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BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On 13 Sep, 18:34, Alan wrote:
The BBC Trust has rejected a well argued and well presented complaint concerning the current picture quality of BBC HD with particular reference to the reduction in bit-rate of August 2009. Most people would agree that the current picture quality of BBC HD is significantly poorer than the picture quality prior to that reduction in bit-rate. Those of us who were fortunate enough to see the demonstrations of HD at BBC Research Department in the late '80s will know what the rest are missing. Very sad. Info he-http://www.zen97962.zen.co.uk/ Thanks for the link Alan. Quite unimpressive. BBC HD was clearly degraded between August 2009 and June 2010. There's no argument about this - they recognise there was a "mix/fade" issue (which popped it's ugly head up all over the place) which wasn't solved until the switch to VBR (i.e. allowing the bitrate to go up on problem sequences!). Given that they knew they had a fault, and failed to solved it for 10 months, why not switch back to a higher bitrate? No answer - and no reprimand for knowingly sending out sub-standard pictures rather than implementing a no-cost fix. Cheers, David. P.S. it's hardly rocket science is it - when you cap the bitrate, the most challenging content starts to look a mess. When the bitrate cap is removed, it looks fine again. :rolleyes: !!! |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 03:51:23 -0700 (PDT),
" wrote: Thanks for the link Alan. :-) Quite unimpressive. BBC HD was clearly degraded between August 2009 and June 2010. There's no argument about this - they recognise there was a "mix/fade" issue (which popped it's ugly head up all over the place) which wasn't solved until the switch to VBR (i.e. allowing the bitrate to go up on problem sequences!). However, the VBR is capped at a level which still doesn't equate to the pre-August '09 rate. P.S. it's hardly rocket science is it - when you cap the bitrate, the most challenging content starts to look a mess. When the bitrate cap is removed, it looks fine again. :rolleyes: !!! That is something which the BBC has resolutely refused to accept. It's ironic that BBC HD is available abroad in full HD but that is denied to us. There's a BBC internet blog which includes a great deal of detailed technical and subjective discussion about all this. This blog has now been closed by the BBC 'now that you've had the weekend to discuss the Trust's response as said in comment 817 I am closing this thread for further comment'. Says it all. See:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...c_hd_a_vi.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...hd_a_vi_1.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...hd_a_vi_2.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...e=1#comme nts http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...e=2#comme nts -- Alan White Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent. Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland. Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.co.uk/weather |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On 15 Sep, 14:18, Alan wrote:
P.S. it's hardly rocket science is it - when you cap the bitrate, the most challenging content starts to look a mess. When the bitrate cap is removed, it looks fine again. :rolleyes: !!! That is something which the BBC has resolutely refused to accept. Not perhaps in its public utterings, but BBC engineers (I used to be one) understand the science as well as anyone - and probably better than most. 'I am closing this thread for further comment'. Says it all. Do you really think continuing the discussion would make any difference? Richard. http://www.rtrussell.co.uk/ |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 07:10:17 -0700 (PDT), Richard Russell
wrote: Not perhaps in its public utterings, but BBC engineers (I used to be one) understand the science as well as anyone - and probably better than most. So did I, which is what makes it so irritating. 'I am closing this thread for further comment'. Says it all. Do you really think continuing the discussion would make any difference? No, none at all. -- Alan White Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent. Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland. Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.co.uk/weather |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On 15 Sep, 15:10, Richard Russell wrote:
