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Cue Dots

(November 2016)

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DE
deejay
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Markymark posted:
In the good old days when PPBs were simulcast on all three channels, and played out by the Beeb, the feed was doubly-dirty ! BBC Net 1, fed to Thames. You could see the BBC cue dot on ITV, and sometimes hear a clunk at the end when the BBC announcer opened their mic ready for the BBC only junction. I never caught it going wrong.


I'm sure I read a story that Thames (presumably) did cock it up once, and the BBC's announcement went out on ITV. The announcer, for a laugh, sent Thames an invoice... and they paid it.


I've heard that story too. I think it was dear Peter Brooke and he asked for Ten Guineas, which Thames duly paid!
Si-Co, Markymark and Steve in Pudsey gave kudos
TJ
TedJrr
That is pretty cool....
GE
thegeek Founding member
TonyCurrie posted:
Deejay is right, and at the BBC we still have standbys all over the place.

I think my favourite standby from my time at Red Bee was the recording of a locked-off shot of Big Ben striking midnight, which I duly played as a reserve against the New Year's Eve programme.

(There was also a standby tape for remembrance day silences, which was just a war poem on a black background)
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Wasn't there a model of the clock that was set up in PresA or B as a standby at one time?
TJ
TedJrr
Markymark posted:

In the good old days when PPBs were simulcast on all three channels, and played out by the Beeb, the feed was doubly-dirty ! BBC Net 1, fed to Thames. You could see the BBC cue dot on ITV, and sometimes hear a clunk at the end when the BBC announcer opened their mic ready for the BBC only junction. I never caught it going wrong.


Is my memory all aged? Wasn't there an issue some time in the '70s / '80s where The Conservatives had an issue over a PPB, and had one played-out from a facility house paid by them, rather than the BBC or the ITV nominated contractor?
BL
bluecortina
Markymark posted:
Si-Co posted:
Of course, the reason Philip Elsmore was heard on YTV was because Thames had 'gone dirty' (you know what I mean!) to provide the network with an announcement into the PPB. It was a 'presented feed' of sorts.


In the good old days when PPBs were simulcast on all three channels, and played out by the Beeb, the feed was doubly-dirty ! BBC Net 1, fed to Thames. You could see the BBC cue dot on ITV, and sometimes hear a clunk at the end when the BBC announcer opened their mic ready for the BBC only junction. I never caught it going wrong.

Central used to play out a trailer at 21:59 to network, oddly that was dirty once, watching on TVS there was a wipe out of it to Stuart White in the Central pres studio announcing NaT. TVS quickly dived in with their clock, (presumably just before BT would have line switched in ITN, and ITN's VT clock !)


Tsk, tsk Markymark, pay attention at the back! How often have I posted that BT never did any programme switching, they just provided circuits and feeds. It was the responsibility of the individual MCR/Lines depts at the various ITV companies to perform programme switching.
MA
Markymark
bluecortina posted:
Markymark posted:
Si-Co posted:
Of course, the reason Philip Elsmore was heard on YTV was because Thames had 'gone dirty' (you know what I mean!) to provide the network with an announcement into the PPB. It was a 'presented feed' of sorts.


In the good old days when PPBs were simulcast on all three channels, and played out by the Beeb, the feed was doubly-dirty ! BBC Net 1, fed to Thames. You could see the BBC cue dot on ITV, and sometimes hear a clunk at the end when the BBC announcer opened their mic ready for the BBC only junction. I never caught it going wrong.

Central used to play out a trailer at 21:59 to network, oddly that was dirty once, watching on TVS there was a wipe out of it to Stuart White in the Central pres studio announcing NaT. TVS quickly dived in with their clock, (presumably just before BT would have line switched in ITN, and ITN's VT clock !)


Tsk, tsk Markymark, pay attention at the back! How often have I posted that BT never did any programme switching, they just provided circuits and feeds. It was the responsibility of the individual MCR/Lines depts at the various ITV companies to perform programme switching.


Yea but, that's what I meant. The network feed coming into TVS would have been switched from Central to ITN by BT at 21:59:50 (ish ?)
SC
Si-Co
Markymark posted:
bluecortina posted:
Markymark posted:

In the good old days when PPBs were simulcast on all three channels, and played out by the Beeb, the feed was doubly-dirty ! BBC Net 1, fed to Thames. You could see the BBC cue dot on ITV, and sometimes hear a clunk at the end when the BBC announcer opened their mic ready for the BBC only junction. I never caught it going wrong.

Central used to play out a trailer at 21:59 to network, oddly that was dirty once, watching on TVS there was a wipe out of it to Stuart White in the Central pres studio announcing NaT. TVS quickly dived in with their clock, (presumably just before BT would have line switched in ITN, and ITN's VT clock !)


Tsk, tsk Markymark, pay attention at the back! How often have I posted that BT never did any programme switching, they just provided circuits and feeds. It was the responsibility of the individual MCR/Lines depts at the various ITV companies to perform programme switching.


Yea but, that's what I meant. The network feed coming into TVS would have been switched from Central to ITN by BT at 21:59:50 (ish ?)


In fact, would it not have been switched to Thames? I believe ITN was usually routed to the network via Thames/LWT.

It seems odd to be line switching ten seconds before a programme starts - scope for a few problems.
BL
bluecortina
Si-Co posted:
Markymark posted:
bluecortina posted:

Tsk, tsk Markymark, pay attention at the back! How often have I posted that BT never did any programme switching, they just provided circuits and feeds. It was the responsibility of the individual MCR/Lines depts at the various ITV companies to perform programme switching.


