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andyquested

Listed below are comments made by andyquested between Monday, 19th October 2009 and Tuesday, 24th November 2009.

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Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 10:46pm on 24 Nov 2009 Dear all

Thanks Paul for the history - who say I don't read the post and reply?? :) It is written now and it is long. It will be a tough job for Nick to make it work in blog form (sorry for such a public advanced warning Nick!). It's currently going through a few people for checking - grammar and spelling - and and yes I did start it around mid September.

As Paul says in my post history we re-looked at the tests, re-checked the results and I have watched a lot of the output (from us and many others)

Andy
Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 07:38am on 17 Nov 2009 Dear paul_geaton and trevorjharris

...yet the BBC's own HD Jargon Buster here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/production/docs/hd_jargonbuster.pdf says bitrate "refers to the rate at which data is transmitted. As a general rule the more data the better the resulting pictures/sound",

Thanks for the comments but I feel I must point out the words "general rule" I agree with you that older codecs and poor tool sets leave bit rate as the only option. However if bit rate were the only parameter MPEG2 would be the same as MPEG4 etc.

I have also been looking at the frame grabs with interest and will add that to the blog. I have nearly finished now.

Bill_Taylor - I am not at an EBU general session until next year but I will let you know how it goes!

Andy
Picture Quality on BBC HD: a response 11:10pm on 28 Oct 2009 Dear paul_geaton

First, I do hope everything is going well - regardless of opinions here health is all important.

With reference to your comment earlier:
"Andy Q's recent comment "Paul, you usually ask questions and make comments based on your own experience" was I think a poorly disguised dig at my own lack of technical knowledge"
This was anything but! I was surprised you put so much credence in a comment on an unofficial web site - as I said you do usually ask questions and make comments based on your own experience and do not take at face value the comments of others.
Several things have kept me busy recently. I have had to track down and identify four different audio issues that involved us, some of our service providers and some external companies.
The first was a system error in one of the chains between our playout centre and the distribution area. It was in the satellite feed path and so did not affect the Virgin feed, the faulty unit has been identified and we are waiting to hear what was wrong and why it happened. Unfortunately it happened at the same time as the second. This was a problem on the Strictly Come Dancing feed and caused a problem on the surround feed so affected the satellite and cable feeds.
The third and fourth were on The Electric Proms. The first Prom had holes in the audio but unlike the original audio issue they were in the broadcast stream and we should have cut to the clean source much sooner so apologies for that and reminders have been sent to the relevant people about what to do. If you read the Eurovision and the Christmas present blog you will know I had an audio stream clean up route put in. This is there to deal with metadata problems really, but it's very useful if there's an intermittent problem with Dolby E coded surround sound from outside sources.
We put the rest of the Proms through this to prevent a repeat. BUT what it could not do is make up audio that wasn’t there in the first place and just when I thought I could record the programmes and have an early night the EVS playout from the OB decided not to put any audio out for short periods - no surround, no stereo and no audio on BBC 2 either! I will be talking to the OB company about both issues as soon as I have full reports but we also have recordings of the contribution link transport streams so we can re-create the whole path to test the system again.
Obviously I have been reading the posts when I can and will reply very soon. One point though for those that commented on the lack of e-mails between myself and Danielle about coders etc. Sorry but I'm a bit old fashioned and tend to talk either by phone or preferably face to face.
Andy
Picture Quality on BBC HD: a response 10:39pm on 22 Oct 2009 Dear Paul & All

The site quoted is not a Freesat or a BBC site, it is as it says on the home page "the unofficial Freesat news site". I'm sorry if you disagree but I would prefer to stay with what I know. Paul, you usually ask questions and make comments based on your own experience or opinion but if you really want me to answer questions based on other opinion:

1, No
2, See above
3, I refer you to the Freesat answer;

"Although capacity on the Astra2D satellite is currently in short supply, the situation can change. Other capacity is available although it may not be suitable for some broadcasters depending on the rights they hold with content owners.

Freesat continues to talk with broadcasters about bringing HD content onto the platform and is confident of being able to offer more HD in the future."

As I said 4 & 5 will be in the next blog and the answers as always will be honest

Andy
Picture Quality on BBC HD: a response 7:55pm on 22 Oct 2009 Dear paul_geaton

Can I ask you a question re your questions 1-3 then?

Do you think I need to answer them?

As for 4 and 5 they are in the new blog - not long now BUT I can't be rushed on that one
Picture Quality on BBC HD: a response 7:16pm on 22 Oct 2009 Dear Trevorjharris

Thank you for the post - please remember the two SD channels are two regional channels are important to the people who live there. We need to do a full assessment of the transponder space before we can make any decisions

Andy
Picture Quality on BBC HD: a response 6:23pm on 22 Oct 2009 Dear all

I think the home page of the site says it all

http://www.joinfreesat.co.uk/

Andy
Picture Quality on BBC HD: a response 11:26am on 21 Oct 2009 Dear all

Looks like the problem on Electric Prom was a fault in the surround chain. This was an internal fault and a caption was but out after about 5 mins to confirm fault. Our playout centre cut to the emergency stream that removed the fault.

I will report back when the investigations into what happed and why it took so long to remove have been completed
Picture Quality on BBC HD: a response 10:01am on 20 Oct 2009 Dear Wednesday83

Thanks for the post. I actually said "It is underway but I asked for a re check of all the test results.." I think the key word there is "asked". I'm sure you'll agree that is the best methodology before publishing.

Dear HD1080

Thank you for the comment - there will always be a difference of opinion that has nothing to do with pure technical quality here. Until cinema moves to 48fps or more, TV producers will always use 24/25fps. At least we don't have to worry about the effect of 3:2 pull-down!

Shooting at 50p gives a limited option in post to choose the motion on transmission but 100 or 120 would be better and 300fps gives even more options. I think we are several years away from recorder/storage cost that makes this option viable though.

The R&D high frame rate document is very interesting if anyone hasn't seen it:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP169.pdf

Andy
Picture Quality on BBC HD: a response 9:47pm on 19 Oct 2009 Dear All

It is underway but I asked for a re check of all the test results and I have been looking at the subjective test material too. It takes time I'm afraid and I will not publish until all the checks are done.

Andy

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