On 15 Sep, 14:18, Alan wrote: P.S. it's hardly rocket science is it - when you cap the bitrate, the most challenging content starts to look a mess. When the bitrate cap is removed, it looks fine again. :rolleyes: !!! That is something which the BBC has resolutely refused to accept. Not perhaps in its public utterings, but BBC engineers (I used to be one) understand the science as well as anyone - and probably better than most. I know - it's not the engineers who are driving this. 'I am closing this thread for further comment'. Says it all. Do you really think continuing the discussion would make any difference? No, since the official BBC line was always going to be right, no matter what anyone else said. Even when they implicitly admitted that they were wrong, by switching the encoder to VBR (because the only way to solve the problem was to increase the bitrate!!!!!!!), they didn't explicitly admit any such thing. Ever. They're never wrong. (though people in those threads moaning about the current average bitrate are also wrong - it's what it _looks_ like that matters! I'm not convinced there's anything obviously _wrong_ anymore - now it's just "not quite as good as it could be" - which is quite different from "there are obvious objectionable artefacts on some specific scenes") Sad thing is that the BBC trust has put the stance in black and white: it's not the BBC's job to be the best in terms of technical quality. We all know this has been their attitude for at least a decade, but it's a very sad day when it's made public policy wrt their "state of the art" broadcast channel. I'll leave it for Steve or someone to ask the obvious question: is anyone on the BBC trust qualified to make any comments on technical or engineering issues? No doubt they think they are - yet they'd be up in arms if we let Daily Star readers make calls on what constitutes acceptable coverage of opera from Glyndebourne. Cheers, David. P.S. I enjoyed the NHK raw uncompressed 8k * 4k TV pictures screened at IBC. |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
Steve Green's slightly-less-insane alter ego wrote in message ... it's hardly rocket science is it - when you cap the bitrate, the most challenging content starts to look a mess. When the bitrate cap is removed, it looks fine again. :rolleyes: !!! Although it's a significant improvement, it still looks far from "fine" when the "bitrate cap is removed" (poor choice of words on your part but that's to be expected). Neither MPEG2 nor MPEG4 preserve that long-lost "film and video feel" [1] which made TV and movies a pleasure to watch instead of, frankly, an effort. They'd only come close to preserving it at bitrates way above those which DVB could ever carry. [1] long-lost in the UK. A number of other countries still broadcast PAL directly on their analogue services. jamie. -- |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
In article , Alan White
scribeth thus On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 03:51:23 -0700 (PDT), " wrote: Thanks for the link Alan. :-) Quite unimpressive. BBC HD was clearly degraded between August 2009 and June 2010. There's no argument about this - they recognise there was a "mix/fade" issue (which popped it's ugly head up all over the place) which wasn't solved until the switch to VBR (i.e. allowing the bitrate to go up on problem sequences!). However, the VBR is capped at a level which still doesn't equate to the pre-August '09 rate. P.S. it's hardly rocket science is it - when you cap the bitrate, the most challenging content starts to look a mess. When the bitrate cap is removed, it looks fine again. :rolleyes: !!! That is something which the BBC has resolutely refused to accept. Yes do they think all the Brit publick are stupid or what?. Once upon a time the BBC used to lead in high standards but now its all just give them enough and tell them to shut it!.. Seen the German TV on Sat?, the HD channels .. excellent... It's ironic that BBC HD is available abroad in full HD but that is denied to us. There's a BBC internet blog which includes a great deal of detailed technical and subjective discussion about all this. This blog has now been closed by the BBC 'now that you've had the weekend to discuss the Trust's response as said in comment 817 I am closing this thread for further comment'. Yes, had a good online scrap about the bit rates on the proms where they did an experiment using 320 K AAC and everyone who commented really wanted it. I was just arguing the case that they should up the rates on satellite which is a far more practical method for high quality home listening. That got closed waay too soon;!..... Says it all. See:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...c_hd_a_vi.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...hd_a_vi_1.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...hd_a_vi_2.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...a_vi_2.html?pa ge=1#comments http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...a_vi_2.html?pa ge=2#comments -- Tony Sayer |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
No, since the official BBC line was always going to be right, no
