New Meridian, BBC South & South East Thread

CasparCG can be driven by BigTed but the project was put on hold after its trial at the mailbox so there isn’t a “one solution fits all” template that can be rolled out unfortunately. Sites that have since chosen to install CasparCG have gone it alone slightly in how its set up and configured and most are using it as a graphics playout device for full frame items and screen images, rather than lower thirds.

You’re right that hardware limitations prevent most regions from implementing the fully animating style of Reith lower thirds, with Astons being still the main character generator used across the country. It wasn’t quite a floppy disk, but a Magneto-Optical disk (quite hard to get these days!) although for the most part it was possible to get the new data into the Aston directly via a bit of ancient file management software that still works!

And, if I recall correctly, they are installed as "founts", which is of course magnificent.

The problem we've had from our launch in 2001 is we don't have an acoustically isolated and treated studio like most regions do. For economic reasons our "studio" was just part of the newsroom with no acoustic barrier between. We then restyled the programme and put in translucent panels to show the newsroom behind the presenters.
This gave some acoustic separation, but didn't sort the inherently lively acoustic of the studio area. It's all hard surfaces and there's no space to fit absorbent panels which you'd find elsewhere.

The acoustic quality is acceptable when only one microphone is live, but when two or more are faded up it can sound a bit loose or "bathroom" like. On our lunchtime and evening programmes, which are directed from our Main Production Gallery, our Sound Operators work hard to minimise this effect by careful balancing, making sure only one microphone is fully faded up at a time.

But on the short bulletins, we don't have the luxury of a fully-staffed main gallery. It's just one technical person directing, vision mixing, dealing with name-supers and timings, all driven from a simple Presentation Gallery.
It proved difficult to mix studio sound while doing everything else. Our original fix for this was to give the presenter their own microphone fader so the Technical Operator only had to control the weather mic. But that introduced another risk.
As the presenter is concentrating on delivering the bulletin, opening and closing their microphone fader at exactly the right time isn't always on the top of their mind. So sometimes the fader has been left open when it shouldn't or not opened when it should.

Piers Hopkirk on breakfast and lunchtime SET duty today. Surely this is a first for him presenting? I suppose they are short of presenters now following the departure of Rob Smith and John Young.