New BBC Singapore studio

Sorry Harry, but you're wrong. It is the river. If you look in the centre of the oval, there's a white line - that's the Millennium Bridge. Behind it is Tate Modern.

Ha ha. Don't think anyone has every accused Panasonic of making a good studio/brick camera... (Ironic given that their Varicam PSC cameras are well regarded, and for years were the main stay of natural history filming as they allowed off-speed shooting at full resolution, unlike many competing Sony models) Put it this way. I don't think I can name a UK TV Studio or OB operation that uses Panasonic studio or OB cameras...

The best brick camera you usually see used in these situations is the Sony P1. That is effectively a broadcast camera head, but without the triax/fibre back and the operator stuff (talkback, viewfinder, reverse vision, prompt output etc.) They deliver identical quality pictures (assuming the same lenses are used) to Sony HDC1500/2500s (not sure if the P1 got the /R upgrade) and have the ability to be racked (aka paint & shaded) from the same RCPs/MSUs as conventional Sony studio cameras.

As a result you can intercut a P1 with standard Sony studio cameras (like HDC-1500/2500s and HSC-300s) without seeing any change in picture quality.

They are increasingly used on Steadicams as they are lighter and less bulky (and the stuff you lose isn't needed on Steadi's as they usually work RF) - particularly on 3D rigs (if anyone is doing 3D these days)

Of course there are two reasons to use brick cameras, one is to get shots you couldn't otherwise get or to put in areas where you require fewer camera control facilities and can cope with HD-SDI outputs rather than triax or fibre (fixed installs or RF rather than ad hoc studio/OBs), the other is to save money by buying a cheaper camera. You get what you pay for at the end of the day...

(BTW - what do you mean by "hard" and "soft" cameras? Do you mean lightweight vs full-size?)

We had a Panasonic HPX 370 at our old uni and it was a bit.... meh.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/images2000x2000/Panasonic_AG_HPX370_AG_HPX370_Series_P2_HD_684286.jpg

Focus was a bit off, bit of distortion... and a few other annoying "features" - after I left that job my colleagues ended up replacing it with a nice new (and much smaller) Sony camera.

And that's a PSC camera where they traditionally have done better. That model was low-end though. 1/3" sensors are marginal (few 1/3" sensor-based cameras get EBU tier approval)

The focus and distortion were presumably a function of the lens (made by Fuji if it had the stock 17:1) - but with 1/3" sensors you get less lens choice if you need to change for a different application?

Annoyingly Panasonic made better recording back-ends and Sony made the better camera front-ends. It took Sony forever to launch a flash-based camera that met BBC/EBU codec/bitrate specs... (Hence all the EX3s with NanoFlashs in use...)

This would be a hard camera and this would be a soft camera. Cameras like the P1 are called box cameras.


I'm not sure how the Panasonic camera would shoot in a standard studio operation but the PQ at the brightly lit NYSE looks comparable to the studio.

My experience of those type of PTZ camera is they're all right, up until you want to integrate them with other makes/models of camera - you get hit by the limited racking control and unless you're lucky you will not get them to match up. In some situations that might be OK, but almost certainly not in a news studio.

However, something like a timelapse recording...

During Newsday they showed that the desk is on a turntable that has to be manually pushed.

11pm/6am shot (while dark outside) I really like this shade of blue!:


Turntable during Sport Today:


Midnight/7am shot (one sun is up):

11pm/6am looks like a ghastly DTL green screen shot.

Not seen in the caps above is that there is a cut-out in the set wall to the left of the window that appears to allow the window view from the side of the set to be visible too (it's a weird size to be a screen of any description. However, this looks a bit peculiar, with the black frame standing out against the lighter set colours.

Is the 'strepsils' logo of Newsday and its animation sting going to be replaced to match the new theme? It looks like yellow is no longer the defining colour of Newsday, instead being the reddish brown as I've seen quite a bit from the previews.

Edit: Have just looked through the previous pages and Newsday logo behind Babita. It looks like the logo is now the sun-like globe with red and yellow being the defining colours.

Theres also probably an additional screen on the bit of the set we havent seen yet, directly opposite the large window, for DTLs/Studio-Guest-backdrop when the platform is rotated to the 'its dark outside' position. (I'm assuming the catwalk/videowall will be behind guests or used for DTLs normally - based on the position of the chairs)

They really do like being shoved into the corner of the building dont they