matter what anyone else said. Thats what they do.. Like sharks are killing machines .. ...thats what they do... Even when they implicitly admitted that they were wrong, by switching the encoder to VBR (because the only way to solve the problem was to increase the bitrate!!!!!!!), they didn't explicitly admit any such thing. Ever. They're never wrong. Naturally.. (though people in those threads moaning about the current average bitrate are also wrong - it's what it _looks_ like that matters! I'm not convinced there's anything obviously _wrong_ anymore - now it's just "not quite as good as it could be" - which is quite different from "there are obvious objectionable artefacts on some specific scenes") Sad thing is that the BBC trust has put the stance in black and white: it's not the BBC's job to be the best in terms of technical quality. It used to be once upon a time. I once worked for Pye TVT , Rupert Neve and Audix, it was a given in those days that if you supplied to the BBC then your equipment was good enough for any other broadcaster in the world if it was good enough for them.. We all know this has been their attitude for at least a decade, but it's a very sad day when it's made public policy wrt their "state of the art" broadcast channel. I'll leave it for Steve or someone to ask the obvious question: is anyone on the BBC trust qualified to make any comments on technical or engineering issues? Nope.. No doubt they think they are - yet they'd be up in arms if we let Daily Star readers make calls on what constitutes acceptable coverage of opera from Glyndebourne. Yes.. Cheers, David. P.S. I enjoyed the NHK raw uncompressed 8k * 4k TV pictures screened at IBC. -- Tony Sayer |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
wrote:
P.S. I enjoyed the NHK raw uncompressed 8k * 4k TV pictures screened at IBC. So did I, though there were rather a lot of stuck pixels on their projector, at least at the showing I attended, 12:35hrs Sept 14th. -- Mark Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply. www.paras.org.uk |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:08:07 +0100, Alan
wrote: On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 07:10:17 -0700 (PDT), Richard Russell wrote: Not perhaps in its public utterings, but BBC engineers (I used to be one) understand the science as well as anyone - and probably better than most. So did I, which is what makes it so irritating. Your old lot got sold to Siemens..which kind of implies that the BBC didn't want them! -- Z |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 10:24:13 +0100, Zathras
wrote: Your old lot got sold to Siemens..which kind of implies that the BBC didn't want them! Well, you're quite right. During Burt, the bean counters identified Engineering as an unwanted overhead which was draining money from the programme makers so bits of it were sold off to Siemens. One of the consequences of Burt was that the post of Director of Engineering was abolished. Director of Engineering was a member of the BBC Board of Management, had international status and was in a position to ensure that the highest technical standards were maintained and those standards were internationally recognised and respected. He had real clout. A direct outcome of the abolition of the post is the technical mess that the BBC's in today. -- Alan White Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent. Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland. Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.co.uk/weather |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 10:43:50 +0100
Alan wrote: Well, you're quite right. During Burt, the bean counters identified Engineering as an unwanted overhead which was draining money from the programme makers so bits of it were sold off to Siemens. One of the Unwanted overhead? How do these suits think the programmes get to the audience, magic pixie vision? It beggears belief. B2003 |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 07:10:17 -0700 (PDT), Richard Russell
wrote: BBC engineers (I used to be one) understand the science as well as anyone - and probably better than most. There has been a huge shift in the power base away from Engineering in the last 30 or so years. Interestingly, 'technology' itself has recently fought back and is now so complicated, all encompassing and pervasive that it massively impacts in ways that didn't happen in the good old days. Technology isn't just hidden in technical areas..it's everywhere. Engineers don't have the obvious political power they once wielded but, when the big digital centres stubbornly dictate how programmes are to be made and then start bleeding money for their technical refreshes every few years (rather than the 10 to 20 in the old days) those vast sums are coming out of programme budgets. Who's the daddy? Broadcasters are running to jump onto the Moore's Law bandwagon (though they may not have realised it yet) and the downside is cost. Anyone who keeps a PC reasonably up to date will have a handle on this..just multiply several million times. The BBC must be operating the way it is purely for cost reasons and that's an insurmountable barrier for the people on the opposite side who want better quality pictures. Today the BBC Trust has *offered* to freeze the license fee for two years! (Sounds like somebody is getting worried about the next charter renewal). I'm glad I don't work for them..I'm minded of the Titanic. -- Z |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
|
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On 15 Sep, 20:56, Mark Carver wrote:
