[Tech1] BBC News at Ten new look

[Barry Bonner]

Hand-over from BBC National News to London News (my pet hate) at lunchtime today, first 3 minutes was in fact BBC Sport News! It then switched to London News halfway through an item, no apology forthcoming even at the end. So I assume that the “Off Air” monitor has been ditched! Presenter obviously not aware either.
Barry.



On 17 Jun 2022, at 14:17, Pat Heigham via Tech1 <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk> wrote:

> Poor audio on Zoom?
> 
> Where's the bloody mic?
> 
> On the computer - miles away from mouth!
> 
> Pat
> On 17/06/2022 13:56, Dave Plowman via Tech1 wrote:
>> Something else I've not quite worked out. Zoom etc usually has quite passable picture quality but poor-ish  audio. You'd have thought decent audio would take up less bandwidth than the vision?
>> On 17/06/2022 13:15, Chris Woolf via Tech1 wrote:
>>> I'm not entirely sure that a lot of the editors/producers actually listen. Like picture editors and directors of dramas, they kinda know the scripts, so already have the content in their minds - they don't need to hear every word, and therefore don't recognise the problem. 
>>> Without pre-knowledge, perhaps with limited lip-reading due to poor sync and non-optimal viewing distances, and frequency-limited speaker replay in a non-optimal acoustic space.... the audience doesn't get anything like the intelligibility they need.
>>> Intelligibility of audio everywhere is not a value that is even recognised. People say it isn't loud enough, or someone is mumbling, but gross distortion on poor phone lines, syllabic muting and similar faults that prevent the actual transfer of useful information - not even the terminology is available.
>>> 
>>> I had to discuss pension matters on the phone the other day, and the line quality was abysmal. I'm quite sure I only managed to get about 30% of the details. Of course the call was so that the pensions co. could absolve themselves of responsibility for me making a wrong decision - nothing to do with actually communicating anything useful. I didn't care because I'd asked them to email everything anyway. But if I'd needed to communicate for a medical emergency etc, it would have been disastrous.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Chris Woolf
>>> 
>>> On 17/06/2022 12:55, Dave Plowman via Tech1 wrote:
>>>> What I can't understand is it doesn't take 'golden ears' to hear the difference in a voice between a decent mic in front of the mouth and a decent mic on a lapel. Or much skill to match them as closely as possible. 
>>>> Imaging the rows if they positioned the cameras so close it distorted the face due to a very wide angle lens? We expect the camera so show us a face as near to reality as possible. Why should sound be different?
>>>> On 17/06/2022 12:40, Pat Heigham via Tech1 wrote:
>>>>> You are so right, Barry,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Get the bean counters to turn off the sound and see how much they get to understand.
>>>>> 
>>>>> We spent many hours learning how to engineer good sound, from basic mic positioning, with respect to muffling, wind blasting, consonant blasting etc.
>>>>> 
>>>>> How many single person cameramen know about this?
>>>>> 
>>>>> I attach a discourse which I had fogotten I put together with input from esteemed technicians.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Pat
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 15/06/2022 11:17, Barry Bonner via Tech1 wrote:
>>>>>> Hi Nick,
>>>>>> 	The bit of kit news is missing is called a “Sound Supervisor” unfortunately due to the extortionate costs of this latest licence fee spending spree they can’t afford one! EQ has also been dropped!
>>>>>> BBC London News are worse due to multitasking.
>>>>>> Barry.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  	
>>>>> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. 
>>>>> www.avast.com
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
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