"Mark Carver" <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:j3llmfFashdU1@mid.individual.net...
>> Are regional BBC news studios fitted with HD cameras yet, in anticipation
>> of regional BBC One HD?
>
> It's not just the cameras that need upgrading, it's the vision mixer,
> station router, graphics engines, servers, etc etc

Sorry. When I said "HD cameras" I really meant to include equipment such as
vision mixers, servers etc.

I suppose there is no absolute requirement for studios to go HD at the same
time as broadcast workflow/topology, as long as they have the means of
upscaling SD to HD (if broadcast equipment is upgraded before studio
equipment). Once the cameras (etc) have been upgraded, they'll "always" need
a means of downscaling from HD cameras to provide a parallel SD feed - for
as long as SD lasts.

> All of the ITV regions except for Border:Scotland and Channel TV are
> available on satellite in HD.
> However, in order to accommodate their regions in HD, they've reduced the
> number of regions in SD via satellite.

Ah, that's why the number of ITV SD regions on satellite reduced about a
year ago.

It's a shame that when DVB-T2/HD standards were first proposed they didn't
include a technical capability for a studio to send a signal to
HD-compatible TVs and PVRs to tell them to retune to SD for the local news
and other opt-outs, and then to tune back to HD afterwards - assuming that
was made part of the standard at both the broadcast and receiver ends. That
would have got round the need to transmit loads of different regional
variations on satellite for the sake of little more than half an hour a day
of local news. Or am I being facetious? ;-)

On 05/01/2022 14:46, NY wrote:
> "Mark Carver" <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:j3llmfFashdU1@mid.individual.net...
>>> Are regional BBC news studios fitted with HD cameras yet, in
>>> anticipation of regional BBC One HD?
>>
>> It's not just the cameras that need upgrading, it's the vision mixer,
>> station router, graphics engines, servers, etc etc
>
> Sorry. When I said "HD cameras" I really meant to include equipment
> such as vision mixers, servers etc.
>
> I suppose there is no absolute requirement for studios to go HD at the
> same time as broadcast workflow/topology,
The HD bit is also part of the production workflow/topology, they are
wrapped up together

> as long as they have the means of upscaling SD to HD (if broadcast
> equipment is upgraded before studio equipment). Once the cameras (etc)
> have been upgraded, they'll "always" need a means of downscaling from
> HD cameras to provide a parallel SD feed - for as long as SD lasts.

Well right now (and since June) all the existing SD BBC regions are
being upscaled to HD, and fed to the mux centre. Also the physical
location of the opt switch has moved there too, rather than BBC 1
network being 'tromboned' through each region 24/7.
>
> It's a shame that when DVB-T2/HD standards were first proposed they
> didn't include a technical capability for a studio to send a signal to
> HD-compatible TVs and PVRs to tell them to retune to SD for the local
> news and other opt-outs, and then to tune back to HD afterwards -
> assuming that was made part of the standard at both the broadcast and
> receiver ends. That would have got round the need to transmit loads of
> different regional variations on satellite for the sake of little more
> than half an hour a day of local news. Or am I being facetious? ;-)

No, and DVB standards do allow for such switching. The Germans use it I
think. However the UK broadcasters did trials and concluded there was
too much of a 'clunk' when it switched streams. It's about the same sort
of 'clunk' you get changing channel manually with your remote, like for
instance from BBC 1 HD to BBC 1 SD when the local news comes along. Just
Saying.