wrote: P.S. I enjoyed the NHK raw uncompressed 8k * 4k TV pictures screened at IBC. So did I, though there were rather a lot of stuck pixels on their projector, at least at the showing I attended, 12:35hrs Sept 14th. I went same day (first showing) and it was quite bad in that respect - apparently same the previous day too. But it didn't detract from the spectacle of seeing Japanese people ride a tree trunk down a hill ;-) I went from thinking "this picture is even bigger than it needs to be, but very impressive" to thinking "these people are mad - why are they all running to get crushed by the tree?!" I also thought how "filmic" it looked - in a good way - in the sense that it had no video artefacts at all, was projected, and looked really nice - but it was running at 60fps rather than 24fps so wasn't what people normally think of "filmic" at all. The 4k downscale demos outside didn't look like film or video in any way (though the display panels themselves added some unwanted motion blur - it wasn't in the content itself) - it was near as damn it faultless with no "signature" from the medium itself at all as far as I could see. Their bitrate targets were 70Mbps terrestrial, 100Mbps satellite. They assumed various transmission and encoding efficiencies would kick in before the planned 2020 start date to make this practical - but their 220Mbps 8*HD H.264 encoded version looked fine to me (though that's a clunky way of doing it). Cheers, David. |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On 15 Sep, 20:02, tony sayer wrote:
Sad thing is that the BBC trust has put the stance in black and white: it's not the BBC's job to be the best in terms of technical quality. It used to be once upon a time. I once worked for Pye TVT , Rupert Neve and Audix, it was a given in those days that if you supplied to the BBC then your equipment was good enough for any other broadcaster in the world if it was good enough for them.. I think that's still generally true. Lots of the raw content is still top notch*. Some of the soundscapes in Radio 4 dramas are still breathtaking (and yet almost always perfectly mono compatible). There are lots of very clever people working very hard. In terms of technical quality, it's usually the final broadcast encoding that wrecks it. Even then, on _some_ platforms, on a sensible sized display at a reasonable viewing distance, some content hangs together fairly well. Sadly some content is visibly pixelated when when viewed on a 14" display! Cheers, David. * - except for the shaky camera work, horrible fake filmic effect, and excessive dynamic range compression. |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
tony sayer wrote:
Sad thing is that the BBC trust has put the stance in black and white: it's not the BBC's job to be the best in terms of technical quality. It used to be once upon a time. I once worked for Pye TVT , Rupert Neve and Audix, it was a given in those days that if you supplied to the BBC then your equipment was good enough for any other broadcaster in the world if it was good enough for them.. .. . .once you'd put the faders the other way round ;-) -- Mark Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply. www.paras.org.uk |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:04:46 +0100, Mark Carver
wrote: . . .once you'd put the faders the other way round ;-) Didn't radio and television faders work in opposite directions? -- Alan White Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent. Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland. Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.co.uk/weather |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 08:07:47 +0100, Alan
wrote: On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:04:46 +0100, Mark Carver wrote: . . .once you'd put the faders the other way round ;-) Didn't radio and television faders work in opposite directions? ...and VT ones worked fully open where Radio ones didn't.. -- Z |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
In message , Zathras
writes On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 08:07:47 +0100, Alan wrote: On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:04:46 +0100, Mark Carver wrote: . . .once you'd put the faders the other way round ;-) Didn't radio and television faders work in opposite directions? ..and VT ones worked fully open where Radio ones didn't.. But you didn't want all three fully open -- If one person has delusions, we call them psychotic. If, however, 1.5 billion people have delusions we must apparently call them a religious group, and respect their delusionary state. |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:06:50 +0100, Tony Quinn
wrote: In message , Zathras writes On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 08:07:47 +0100, Alan wrote: On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:04:46 +0100, Mark Carver wrote: . . .once you'd put the faders the other way round ;-) Didn't radio and television faders work in opposite directions? ..and VT ones worked fully open where Radio ones didn't.. But you didn't want all three fully open eh? -- Z |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
In article , Alan White
