Old BBC News video clips archive

Although I'd agree that the Barco era wasn't great, I think the 2003 set is the worst set that the national news have had since they've had proper sets. The rear projected backdrop was far more washed out than you had with the Barcos and the side screens were positioned in such a poor way - really limiting the shots they could do. The desk wasn't awful but wasn't great either - the slightly yellow tint of the internal lights made it look old from day one and the laptops were a retrograde step. Then with the switch to the clamshell look the whole set looked out of place as the titles and sets are from two completely different design aesthetics.

Maybe if they'd refreshed it like this in 2004 they could have made it work?


The idea behind the Barcos was quite good, but the execution was often poor. I believe that the original intention (especially in TC7) was for the Barcos and lightboxes to act as the basis of the set with additional elements wheeled in for each programme. But in reality really only Marr did this and most programmes seemed to just change the backdrop, change a few lighting gels and plonk a different desk and chairs on the rostrums. I actually feel that the post-2008 incarnation of N6 was one of the better uses of the Barco era. I know many people don't particularly care for the fake newsroom backdrop, but the set was an allround step up on the 2006 version of N6 and the News at Ten from N6 always looked nicer than the News at Six from TC7.

Actually for me with N6 of that 2003-2008 I kind of preferred this:


to this as I called it in my own naming of things the "Palace of News":

(Both sourced from TV Ark and screengrabbed)

The main reason I prefer the first backdrop is that at least in close-up mode it has a certain depth believablity, also with the way the "ceiling" protudes it kind of reminded me of N9 *(was that he old BBC World studio at the time)* with that ceiling so there was at least some form of heritage playing into that. Plus apart from the red "carpet" or whatever it was supposed to be, if you removed that, used proper camera angles to maintain the facade there is a bit more realism to the backdrop than in the second image.

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Edited to add ** to the original post.

Shall I carry on uploading videos to the TV Live YouTube channel? That infamous content thief Adam Withey's decided to upload videos from the folder now, making my work rather obsolete...

I say keep doing it please

Also at least with the "TV Live" author detail it kind of acts as a "tick mark" of sorts for those in the know.

Grrr, so annoying, but sadly inevitable really!

I'd say yes, definitely keep uploading them, Rob. Better that they are out there and your channel is well known and respected.

Would it help if I delete the Dropbox folder now?

NO! Why do you have to delete it? I like it so much!!!

Really in these circumstances, folders should be private and then you should have to ask for a link via PM to access it.

Granted that's not going to stop people stealing it off other youtube channels, but watermarks are the way to go in that situation.

Thanks guys. I'll continue to upload them.

Much like everything else you put online, once its up, its there for every man and his dog to beg/borrow/steal. It was just harder in the pre Fibre days to pinch stuff (images you've always been able to pinch, and text is a simple copy and paste job), but anything larger would have taken more time and effort to do (and anyway where would you put it?). The advent of faster speed internet and online tools to do what you could have done yourself just sort of cut out the middle man so to speak. Watermarks mean nothing.

A certain individual pinched a Transdiffusion video (which had an internal "breakflash"/edit in it I believe), threw it up on his YouTube channel, did his "edits" to it and effectively got caught. Was absolutely adamant and kept insisting the Transdiffusion break flash was part of the original transmission. Of course anybody with half a brain knew what was going on...

Well, I'll leave the Dropbox where it is for now - unless Rob wants me to remove it? The stuff is kindly being uploaded to YouTube so you'd still have access to it, Roger.

I suppose it would effectively be closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. But, I always said I would rather the content be out there and being enjoyed rather than sitting gathering dust on my HDD.

I'll have to delete it eventually as it's pretty much maxing out my Dropbox capacity right now, which is OK for the time being but not indefinitely. I'll keep it there as long as Rob needs it in order to keep uploading them to YouTube.

I've already downloaded everything from the folder, so if you want to delete it, then go ahead.