BBC4 bitrate and the Lumpits

I'm wondering just how much effect the Lumpits is going to have on the
quality, etc, of what the rest of the BBC output will be like.

Last night I noticed that:

1) That the 'Parliament' channel seems to be 'off' for the duration of the
Lumpits. Presumably the BBC feel that people running around a field is more
important than being able to scrutinise what our Lords and Masters are up
to...

2) That the Prom broadcast on BBC4 (Freeview) has a rather less detailed
picture that usual. Despite being a part of the much heralded 'event' of
Barenboim conducting the entire set of Beethoven symphonies.

Which makes me suspect that both are being sacrificed for the Lumpits to
hog data bandwidth.

I don't have a way to check the actual bitrate for Freeview stations.
Anyone know what the rate was during the Prom last night? And how it
compares to the normal pre-Lumpits?

Slainte,

Jim

--
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"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
I'm wondering just how much effect the Lumpits is going to have on the
quality, etc, of what the rest of the BBC output will be like.

Last night I noticed that:

1) That the 'Parliament' channel seems to be 'off' for the duration of the
Lumpits. Presumably the BBC feel that people running around a field is
more
important than being able to scrutinise what our Lords and Masters are up
to...

2) That the Prom broadcast on BBC4 (Freeview) has a rather less detailed
picture that usual. Despite being a part of the much heralded 'event' of
Barenboim conducting the entire set of Beethoven symphonies.

Which makes me suspect that both are being sacrificed for the Lumpits to
hog data bandwidth.

I don't have a way to check the actual bitrate for Freeview stations.
Anyone know what the rate was during the Prom last night? And how it
compares to the normal pre-Lumpits?

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics
http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html


Most UK parliaments are in recess now - our Scottish one gets underway again
at the end of August, I think. So BBC Parliament usually becomes a political
documentary channel - sometimes quite interesting - more interesting than
the London Sports Days anyway.

Jim Lesurf wrote:

I don't have a way to check the actual bitrate for Freeview stations.
Anyone know what the rate was during the Prom last night? And how it
compares to the normal pre-Lumpits?

Bit of a rant on the subject at

http://www.bsaoc.com/Freeview_News_C...eview_News.txt

--
Dave

On 27/07/2012 09:52, Jim Lesurf wrote:
I'm wondering just how much effect the Lumpits is going to have on the
quality, etc, of what the rest of the BBC output will be like.

BBC 4's resolution has been reduced, now running at 544 x 576

Summary of observed changes he-

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=59848998&postcount=1054


--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

www.paras.org.uk

In article , Mark Carver
wrote:
On 27/07/2012 09:52, Jim Lesurf wrote:
I'm wondering just how much effect the Lumpits is going to have on the
quality, etc, of what the rest of the BBC output will be like.

BBC 4's resolution has been reduced, now running at 544 x 576

Summary of observed changes he-

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=59848998&postcount=1054

Ta! The drops are depressing. Sport conquers all at the BBC as usual. :-/

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

In article , Dave
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:

I don't have a way to check the actual bitrate for Freeview stations.
Anyone know what the rate was during the Prom last night? And how it
compares to the normal pre-Lumpits?

Bit of a rant on the subject at

http://www.bsaoc.com/Freeview_News_C...eview_News.txt

Thanks for the sad news. :-/

So for the next few weeks we'll not only have the bulk of BBC TV devoted to
people running around, but the other programs will be squashed down.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Mark Carver
wrote:
On 27/07/2012 09:52, Jim Lesurf wrote:
I'm wondering just how much effect the Lumpits is going to have on the
quality, etc, of what the rest of the BBC output will be like.

BBC 4's resolution has been reduced, now running at 544 x 576

Summary of observed changes he-

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=59848998&postcount=1054

Ta! The drops are depressing. Sport conquers all at the BBC as usual. :-/

At least they've commandeered the whole of BBC1, and (some) programmes that
would be on BBC1 have been moved to BBC2. So maybe (just maybe) all that
over-running Lumpit sports will bugger-up will be other Lumpit sports poetic
justice), not other programmes - unless they shift anything from BBC1 to
BBC2.