Yea but, that's what I meant. The network feed coming into TVS would have been switched from Central to ITN by BT at 21:59:50 (ish ?)


In fact, would it not have been switched to Thames? I believe ITN was usually routed to the network via Thames/LWT.

It seems odd to be line switching ten seconds before a programme starts - scope for a few problems.


If the junction duration between the end of the Central promo and ITN was indeed only around 10secs then you can bet your bottom dollar that the programme feed into TVS, and likely the rest of the network, would have been via Thames. The network switcher engineer at Thames would not have been have fazed at all at the prospect of switching between the two sources within the 10 second window. He wasn't plugging cables around or anything like that, he would have been sat in front of a vision mixer the output of which fed Thames' outgoing network circuits. Bread and butter stuff. I sense there is a lot of confusion here between PO line switches and the itv network switchers switching programmes around. In the example given above, there would be a simple programme feed switch at Thames - from the incoming central feed to the incoming ITN feed - there would be no need for lines to be switched at all.
Last edited by bluecortina on 15 November 2016 10:05pm - 2 times in total
MA
Markymark
bluecortina posted:
Si-Co posted:
Markymark posted:

Yea but, that's what I meant. The network feed coming into TVS would have been switched from Central to ITN by BT at 21:59:50 (ish ?)


In fact, would it not have been switched to Thames? I believe ITN was usually routed to the network via Thames/LWT.

It seems odd to be line switching ten seconds before a programme starts - scope for a few problems.


If the junction duration between the end of the Central promo and ITN was indeed only around 10secs then you can bet your bottom dollar that the programme feed into TVS, and likely the rest of the network, would have been via Thames. The network switcher engineer at Thames would not have been have fazed at all at the prospect of switching between the two sources within the 10 second window. Bread and butter stuff. I sense there is a lot of confusion here between PO line switches and the itv network switchers switching programmes around. In the example given above, there would be a simple programme feed switch at Thames - from the incoming central feed to the incoming ITN feed - there would be no need for lines to be switched at all.


Ah, you have cleared up the confusion, I thought GPO/BT did all line switches between programmes.
Where broadly was the division between BT performing switches, and the ITV companies doing that task ?
BL
bluecortina
Markymark posted:
bluecortina posted:
Si-Co posted:

In fact, would it not have been switched to Thames? I believe ITN was usually routed to the network via Thames/LWT.

It seems odd to be line switching ten seconds before a programme starts - scope for a few problems.


If the junction duration between the end of the Central promo and ITN was indeed only around 10secs then you can bet your bottom dollar that the programme feed into TVS, and likely the rest of the network, would have been via Thames. The network switcher engineer at Thames would not have been have fazed at all at the prospect of switching between the two sources within the 10 second window. Bread and butter stuff. I sense there is a lot of confusion here between PO line switches and the itv network switchers switching programmes around. In the example given above, there would be a simple programme feed switch at Thames - from the incoming central feed to the incoming ITN feed - there would be no need for lines to be switched at all.


Ah, you have cleared up the confusion, I thought GPO/BT did all line switches between programmes.
Where broadly was the division between BT performing switches, and the ITV companies doing that task ?


Well let's restrict It to the main itv networking arrangements and talk in very broadbrush principles. In the era we're talking about the itv companies we're not permitted to own the circuits that were distributing their programming. The circuits were hired from the PO by the IBA and used to distribute ITV programming. The IBA had a lines booking section and the itv companies liaised with that section to fulfil their line requirements for programme distribution. So the IBA staff dealt with the PO and ITV lines bookings. They were on duty until quite late in the evening. So the PO were switching circuits around during the day and night to fulfil the IBA bookings which ensured the various ITV companies were connected together to get the right sources to the right destinations at the right time. What was the right time? The right time was whatever the IBA lines bookings office said it would be. What determines the right time? Making sure there was no clash of programme times and prior circuit usage and making the line switch early enough to allow the receiving ITV company time to check and tweak the circuit up if needed. You'll note that I use the terms right sources to the right destinations. That was all the PO were interested in, it was not their responsibility to get the right programme to the right destination - that was the responsibility of the various ITV Lines/mcr departments. It was their responsibility to switch programmes out from their company to the PO network - if the PO had done their job properly the programme would get to the right destinations.

So, I hope you can see that in very general terms it was the PO's responsibility to set circuits up around the clock to ensure company A was connected to company B - at a time and duration decided by the IBA and ITV - no more than that, it was just a physical joining of circuits. It was the responsibility of the ITV companies to ensure the right programmes were on those circuits at any given time. All this was to change after 1992.
SC
Si-Co
Thanks for that clarification, blue.

So, in the example quoted of Central pres accidentally going out on TVS, it would appear the Central promo was being fed to Thames, and the network were receiving the promo (and the news) via Thames. Central however were sending their local output to Thames, rather than a clean promo - probably in error.

I'm intrigued by how things changed after 1992 - it seemed that CAR/LWT slowly took on the role of feeding the network (with most programmes routed via South Bank regardless of the originating company). By 1999 and the 'hearts era' CAR/LWT were providing ECPs to the network, meaning viewers outside London heard two different voices over end credits - the CAR/LWT announcer on the ECP (which rarely trailed the programme up next) then their local announcer taking over and stating what's on next. I think this was when regions (notably STV and UTV) lost the clean feed and had problems due to regional variations and the wrong programmes being trailed on the ECPs, and later in 2002 - when all continuity went to South Bank - the wrong programme being announced as coming up after the break. Messy.

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