The 6pm junctions on BBC 1 and BBC 2, as described here, would indeed lead you to believe that they came from the DR site, allowing engineers to get on with sorting the problems in the Broadcast Centre.
Thanks for those insights. If the playout servers at the main playout centre had failed, would they be able to remote control the ones at the DR site and treat them as an outside source, or would it be a lock, stock and barrel move to the DR site? (If security reasons mean it's not possible to go into that level of detail I won't be offended!)
Actually, scratch that - if it was just playout that had failed, a live programme like Newsround wouldn't have fallen off air.
Newsround didn't fall off air.
Both BBC1 and 2 got to the end of their programmes and when they tried to go to the next item both ran black
Indeed, Newsround didn't fall off air. The trail off the back of Newsround played out in audio only, before the director cut to the breakdown caption.
I don't know if the system is set up to allow the DR site's servers etc to be controlled from the Broadcast Centre. It's not impossible to do, indeed BBC NI operates this kind of set up.
I would guess that the England DR site is always manned to some extent, as 40 minutes of Weakest Link would not have been long enough for someone to get from the Broadcast Centre to the DR site in rush hour traffic and be in a position to do the 6pm junction.
In the late 1990s and some of the 2000s, they used to switch control to Birmingham. Does this not happen anymore?
As far as I'm aware there still is the facility to do that.
Pebble Mill doesn't exist anymore and the current DR site is not in Birmingham, it's much closer to London.
However, the switching facility to Birmingham is still in place although it now acts as a Disaster Recovery Recovery Centre. (That recovers DR if that has problems or is also affected).
I don't know if the system is set up to allow the DR site's servers etc to be controlled from the Broadcast Centre. It's not impossible to do, indeed BBC NI operates this kind of set up.
I would guess that the England DR site is always manned to some extent, as 40 minutes of Weakest Link would not have been long enough for someone to get from the Broadcast Centre to the DR site in rush hour traffic and be in a position to do the 6pm junction.
I'm not sure if it's still the case, certainly in the first few years of the BC's operation, the tapes for the day's programmes were kept on hand in case of server problems. It sounds like they'll have spooled up the Weakest Link and cut to a VT machine, and been grateful for the following 90 minutes or so being mostly live programmes...
Saw a big "pause" symbol in the corner of the screen during Ceefax on BBC2 on Friday night for a few seconds, with a bit of picture disturbance when it appeared and disappeared - does this appear when they're testing switching the feed to somewhere else, or am I imagining things? Good timing if so...
AIUI the Red Bee DR centre is staffed by playout directors etc. who are not on "on-air" days and instead are prepping schedules.
So you might be in The Broadcast Centre one day, "on-air", and then the next day you might be in the DR centre, on a different site, prepping schedules for another day but also on standby to "man the pumps".
AIUI the BBC channel servers at the DR centre are mirrored with those of the Broadcast Centre, so all material cached at the Broadcast Centre is also available at the DR centre..
In the late 1990s and some of the 2000s, they used to switch control to Birmingham. Does this not happen anymore?
As far as I'm aware there still is the facility to do that.
Pebble Mill doesn't exist anymore and the current DR site is not in Birmingham, it's much closer to London.
However, the switching facility to Birmingham is still in place although it now acts as a Disaster Recovery Recovery Centre. (That recovers DR if that has problems or is also affected).
Really?
Birmingham may well be the DR site for TVC's SCAR, I've no idea.
But as far as Birmingham being the DR for Red Bee's BBC DR site... it's news to me.
I'm a bit worried that I've not been told this before, or been given the phone numbers etc for this Birmingham DR DR. Does Birmingham have Colossus automation and Omneon servers mirroring the content on the Broadcast Centre's servers?
AIUI the BBC channel servers at the DR centre are mirrored with those of the Broadcast Centre, so all material cached at the Broadcast Centre is also available at the DR centre..
Yes indeed, I was led to believe that too.
The fact they were not able to play the Christmas idents from the DR site yesterday is confusing though.
The schedules that they loaded in the DR site would have been the same schedules in use in the Broadcast Centre at the time of the problem. So why the Christmas idents were replaced with non-Christmas idents is rather strange.
After all, the trails and programmes made their way to the DR servers ok.... and I'm guessing that they get there via an automated caching system, in the same way they cache the material around the servers within the Broadcast Centre.
Could it simply be the case that there is an established workflow for ingesting programmes and trails which ensures they are available in both locations, but as the new idents are somewhat out of the ordinary it got overlooked?
Birmingham may well be the DR site for TVC's SCAR, I've no idea.
But as far as Birmingham being the DR for Red Bee's BBC DR site... it's news to me.
I'm a bit worried that I've not been told this before, or been given the phone numbers etc for this Birmingham DR DR. Does Birmingham have Colossus automation and Omneon servers mirroring the content on the Broadcast Centre's servers?
It's not 'near London' and it's nothing to do with Red Bee either.
Birmingham may well be the DR site for TVC's SCAR, I've no idea.
But as far as Birmingham being the DR for Red Bee's BBC DR site... it's news to me.
I'm a bit worried that I've not been told this before, or been given the phone numbers etc for this Birmingham DR DR. Does Birmingham have Colossus automation and Omneon servers mirroring the content on the Broadcast Centre's servers?
It's not 'near London' and it's nothing to do with Red Bee either.
Well,
I
consider it to be near London... but I suppose it depends what
you
mean by "not 'near London'".
Outskirts
of London perhaps might be a better word for the BBC site in which the DR is located.
And by "nothing to do with Red Bee either", do you mean that you do not consider the Red Bee employed Playout Directors, Red Bee employed Announcers and Red Bee employed Transmission Editors who staff the DR site, when required, as "nothing to do with Red Bee"?