writes On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:04:46 +0100, Mark Carver wrote: . . .once you'd put the faders the other way round ;-) Didn't radio and television faders work in opposite directions? Nope. And (as of last year) there was at least one desk in live nightly TV use in the BBC that has faders the sensible way round (i.e. shut away from you). It was a joy to behold, but the switchover was a classic example of market share triumphing over common sense. Now where have we heard of that recently? I might have mentioned DAB, and digital TV, and shortscreen (and...), but I think I got away with it. Cheers, Nedd. -- SimonM ----- TubeWiz.com ----- Video making/uploading that's easy to use & fun to share Try it today! (now with DFace blurring) |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
In article , Tony Quinn
writes In message , Zathras writes On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 08:07:47 +0100, Alan wrote: On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:04:46 +0100, Mark Carver wrote: . . .once you'd put the faders the other way round ;-) Didn't radio and television faders work in opposite directions? ..and VT ones worked fully open where Radio ones didn't.. But you didn't want all three fully open Meanwhile, in dubbing, I had to get my daily fix of insert edit buzz... Incidentally, whilst tidying up earlier today, I came across a news item in Wireless World (April 1963, p.169) about an Ampex VR-1500 that looks like a two-inch _helical_scan_ machine. The technical details are scant, presumably straight from a press release, and give no details of the format except: linear tape speed 5"/sec, 525/625 lines "designed for closed-circuit television recording" It doesn't sound like it was aimed at broadcast, but even so, I didn't know anyone made a production 2" helical system. Weird or wot? (later, post Googling) Apparently it was a forerunner of a 2" helical system that did do colour and was used professionally in the US. I wonder if it did insert edits? -- SimonM ----- TubeWiz.com ----- Video making/uploading that's easy to use & fun to share Try it today! (now with DFace blurring) |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 12:09:40 +0100, SpamTrapSeeSig
wrote: Didn't radio and television faders work in opposite directions? Nope. In the '60s? -- Alan White Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent. Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland. Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.co.uk/weather |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
In article , Alan White
writes On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 12:09:40 +0100, SpamTrapSeeSig wrote: Didn't radio and television faders work in opposite directions? Nope. In the '60s? Before my time, but I think TV at LG used Type-B which would've been rotary. Type-C & D were the right way round (Painton quadrants). Stop 20 (normal) was intended to be on a radius to the mixer's eyes. The M-series Calrec desk, circa 1988, had optional specially made quadrants, I think by P+G, with a flat track beneath and 'pretend' quadrants above, with a complex mechanical coupling. This was the first pic. I found on-line: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/attac...d1283656469-sh ow-your-consoles-calrec-dark-sml-1.jpg, but these look turned-round. -- SimonM ----- TubeWiz.com ----- Video making/uploading that's easy to use & fun to share Try it today! (now with DFace blurring) |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 13:41:26 +0100, SpamTrapSeeSig
wrote: Before my time, but I think TV at LG used Type-B which would've been rotary. Type-C & D were the right way round (Painton quadrants). Stop 20 (normal) was intended to be on a radius to the mixer's eyes. It may be that my seventy-three year old brain is at fault but I have a nagging doubt... :-) -- Alan White Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent. Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland. Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.co.uk/weather |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
In article , Alan White
writes On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 13:41:26 +0100, SpamTrapSeeSig wrote: Before my time, but I think TV at LG used Type-B which would've been rotary. Type-C & D were the right way round (Painton quadrants). Stop 20 (normal) was intended to be on a radius to the mixer's eyes. It may be that my seventy-three year old brain is at fault but I have a nagging doubt... :-) Dubbing at LG was right-way-round (but in my day Theatre 2 and the East Tower were all rotaries!). Dunno about TMS, but I think it had SSL so was probably wrong way round. VT were a law unto themselves (antilog???), then there were those twin-track Studers with faders on, and RD4/4s (in radio), IIRC they opened upwards. -- SimonM ----- TubeWiz.com ----- Video making/uploading that's easy to use & fun to share Try it today! (now with DFace blurring) |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 18:01:31 +0100, SpamTrapSeeSig
wrote: Dubbing at LG was right-way-round (but in my day Theatre 2 and the East Tower were all rotaries!). Dunno about TMS, but I think it had SSL so was probably wrong way round. VT were a law unto themselves (antilog???), then there were those twin-track Studers with faders on, and RD4/4s (in radio), IIRC they opened upwards. I don't think we're discussing the same thing. I was comparing desks in radio studios and desks in the sound control room of television studios. -- Alan White Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent. Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland. Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.co.uk/weather |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
