The Sport Thread

Did she host any of the figure skating from the studio last week? I know she was commentating, but was that on location or from a London studio, considering Robin's involvement in Dancing on Ice and him being on DoI Friday at the same time as commentating on BBCi!

She's also hosted tennis from there since the demise of Grandstand (Aussie Open, French Open, some Davis Cup ties), whilst the 2007 World Athletics Championships were also anchored in the London studio.

RTÉ used their own graphics in the Six Nations coverage of Ireland v Italy yesterday. Previously the BBC were host broadcaster for all Six Nations games other than France home games. Was watching in the pub so don't know if the feed was still coming from the BBC (a completely clean feed) or whether RTÉ were allowed use their own cameras this time. Also the stats appearing were very BBC-like and had the "Official Data" label on them like on the BBC's graphics for the England game later - so maybe they were being generated from the same source? Anyone know more?

England v Wales had the usual semi-clean BBC feed that RTÉ is normally provided with (basically the regular BBC Sport graphics, but with all mentions of the "BBC" and "BBC Sport" names removed, including the BBC logo on the scorebar DOG).

I can't remember what they did for the last Superbowl, but BBC are taking exactly the same feed as Sky this year (CBS graphics and commentary), because I'm sure they took a different feed in the past.

So it would seem the only thing BBC viewers / non Sky Sports subscribers are missing out on is HD.

Clever use of Trailers (as last year) at the Ad breaks

Well there's two feeds, but both british broadcasters are showing the CBS feed, ESPN America are also showing it but not in the UK, they are taking the other (NFL) feed. The BBC are probably getting their feed off the encrypted 10e feed.

The semi-clean feed as you put it, is indeed the world feed are sky showing highlights or something as they have a few encrypted feeds going on with the six nations,

I think that is the "host feed" that the BBC provide for all rights holders. They do it for quite a few sports where they are host. I think they have duplicate graphics boxes slaved together with and without BBC Sport artwork.

In some cases host broadcasters will also provide a gfx data feed - which you can feed into your own gfx box and then render graphics in your own style, but completely in sync with the host, but with your own house style.

(I remember being able to watch ITV and BBC coverage of World Cup matches in-sync a couple of tournaments ago - 2002? - and seeing ITV take the host graphics, and the BBC have their own, but the graphics were always entirely in-sync. I suspect the World Cup hosts were providing a data feed to the BBC, who were using this to generate their own BBC Sport-style graphics?)

NB - I think that the Six Nations graphics package is much stronger this year - particularly the video of the players turning to camera in the boxes as they are discussed.

This was the case in both 2002 and 2006.

Yes, and ITV did it in 1998.

The new titles are much better, whilst I liked the team summary guide that came up under the score bar (full height of the screen) saying who has gone off and who has come on.

Still think though this BBC Sport package has somewhat outstayed it's welcome - especially the blue variant which I think dated quite quickly. I would hope something new is in place by 2012 at the latest, though I guess considering there is no clean date in the calendar where they can refresh everything ahead of a new season they;d probably faze it in gradually.

I remember ITV using their own package (Which IIRC looked rather like their current England package but darker, though I was only 9). But did they not just have a clean feed?

I remember the BBC used the host-broadcaster graphics and it was all in French.

This all confused and annoyed me in equal measure at the time.

Ah that may be it. There was some irate comment in a few of the Irish Sunday newspapers last year about RTÉ using BBC cameras at Ireland home games in Dublin (which apparently is the contractual arrangement between the Six Nations and the BBC) so maybe RTÉ and the BBC came to an arrangement for the BBC to provide a graphics data feed so RTÉ could use their own graphics and make it look less like a BBC presentation (which of course, it has been these past few years). As I mentioned, although the graphics were in RTÉ's house style, the actual information appearing on them was very BBC-like rather than RTÉ's usual fare.

The French, oddly enough, have always got away with having France Televisions act as host broadcaster for France home games, oddly enough!

Setanta are showing highlights incidently, and are using the unbranded BBC graphics too.