Broadcast Media, The Story So Far..

During this semester, our focus has been solely on sound and audio. We have been mainly concentrating on the manipulation, recording and editing and we have done many activities and exercises to practice them. I had never had any experience with sound editing previous to this course, and to be honest, it was the video and film that first interested me to applying for this course. But during this first semester i have enjoyed learning how to edit and manipulate sound and specifically enjoyed doing my Soundscape, which i was able to record some sound for too.
One of the toughest tasks I've had to do so far was editing some sound to go with picture for a short movie entitled Bodil, in which we were given the audio, but scrambled versions, so we had to edit and rearrange according to the video.

I also enjoyed working on the radio project and i am quite interested in taking a more in depth look at radio, for the future. But so far, i feel that the soundscape was the most enjoyable. I believe this is because i was able to complete it completely from scratch and we had larger boundaries for what we were allowed to create.

I have enjoyed visits to both the BBC and Endemol, where we were able to see how two different types of television shows are run from behind the scenes and i found it a great revelation into the workplace and was able to see a huge multitude of different jobs that i might like to be researching or concentrating on.

Previous to the course, i had also never really followed news in the media, only that of films and computer gaming. But i think that this semester i have enjoyed looking deeper into the media stories of today, and enjoyed trying to create predictions for the future which are near impossible, because nobody yet, knows the limits of how advanced we can get.

My experiences from working with audio have gone from literally nothing to having created a short radio program, edited sound to a film and created my own atmospheric piece and i think that i have gained a good start on the technical side of sound, aswell as a much greater knowledge on the media today.

Roles During The Production Of My Radio Project

For our most recent project, we were paired upto to plan and create a short radio project. i was paired with my classmate, Rob, and after a production meeting or two we were able to come up with the idea of doing a short radio show about tribute artists. we arranged interviews and had samples of their music.

During this project, i think i was more associated with the less practical side of things. My partner, Rob, had his own microphone, knew our contacts very well and is able to drive so he was in a much better position to handle more of the recording and interview work. I focused a lot on the research side and was able to research a fairly accurate budget, working out what we would have paid if not working on it at a university with free microphones and editing suites .etc.

We tried to work on as much of it together as possible though, and from production meetings that we had held we were able to create clear recordings of our interviewees, a decent portfolio and a well edited piece of audio.

I think throughout this project i covered many different media roles:

Researcher - for portfolio work
Audio Mixer/Sound Editor - cutting and editing the interviews
Scriptwriter - scripting small parts of the show where we would host
Interviewer - interviewing our sources
Producer - watching over the project

I'd hope that if we did something like this again, i would get more involved in the interviewing part of the project

Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D

The Band Nine Inch Nails have recently released an album entitled "Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D" which is a remix of their previous album "Year Zero", released in early 2007. As well as an audio cd, this album comes with a second data disk, that contains every track in multi track format, giving the user the option of creating their own mixes. There is a trial version of Ableton Live added onto the CD, to get users started and the band have even gone as far as creating a website, remix.nin.com/, that allows the fans to upload their home made mixes of the tracks, for others to view and rate. I think this a novel idea and something that other bands would benefit from adapting.

Newsdesk - Chris - 10/01/08

BT's On Demand service to be hosted on Xbox 360

From as early as the middle of 2008, BT's Vision Service will become available via Microsoft's gaming machine, Xbox 360, but to receive the service, users will first have to sign up to BT Broadband. Unfortunately unlike set-top boxes, that this service would be looking to eradicate, this service will not feature the ability to record or receive live television.
Users will be able to gain access to hundreds of on demand movies, on demand television as well as near live sport included this years FA cup football.
Sales of BT vision have been slow so far with only 100,000 subscribers and BT has hopes that the partnership will boost popularity of the on demand service using the Xbox 360's wide audience.
Nick Thomas, a media analyst at research firm Jupiter, said: "It will definitely make its broadband service more attractive but there are challenges. People have to sign up to a 12 month broadband contract and not all Xbox owners may want to do that,".
The tie-up was announced by Microsoft at the CES show in Las Vegas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7178661.stm

Newsdesk 13/12/07 - Auction for 'digital dividend'

Ofcom have launched a multi-billion pound auction of airwaves for a new wave of digital services.
This could mean that during the next decade, ultra-fast wireless broadband and many more digital channels could become available as radio spectrum is freed during the digital switchover. The regulator has said that the market will decide how the spectrum is used with an open auction.
The BBC, Channel 4 and ITV had pressed for ring-fenced space for high definition TV over Freeview.
Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards said the decision to opt for a "market-led approach" was "one of the most important decisions we have ever made".