In article , Alan White
writes On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 18:01:31 +0100, SpamTrapSeeSig wrote: Dubbing at LG was right-way-round (but in my day Theatre 2 and the East Tower were all rotaries!). Dunno about TMS, but I think it had SSL so was probably wrong way round. VT were a law unto themselves (antilog???), then there were those twin-track Studers with faders on, and RD4/4s (in radio), IIRC they opened upwards. I don't think we're discussing the same thing. I was comparing desks in radio studios and desks in the sound control room of television studios. In that case: BBC-way-round throughout (unless post 1990 installation or SSL who, IIRC, refused to do a 'BBC version' of the 500 series and beyond). As I said, I know of at least one Calrec desk (in service last year) that still maintained the tradition. 'Push-to-open' is a pain in a live situation, as it's ergonomically very limiting. The other way, you can pre-fade and fade up to normal without looking at the fader at all (even easier with quadrants), and mechanical control (of fingers and muscles) gets better as you approach normal stop. You can't easily knock faders off the back stop by accident, and parallax is reduced (assuming you have a scribble strip or ident display above the fader below the channel strip). I honestly can't see any validity to commercial-way-round faders, even in live music. It's often claimed that you want a 'graphic' display of levels, but even there, if you're using the desk's gain properly, the faders should be somewhere near normal stop anyway. Once you get below 50% travel on a 'log-B' carbon-track fader, resolution becomes very coarse and subtlety is very hard to achieve. Give me BBC-way-round quadrants any day, even the studded variety! Cheers, S. -- SimonM ----- TubeWiz.com ----- Video making/uploading that's easy to use & fun to share Try it today! (now with DFace blurring) |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
SpamTrapSeeSig wrote:
.... And (as of last year) there was at least one desk in live nightly TV use in the BBC that has faders the sensible way round (i.e. shut away from you). It was a joy to behold, but the switchover was a classic example of market share triumphing over common sense. .... Without wishing to start a (hopefully not inevitable) religious war, why is shut away from you the sensible way round? I never had any problems with desks where you push to open the channel, in my very limited broadcasting experience. In a Cessna 172, I push the throttle knob if I want more power. And so on... I'm hoping for a reply on the lines of "Yes, but Insert simple killer argument here" I'm trying to remember which way the faders went on the mixers when I worked for Rupert Neve back in 1978. I think they were all up to open? -- Phil Liverpool, UK |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
In article , Phil wrote:
Without wishing to start a (hopefully not inevitable) religious war, why is shut away from you the sensible way round? Reduced risk of shirt or jacket cuffs catching any closed faders as you open one. If the faders are pull-to-open, then most of them will be away from you most of the time and less likely to be knocked accidentally. Regardless of which side you take there is of course a valid argument in favour of standardising skills by doing things the same way as everybody else, but I think the BBC practice dates from an era when the BBC behaved even more like a law unto themselves than they do now. Rod. -- Virtual Access V6.3 free usenet/email software from http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-access/ |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 10:43:50 +0100, Alan White
wrote: On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 10:24:13 +0100, Zathras wrote: Your old lot got sold to Siemens..which kind of implies that the BBC didn't want them! R&D did not get sold to Siemens. Well, you're quite right. During Burt, the bean counters identified Engineering as an unwanted overhead which was draining money from the programme makers so bits of it were sold off to Siemens. The Siemens debacle (2004) didn't happen until that c*nt had long gone (2000), but I'm sure he sowed the (bean) seeds. |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
In article , Phil
scribeth thus SpamTrapSeeSig wrote: ... And (as of last year) there was at least one desk in live nightly TV use in the BBC that has faders the sensible way round (i.e. shut away from you). It was a joy to behold, but the switchover was a classic example of market share triumphing over common sense. ... Without wishing to start a (hopefully not inevitable) religious war, why is shut away from you the sensible way round? I never had any problems with desks where you push to open the channel, in my very limited broadcasting experience. In a Cessna 172, I push the throttle knob if I want more power. And so on... I'm hoping for a reply on the lines of "Yes, but Insert simple killer argument here" I'm trying to remember which way the faders went on the mixers when I worked for Rupert Neve back in 1978. I think they were all up to open? Thats the way I remember it, back in err .. 1972 AD or thereabouts. All the GP Mark 3's and 4's were so as was the 2b desks.. -- Tony Sayer |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
