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.
--
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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.

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

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)

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

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.

On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:46:06 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

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.

Unwanted overhead? How do these suits think the programmes get to the
audience, magic pixie vision? It beggears belief.

You hand it over to a another company and pay them lots of money...

--
Cheers
Dave.

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

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

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. !!!

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