French TV

Oh yes, I've seen the dirty upscaled LCI on Zattoo and Teleboy in Switzerland which they both advertise as "Full HD" when it clearly isn't! Now both OTT providers are either using 19E with a card or are upscaling the 720x576 DTT stream.

Ironically if you watch LCI on MyCanal, it's 1920x1080 which appears to be line fed, so there's no excuse for Canal/TNTSAT to do it!

Edit: Just checked again on MyCanal and it is the same awful SD upscale used. Molotov does have LCI in Full HD.

I would guess they get the horrible LCI upscale directly from 19.2E as it's actually FTA on there (I guess with it being a news channel, Canal don't bother with encryption). I'm not sure what Canal use for these upscales but all the ones I've seen since they switched everything to at least being an HD stream a few years back have been pretty grotty (France O before it closed, M6 Boutique, etc).

Culturebox has now appeared on Astra as well for Canal/TNTSAT on 11895V. Full HD and also FTA, but with no label for the moment (SID 8315) - https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=11895&pid=8315&live=61&sec=0&lang=en

I don't think this was mentioned here:

Last Thursday on TF1, the news at 1pm fell victim of a wide technical problem which prevented any report from being broadcast.

At the usual starting time of the newscast, viewers could see anchor Marie-Sophie Lacarrau informing them of this problem and apologizing for not being able to get the news on the air.



After this short live announcement, TF1 aired commercials, trailers, and an episode of their Reportages magazine.

LCI, Groupe TF1's news channel, was also affected: while the talk show programme could continue, the news flashes scheduled on the hour and at '30 couldn't be broadcast.

Around 1:36pm, the Journal de 13 heures could eventually be broadcast, although in a "downgraded mode" (for example, there were no lower thirds).



This kind of technical problem is extremely rare for TF1. The cause is attributed to a "network failure" occuring a few minutes before 1pm, which rendered Dalet, the central conductor software, useless.

In the evening of the same day, the 8pm news were aired without any visible problem.

Blimey! Since Jean Pierre Pernaut left......technical issues have arrived!

Is that the same Dalet, that EMAP radio stations used as there playout system of choice? If so, ah-haa. When it fails, you're all going down with it, until the reboot is complete!

Curious that if the central control software packed up, the studio backdrop screens still worked, and graphics (weather chart) still made it to air - unless they are controlled from a downstream system.

Might be similar to when Mosart had a meltdown just before the Ten on BBC One (the time Huw was left sitting in silence on the News Channel) - they were able to run a more basic version of the programme manually

Worth noting that Franceinfo has been back in holiday mode since February 15th with only 6h30:8h30 and 23h being full bulletins. (23h is 45 minutes instead of 60)

Otherwise it's back to at least 45 minutes of filler programming per hour.

A few updates on the TF1 situation from Thursday 18:

Newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné revealed that a technician, working for an I.T. service provider commissioned by the Bouygues group, initiated a server update at 12:10 pm, which is forty-eight minutes before the beginning of the news. (The kind of update which is usually carried out at night to prevent disruptions! )

Interviewed by regional press La Dépêche du Midi , Marie-Sophie Lacarrau recounts that the first visible sign of trouble appeared at around 12:40 pm when several computers started reacting in unusual ways, their screens turning black shortly after. System "failure" was confirmed at 12:47 pm.

Le Canard Enchaîné tells that attempts to use the rescue system were made, but were unsuccessful, for a simple reason: the rescue system was directly connected to the main one.

An article about it in French here: https://www.ozap.com/actu/-13-heures-de-tf1-le-canard-enchaine-revele-la-raison-de-l-enorme-probleme-technique/602040

I love the fact after all that that Marie-Sophie Lacarrau had lunch with JPP where they joked about that bulletin. Good to see an old pro like him support her after leaving.

Jean-Pierre Pernaut didn't completely leave…
He might have stopped anchoring the 1pm news, but he still works at TF1, and has now a programme on LCI on Saturday afternoons.

BFMTV, CNEWS and LCI are all covering the sentencing of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, yet Franceinfo had an interview with a pre-booked guest on another topic and are now on pre-recorded padded features.

Definitely not a good look for France Info