On Wed 05/01/2022 14:56, Mark Carver wrote:
> On 05/01/2022 14:46, NY wrote:
>> "Mark Carver" <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:j3llmfFashdU1@mid.individual.net...
>>>> Are regional BBC news studios fitted with HD cameras yet, in
>>>> anticipation of regional BBC One HD?
>>>
>>> It's not just the cameras that need upgrading, it's the vision mixer,
>>> station router, graphics engines, servers, etc etc
>>
>> Sorry. When I said "HD cameras" I really meant to include equipment
>> such as vision mixers, servers etc.
>>
>> I suppose there is no absolute requirement for studios to go HD at the
>> same time as broadcast workflow/topology,
> The HD bit is also part of the production workflow/topology, they are
> wrapped up together
>
>> as long as they have the means of upscaling SD to HD (if broadcast
>> equipment is upgraded before studio equipment). Once the cameras (etc)
>> have been upgraded, they'll "always" need a means of downscaling from
>> HD cameras to provide a parallel SD feed - for as long as SD lasts.
>
> Well right now (and since June) all the existing SD BBC regions are
> being upscaled to HD, and fed to the mux centre. Also the physical
> location of the opt switch has moved there too, rather than BBC 1
> network being 'tromboned' through each region 24/7.
>>
>> It's a shame that when DVB-T2/HD standards were first proposed they
>> didn't include a technical capability for a studio to send a signal to
>> HD-compatible TVs and PVRs to tell them to retune to SD for the local
>> news and other opt-outs, and then to tune back to HD afterwards -
>> assuming that was made part of the standard at both the broadcast and
>> receiver ends. That would have got round the need to transmit loads of
>> different regional variations on satellite for the sake of little more
>> than half an hour a day of local news. Or am I being facetious? ;-)
>
> No, and DVB standards do allow for such switching. The Germans use it I
> think. However the UK broadcasters did trials and concluded there was
> too much of a 'clunk' when it switched streams. It's about the same sort
> of 'clunk' you get changing channel manually with your remote, like for
> instance from BBC 1 HD to BBC 1 SD when the local news comes along. Just
> Saying.
>

I would understand the Germans using it as pretty well all of their
radio broadcasting is centralised with regional opt-outs - which makes a
huge mess of RDS!! Following that thought process I would guess TV is
handled in a similar fashion.

On 05/01/2022 13:17, NY wrote:
> "Jim Lesurf" <noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:59a5f9cf05noise@audiomisc.co.uk...
>> In article <j3e5c0Fs1g8U1@mid.individual.net>, Mark Carver
>> <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> Are regional BBC news studios fitted with HD cameras yet, in
> anticipation of regional BBC One HD?
>
> Was BBC One HD originally envisioned as not being regional, with
> regional news only on BBC One SD, and now BBC are facing calls for
> regional HD. Or was regional HD part of the plan all along but it's
> taken them a lot longer to implement it than ITV?
>
>
> How much spare transponder space is there on satellite, to accommodate
> regional BBC One HD in the same way as there are some (*) ITV HD regions?
>
>
> (*)  Though I believe fewer than for ITV HD terrestrial.

In a word it's Bucks. Mega-Bucks.

Aside from the infrastructure, keeping satellites for each BBC variant
repeating Network for most of the day is expensive especially if you are
suggesting repeating this on HD. If they could switch off SD in the
process then the cost would be much reduced. But we have discussed the
popularity of doing that previously.

At least upgrading the infrastructure is (mostly) capital, satellite
transponder costs are revenue.

--

Chris

In article <j3llmfFashdU1@mid.individual.net>, Mark Carver
<mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 05/01/2022 13:17, NY wrote:
> > "Jim Lesurf" <noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote in message

> >
> > That would be very useful. Particularly to explain why BBC initially
> > implemented HD using a different topology to SD, which has made it
> > very difficult up to now for them to have HD regional news to the same
> > extent as for SD, and what they are doing about reversing the problem
> > - which may or may not be to implement an HD topology and signal flow
> > which is more similar to that for SD.

> It's a good idea actually. I'll dig out what I've written and stick it
> as a text file on my webspace

Do you also have any related old photos or documents that could also be
used? if so, I could perhaps put the results together as an illustrated
webpage (or two) sometime.

For the NICAM pages people fed me various bits of info, photos, etc, and I
assembled them, got them to prufrood it, corrected, then put it up when
people were happy.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
biog http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On 06/01/2022 10:40, Jim Lesurf wrote:
> In article <j3llmfFashdU1@mid.individual.net>, Mark Carver
>
>> It's a good idea actually. I'll dig out what I've written and stick it
>> as a text file on my webspace
> Do you also have any related old photos or documents that could also be
> used? if so, I could perhaps put the results together as an illustrated
> webpage (or two) sometime.

That's a very kind offer Jim.

Possibly.

I do have a few legacy BBC routing maps that could certainly be used to
illustrate how things were, to set the context of how the architecture
is having to change to a very centralised model.

I'll have a think.