In article , Phil
writes I'm trying to remember which way the faders went on the mixers when I worked for Rupert Neve back in 1978. I think they were all up to open? Commercial: opening away from you, marked in dB attenuation. BBC: opening toward you, marked 0-30 (20 being nominally normal). AFAICR, it was only the escutcheon of the P+G fader that would alter. It made a nonsense of PFL mind, but that didn't matter for music. I don't think the Neve music desk had PFL (on fader overpress), so that mattered even less. They could be turned round in seconds, and were in our dubbing theatre, for a while, IIRC when someone came in from commercial TV. That was Calrec, but the Neve we had for music was the same, and I think that also had the faders turned round on occasion. The rot only set in when SSL refused to change the 4000/5000 series (or so we were told). I think it was partly because the fader was hard-wired to a circuit board on the channel strip. At the time they were so far in advance of the competition (8" floppy disks, anyone?), it was that or go without. If you've used both types in live situations, there's no contest: the BBC way is far nicer to use (ducks & runs for cover). Incidentally, does anyone know which way round they are in the radio cons these days? I've heard several instances of 1/4-hour pips at low level, implying slightly open faders. This is distinct from the more frequent instances of full-level pips, implying, er, something else. -- SimonM ----- TubeWiz.com ----- Video making/uploading that's easy to use & fun to share Try it today! (now with DFace blurring) |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
Incidentally, does anyone know which way round they are in the radio
cons these days? I've heard several instances of 1/4-hour pips at low level, implying slightly open faders. This is distinct from the more frequent instances of full-level pips, implying, er, something else. Up for open. The pips are most likely someone's left the news fader open a bit for the IRN news or rather the playout command hasn't been set to off or worked properly!.. -- Tony Sayer |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On 17 Sep, 18:15, Paul Martin wrote:
In article , * * * * wrote: I think that's still generally true. Lots of the raw content is still top notch*. Some of the soundscapes in Radio 4 dramas are still breathtaking (and yet almost always perfectly mono compatible). There are lots of very clever people working very hard. I suspect that's to do with them often using SoundField mikes on internal productions. I wondered if they still used them - they seem to work very well! I've never tried an ambisonic decoder but I bet it would work on many of these programmes. Cheers, David. |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
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BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Sun, 19 Sep 2010 11:28:58 GMT, Paul Ratcliffe
wrote: On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 10:43:50 +0100, Alan White wrote: On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 10:24:13 +0100, Zathras wrote: Your old lot got sold to Siemens..which kind of implies that the BBC didn't want them! R&D did not get sold to Siemens. R&D wasn't *his* department. -- Z |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Sun, 19 Sep 2010 12:02:58 +0100, Roderick Stewart
wrote: In article , Phil wrote: Without wishing to start a (hopefully not inevitable) religious war, why is shut away from you the sensible way round? LOL..an audio operator's performance before lunch is no indicator of his performance after lunch.. -- Z |
BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:58:01 +0100, tony sayer
wrote: In article , Alan White scribeth thus On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 03:51:23 -0700 (PDT), " wrote: Thanks for the link Alan. :-) Quite unimpressive. BBC HD was clearly degraded between August 2009 and June 2010. There's no argument about this - they recognise there was a "mix/fade" issue (which popped it's ugly head up all over the place) which wasn't solved until the switch to VBR (i.e. allowing the bitrate to go up on problem sequences!). However, the VBR is capped at a level which still doesn't equate to the pre-August '09 rate. P.S. it's hardly rocket science is it - when you cap the bitrate, the most challenging content starts to look a mess. When the bitrate cap is removed, it looks fine again. :rolleyes: !!! That is something which the BBC has resolutely refused to accept. Yes do they think all the Brit publick are stupid or what?. They are! Otherwise why the hell did they vote Ant and Dec in? Oh wait, as you were . . . Once upon a time the BBC used to lead in high standards but now its all just give them enough and tell them to shut it!.. Yes. Well there's hardly quality *anything* in the UK these days :( |
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