I hope if any non-Lumpit programmes do get displaced, they get totally
cancelled from their original slot and rescheduled properly a few days later
so they appear as new entries in EPGs and will get recorded. BBC doesn't
have a very good record of doing this: they are inclined at a few minutes'
notice to move a programme to a different channel or delay it by an hour or
so, without updating EPGs and force-feeding them to any recorders that use
EPGs. Consequently you miss the rescheduled programme. Broadcast voiceovers
or captions "Casualty will now be shown on BBC2" or "... will be shown at
10:30" are no use to video recorders (whether VHS, DVD, HDD, Windows Media
Centre or whatever).

I was quite surprised that I couldn't tell the difference between 544x576
and 720x576 when I watched the last two episodes of The Bill (one recorded
from ITV3, the other from ITV1) just now - I've had them sitting on my hard
disk for ages...

"Dave" wrote in message
...
Jim Lesurf wrote:

I don't have a way to check the actual bitrate for Freeview stations.
Anyone know what the rate was during the Prom last night? And how it
compares to the normal pre-Lumpits?

Bit of a rant on the subject at

http://www.bsaoc.com/Freeview_News_C...eview_News.txt

Scary that they are proposing to allow 4G to interfere with broadcast TV,
when they've taken so much care up to now to avoid DTTV interfering with
analogue or with other DTTV from neighbouring regions.

Why did they not combine DSO with reducing the sixe of the spectrum, so as
to allow a clear demarcation between broadcast TV and 4G, instead of
interleaving the two?

Why the assumption that everyone is able to have satellite or is in a cable
area? What about people who have many other TVs and recording devices, maybe
bought specially in anticipation of DSO?

The problem with satellite is that one dish can't feed many receivers
because some of the receiving technology is at the dish end. Can you get USB
FreeSat decoders (like USB DVB decoders) for Windows Media Centre to allow
programmes to be recorded on PC so they can be edited (top/tail,
commercials) and kept, rather than just being recorded on a Sky box of
limited capacity and with no scope for archiving or editing.

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
I'm wondering just how much effect the Lumpits is going to have on the
quality, etc, of what the rest of the BBC output will be like.

Last night I noticed that:

1) That the 'Parliament' channel seems to be 'off' for the duration of the
Lumpits. Presumably the BBC feel that people running around a field is
more
important than being able to scrutinise what our Lords and Masters are up
to...

The House of Commons is in recess. The House will next sit on 3rd September.
The House of Lords is in recess. The House will next sit on 8th October.
The "running round a field" doesn't start until 3rd August and finishes on
12th August.


2) That the Prom broadcast on BBC4 (Freeview) has a rather less detailed
picture that usual. Despite being a part of the much heralded 'event' of
Barenboim conducting the entire set of Beethoven symphonies.

Surely the audio is of more importance to you than the picture. If this is
not the case, then I am sure that you are aware that several of the
Promenade Concerts are shown live or repeated on BBC HD or BBC 1 HD. The
Last Night will also be shown in 3D.

And the Proms are very much a minority interest in televisual terms. Many
more people will be interested in the womens' beach volleyball.

--
JohnT

In article , Mortimer
wrote:
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=59848998&postcount=1054

Ta! The drops are depressing. Sport conquers all at the BBC as usual.
:-/


I hope if any non-Lumpit programmes do get displaced, they get totally
cancelled from their original slot and rescheduled properly a few days
later so they appear as new entries in EPGs and will get recorded. BBC
doesn't have a very good record of doing this: they are inclined at a
few minutes' notice to move a programme to a different channel or delay
it by an hour or so, without updating EPGs and force-feeding them to
any recorders that use EPGs. Consequently you miss the rescheduled
programme.

The problem there is that some of us rely on sources like 'Radio Times' and
don't spend time scanning the EPG in the hope that a programme that was
meant to be on yesterday is on a 4:30 in the afternoon today! :-)

Alas, RT has a poor track record even with schedules that *haven't* been
changed at the last moment.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html