooky Bill - 29-08-2023

There's a facility across the river that is/was called Westminster Live studios. They have corner window studios facing Parliament. That's been home to various channels over the years.

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RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - JexedBack - 30-08-2023

If a programme is a late edit/fast turnaround or is played out as-live from the edit facility, how does the channel carry out the compliance?

(All programmes are signed off before broadcast to ensure they are legally sound and don’t breach any Ofcom regulations and technically correct = compliance)

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RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Spencer - 30-08-2023

(29-08-2023, 09:08 PM)Stooky Bill Wrote:  The BBC, Sky and ITN all have their Westminster offices and studios in 4 Millbank. 

It's also home to facilities companies used by other broadcasters whenever they needed crews or studios at Westminster. At one point this was Millbank Studios owned by ITV but I'm not sure what the situation is now. In fact for a long time BBC Parliament was played out of Millbank Studios by ITV employees

So for the morning media round, would the politician go from one studio to another within the building for each interview, or could they stay sitting and mic’d up in the same place with each broadcaster linking to the same studio in turn?

Similarly for interviews on College Green, would broadcasters pool their resources by sending one crew between them, rather than each sending a separate camera operator, etc.?

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RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Technologist - 30-08-2023

(30-08-2023, 06:22 AM)JexedBack Wrote:  If a programme is a late edit/fast turnaround or is played out as-live from the edit facility, how does the channel carry out the compliance?

(All programmes are signed off before broadcast to ensure they are legally sound and don’t breach any Ofcom regulations and technically correct = compliance)

Firstly it is the producers responsibility that the programme complies
But often the commissioning broadcaster has someone or two at the edit site
to advise / be consulted… as ultimately the broadcaster is responsible to OFCOM.
But there is always a lot of preplanning discussion …

On the whole signal technical issues are fairly obvious ..the exception being PSE …
but a lot of preplanning and a good Editor and of course automated Qc at site
would be expected.
And having a Harding box used for logging during the shoo , and on the output during replay.

In many ways fast turnaround is more difficult to comply than live
because there is, just, time to “put it right” …

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RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Stooky Bill - 30-08-2023

(30-08-2023, 07:24 AM)Spencer Wrote:  So for the morning media round, would the politician go from one studio to another within the building for each interview, or could they stay sitting and mic’d up in the same place with each broadcaster linking to the same studio in turn?

Similarly for interviews on College Green, would broadcasters pool their resources by sending one crew between them, rather than each sending a separate camera operator, etc.?

For the main 3 they go between studios. Each is seperate and part of each broadcasters infrastructure and connectivity. 

The BBC studios for example are on their Millbank video and audio routers which are controllable by the MCR in BH. It's effectively like having a guest in a studio in BH. 

Theoretically a guest in a BBC studio could go live into Sky News but they'd have to send it from BH to Sky and set up the reverse comms and vision feeds between the two. They'd also need a selection of appropriate backgrounds for the others, and co-ordinafion between the three parts of the chain. Easier for the guest just to go downstairs

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RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - GMc - 31-08-2023

I have a question about Freeview capacity and HD channels. Theoretically, if ITV wanted to launch ITV2 HD on Freeview, could they close 2 (or more) of their SD channels to free up the capacity? Or is it much more complicated than that?

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RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Brekkie - 31-08-2023

(31-08-2023, 11:39 PM)GMc Wrote:  I have a question about Freeview capacity and HD channels. Theoretically, if ITV wanted to launch ITV2 HD on Freeview, could they close 2 (or more) of their SD channels to free up the capacity? Or is it much more complicated than that?

The mux which contains (most) ITV and C4 stations would need re-encoding but in theory it could be done as the current DVB-T mux has 13 SD channels and if switched to DVB-T2 it could probably hold 6 HD and 6 SD channels.   Think it's far more complicated than just flicking a switch but it could be done if there was a will to do it - sadly that doesn't seem to be the case despite the obvious benefits.

However as the BBC seem to now be planning to scale back to one mux and ditch their SD simulcast that will hopefully have a knock on effect.

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RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Stooky Bill - 01-09-2023

(31-08-2023, 11:47 PM)Brekkie Wrote:  The mux which contains (most) ITV and C4 stations would need re-encoding but in theory it could be done as the current DVB-T mux has 13 SD channels and if switched to DVB-T2 it could probably hold 6 HD and 6 SD channels.   Think it's far more complicated than just flicking a switch but it could be done if there was a will to do it - sadly that doesn't seem to be the case despite the obvious benefits.

Switching the MUX to DVB-T2 should be fairly straight forward technically, Arqiva recently refreshed their encoding and multiplexing so it will be compatible. However..... 

There's three broadcasters on that MUX, two of them own it. They'd all have to agree to the change and obviously work out which channels they'd lose. Secondly it would mean that anyone without a DVBS-T2 receiver would lose all the channels on it 

Quote: However as the BBC seem to now be planning to scale back to one mux and ditch their SD simulcast that will hopefully have a knock on effect.

 
I'm not sure there's any plans for them to do that yet, nothing I've heard of. Ditching their DVB-S broadcasts is a much bigger deal for the BBC of course, as has been seen with the changeover on satellite

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