[ViridianFan]

I have to agree that the date does feel a bit odd as they’re now doing the hand over. It would have made more sense back when the national had an outro, then you had the regional ident and then the regional news.

I will say the new sets are growing on me. How look east did the retro arcade look was brilliant, but It’s just the harshness of them where the NBH look felt warmer. I guess the benefits to these are you can replace each bit and changing the look will be easier

[AaronLancs]

I have to agree that the date does feel a bit odd as they’re now doing the hand over. It would have made more sense back when the national had an outro, then you had the regional ident and then the regional news.

I will say the new sets are growing on me. How look east did the retro arcade look was brilliant, but It’s just the harshness of them where the NBH look felt warmer. I guess the benefits to these are you can replace each bit and changing the look will be easier

I guess with these "Ikea" sets it will be much, much easier to roll out a new look from 'Day One' of the next looked all regions will have the same physical set and all that will be required is to roll out the visual aspects. Background, 'furniture' like that red "balustrade" at the bottom of the screens, etc. Created centrally by working with regional teams and then delivered at once.

[South]

I am not sure if its anything to do with the new gallery equipment, but those regions which have had the HD upgrades do use the sets in a far more creative way, such as South Today a few weeks ago with the dinosaurs.

[interestednovice]

In other related news… this is a nice look around the new set and gallery, and it confirms Norwich’s left hand video wall is shorter than on the other regional sets…

x.com 

Interesting, you can see how there was actually just about enough physical space to extend the set, but they chose not to because of needing the door to the gallery to not appear on-screen. You’ve also got to factor in space for the cameras to be back a bit to do the tower shot properly - so they’ve decided to put back their tower, so it is ever so slightly closer to the back wall than other sets, then used the tower PTZ camera to cover for the fact that the corner behind the tower is smaller. Quite a clever and elegant solution really.

[steve]

Sort of surprised more regions haven’t gone for that remote PTZ solution behind the tower for the guest shots on the sofa

[Mike]

I'm kind of glad they didn't - they give me CCTV camera vibes in terms of quality, it might be a settings issue but when you compare the output of the Sony production cameras and the PTZs there's a noticeable change in quality.

[Phil]

I'm kind of glad they didn't - they give me CCTV camera vibes in terms of quality, it might be a settings issue but when you compare the output of the Sony production cameras and the PTZs there's a noticeable change in quality.

The fuzzy, out of focus shot Midlands Today use for their wide shot is an example of how not to use a PTZ.

[Mike]

The fuzzy, out of focus shot Midlands Today use for their wide shot is an example of how not to use a PTZ.

A prime example, but even in the Norwich studio with its glorious HD, you can tell the switch between the two, as I said previously they remind me of CCTV cameras, in fact arguably some of them are better picture quality!

Edit: Here's two shots from Newcastle, an HD site

up.metropol247.co.uk 

up.metropol247.co.uk 

You can see the obvious artefacts of the 'fisheye' lens on the PTZ, as well as some strange issues with luminance.

[Stockland Hillman]

A prime example, but even in the Norwich studio with its glorious HD, you can tell the switch between the two, as I said previously they remind me of CCTV cameras, in fact arguably some of them are better picture quality!

Edit: Here's two shots from Newcastle, an HD site

up.metropol247.co.uk 
up.metropol247.co.uk 

You can see the obvious artefacts of the 'fisheye' lens on the PTZ, as well as some strange issues with luminance.

Its a marginal setup issue, made "worse" by the impact of different angles shooting on to LED screens, which have multiple viewing angle luminescence issues.

Also teleprompters make a difference, so even if every camera was same model/cloned config, you'd still need careful manual adjustment to match non hooded cameras.

The PTZ phobia is a bit overkill, they're additional shot cameras without needing crew to reposition things on the studio floor, they're on air for a tiny amount and 99.9% of viewers won't notice a thing.

It's run-once news content, on shows full on zoom/teams remote interviews, iPhone mojo shoots with obvious lens issues, compressed LiveU pics, viewer submissions in vertical video uploaded to twitter with high compression, YouTube archive content etc. PTZ with marginal differences to full-size pro cameras really isn't an issue