Eurobird 1 failure (was Sky satellites)

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:24:54 +0100, m wrote:

This is one of the problems on timed recordings via Sky in that all the
'programme start data' has to go via Osterly to be incorporated in the
EPG and if it is a busy time, things get delayed
(bring back videoplus actually transmitted in with the video!)

Not wishing to criticise, but you've got just about every single part
of that totally wrong.

--

james wrote:
Writing and presenting subtitles is quite an artform. One can't have
dialogue spanning clips, and certainly not spanning scene changes.

Here in the Netherlands we have subtitling on all programmes in foreign
language, and also on clips shown in news programmes etc. It seems there
are specialized companies that do the subtitling, and they cannot be very
expensive as even the lowest-budget stations have subtitling.

Also I think it has never been done via film. In the old days, the
subtitles were typed on cards that were fed through a special machine
with a camera. But for ages now, the subtitler is just an electronic
device that generates video from a file with the subtitle script.

In the digital age, a movie is just scanned to a digital file to
which the subtitle text is added and then (normally) put in the video
during playout. But even that is not always done, some stations send
the subtitle data in the DVB stream and the user can decide if he wants
them inserted or not (in the setup of his DVB receiver).

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:01:07 +0100, james put finger to keyboard and
typed:

In message , Zero Tolerance
writes
On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:30:08 +0100, james
wrote:

with films from Czech, Lebanon, Finland etc -- countries with
vibrant film industries but whose products now rarely make it to
English TV screens ever since the BBC were obliged to stop their
World Cinema series.

Obliged? Who by?

The economics of running the World Cinema series became appalling and
are now much worse. First there is expense of using copyright lawyers to
establish whether of not the producer of a movie is the rightful owner
before even limited distribution rights can be negotiated. All manner of
our tinted brethren come oozing out of the woodwork when they sniff
money. A difficult enough task in the days when the BBC had a copyright
department. Almost impossible today without it, when little is done 'in
house' and has to be out-sourced.

That's a far more plausible answer than J G Miller's conspiracy
theories.

Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

"J G Miller" wrote in message
news : On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:55:03 +0100, Jerry wrote:
:
: if you were right retailers such as Amazon wouldn't be able
to list them
: on their *UK* website
:
: I never said that retailers were not prevented from selling
foreign movies,
snip

Then they are not 'banned' by the censors, that means that
broadcasters are also free to screen them, if *they* wish...

"m" wrote in message
...
:
snip
:
: Of course Sky don't OWN any satellites but they do run the EPG
on their
: services and so anyone wishing to get access via a Sky box has
to
: contribute to the EPG.
: This is one of the problems on timed recordings via Sky in that
all the
: 'programme start data' has to go via Osterly to be incorporated
in the
: EPG and if it is a busy time, things get delayed

How does that stop someone from setting a timer on a true FTA
satellite receiver/recorder combo to record a true FTA channel,
it's only peoples laziness that is causing the problems you
suggest - if the channel is really broadcasting FTA then it's
recordable!
--
Regards, Jerry.

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:55:54 +0100, Jerry wrote:

Then they are not 'banned' by the censors

There you go again implying that a poster had said what you thought, or want
to make readers think he/she had said.

There was never any mention of banning. The term was "obliged".

that means that broadcasters are also free to screen them, if *they* wish...

Yes, if they wish.

Just like THAMES chose to broadcast "Death On the Rock"
and suffered the consequences.

Or like the BBC who chose not to broadcast "War Games" or the Falklands War
play in the original time period of commissioning.

"J G Miller" wrote in message
news : On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:55:54 +0100, Jerry wrote:
:
: Then they are not 'banned' by the censors
:
: There you go again implying that a poster had said what you
thought, or want
: to make readers think he/she had said.
:
: There was never any mention of banning. The term was
"obliged".


YOU said "The censors", I was replying to that comment (not the
comment further up), if the censors stop something from being
broadcast/screened they are banning it...

:
: that means that broadcasters are also free to screen them, if
*they* wish...
:
: Yes, if they wish.

Than they have not been "obliged" to stop broadcasting them have
they...

:
: Just like THAMES chose to broadcast "Death On the Rock"
: and suffered the consequences.
:
: Or like the BBC who chose not to broadcast "War Games" or the
Falklands War
: play in the original time period of commissioning.

....and Haddock is £5 per Kilo, in other words, irrelevant to this
discussion. Take your own advice, try actually reading what
others have said and stop replying to what you think they said -
or at least stop using words that you so plainly don't seem to
understand the meaning of.

On 16/09/09 17:24, m wrote:

Of course Sky don't OWN any satellites but they do run the EPG on their
services and so anyone wishing to get access via a Sky box has to
contribute to the EPG.
Again, I know coverage is provided by a multitude of
transponders/multiplexes/satellites, there are still a lot of eggs in
the same basket with one little transmitter feeding a LOT of people.

fair enough, they hold quite a lot of commercial sway, but at least with
freesat they're not the only game in town.

In message , Paul
Martin writes
In article ,
james wrote:

When all that was done a sub-title black 35mm film had to be made. The
technique then was to run a 35mm film on one TC machine, and run
simultaneously the actual movie on another TC machine. This avoids
tampering with the positive.

That sounds very 1970s to me. Nowadays, the "film" would be a digital
recording on a server. The telecine job would have already been
outsourced somewhere "independent".

I could be mistaken but that could be sommat to do with BBC 2's 'World
Cinema' having it's heyday back in the 1970s.

I'm with one hundred per cent on this one. Us smart, intelligent
westerners have built up a damn fine knowledge base about digital
recordings and all jazz singer sound technology therefore it's an
absolute disgrace that film makers from Timbuktoo and Kalamazoo haven't
bothered to keep up and are still into wind-up cameras and
sprocket-driven double-perf pull-down film transport mechanisms!
Shameful! Anyone not offering us their movies on nice, button-bright
out-sourced shiny discs, with all the subtitling done to perfection is
shown the door smartish. Their protests about 16mm and 35mm being world
standards are just so much out-dated hogwash talk these days.

--
James Follett.
Http://www.pbase.com/jamesfollett updated to include 'Wings' air and vehicle
show pictures at Dunsfold. http://www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk

"Stephen" wrote in message
...
"Ato_Zee" wrote in message
...

SNIP

I wondered if it was something to do with eclipse protection because it
was
just the right time of night for the Sky satellites to be in the Earth's
shadow (about 30 degrees East, so eclipse occurs at 11pm, 2 hours before
local midnight at 1am BST). Does the nightly eclipse get longer at this
time
of year near the equinoxes?

Yes. Most of the time the orbits of Clarke belt satellites will not pass
behind the earth, but near the equinoxes they will, with the longest eclipse
on the day of the equinox.


Could they have been playing around with the batteries that power Eurobird
1
when it's in darkness, if one has started to fail maybe, or did the people
at Eutelsat just switch something else off by mistake?

Forgot to charge them perhaps?