The regulator has packaged the available spectrum into key uses:

*National digital terrestrial TV in high or standard definition
*Cognitive radio - a new wireless technology which can deliver broadband
*High-speed mobile broadband and mobile TV
*Local television - 25 new local TV stations across the UK

Ofcom said HD television remained a "premium" service. HD For All has now said it supports Ofcom's position and has agreed to deliver HD on Freeview by 2012.

Newsdesk 07/12/07 : Broadband Division

At this current time, people that live in the country have much less of a choice in broadband provider and are a lot more likely to get slower speeds, while paying for it at different prices to friends and family that live in the cities. With the new introduction of super-fast broadband looking to be introduced, it looks like things may get a lot worse for people living outside of the city.

It looks like it may be decades before they can create the same coverage for those living in rural areas for those closer to the city.

"There is going to have to be an acceptance that broadband will be faster in the cities. The model of equal access will have to be adapted," said Ian Fogg, an analyst with Jupiter Research. He added: "Fibre costs such a fortune to roll out that it may take decades to get to ubiquitous coverage in rural areas."

Next year looks set to have the introduction of "ADSL2+", which promises speeds of upto 24mb, but like ADSL, it will be dependant on how close to the exchange you live.

Visit to BBC Bristol 23/11/2007

Last Friday, myself and 4 fellow students took a trip to BBC bristol to see the people involved in creating the BBC's daily local news show, "Points West".

We started off in the main offices for all the staff, which was bustling with people. Everyone from the reporters to the technical crew to the presenters have desks in this room. It was a very frantic place to be, phones ringing, people chatting and shouting things to one another, handing over information and you could tell as soon as you entered it was a very busy place with a constant work flow coming through.

First of all, we were introduced to the weatherman, Richard Angwin, who surprisingly had a much larger work role than i would have first thought. He told us that he not only presents the weather on a daily basis but is responsible for cutting up the information given to him, into a local format and creating the graphics to go with the report. The weather report is also the piece, the news team has to either cut or extend depending on how time constraints are going, so if the news runs 30 seconds under its predicted time, the weather report may be extended with a weather report for local events.

Richard Abgwin - BBC Points West Weather Reporter

We then had a chat with the a guy who deals with some regional news for the web and ceefax. He constantly searches and waits for news to come in from web sources and reporters, and then checks the information and corrects any mistakes using a super spell-checker, before uploading it through the BBC servers onto the website or ceefax. He also has to decide what news items should go up or come down and issue them into priority order. It was amazing how quick it was uploaded and after making an update, showed us where it had gone onto the website and ceefax.


Our host then escorted us into Radio Bristol which was surprisingly quiet. There was a reception area with a single receptionist and three surrounding studios, one of which was in use. The host, Steve Yabsley, spotted us watching him through the window and much to my horror, beckoned us to come in. So i played it cool, and almost forgot who i was and what i was doing there on live air, much to everybody else's amusement. The host then thanked us for filling in a couple of minutes he had to kill off and we moved on to an empty studio next door, where nobody could get me, and spoke to an off-duty presenter who showed us the basics of the studio. This had a simple control desk that had a large "play" and "stop" button on it, along with mixers, and cd, mini-disk.etc players for on air music.

Steve Yabsley - BBC Bristol Radio Presenter

There was also a few lights above the studio door and we were told of the obvious on-air red light, a light for emergencies and a blue light that would only flash when someone very important had died, such as a royal family member or the prime minister, and all on air activity would be cut when this happens, for all broadcasting to go onto that issue.
I also noticed that there was a cd attached to the wall and the host told us that it was an emergency pack of a few cd's that could be played in case of a major emergency.

We were then taken into the "points west" studio, which i noticed was surprisingly small, compared to how I'd perceived it from watching it on television. The sports sofa, the presenters table and chair and the projection screen for the weather were all in much closer proximity of one another, than i expected.
What also suprised me was the size of the cameras they were using. They were mounted on fully mobile stands, which moved with unpredicted ease and the cameraman was able to move them around easily with one hand. We then met the presenter, Chris Vacher, who didn't really have time to talk with us, unfortunately.

Chris Vacher - BBC Points West Presenter

Finally, as lunchtime dawned, we were taken into the gallery. The room basically had one wall of television screens, which contained very large screens with much smaller ones surrounding. The producer seemed to have the most, with what each camera was seeing, plus what was happening live with the main news. It was quite strange to see the presenter, sitting in the chair while off air, having a laugh with the people in the gallery and shuffling around seconds before it cut back into the studio, where he assumed a very poignant stance and spoke very well.
Something i think that shocked Chris more than anyone else, was the way they pre-recorded the headlines with the presenter about 5 minutes before they went live, which were then replayed a few times throughout the show as an introduction.

Overall, it was a fantastic experience to see how the BBC production teams work and a surprise to see the sheer amount of coordination and communication that it takes to put a show like that together.

Photos

The Points West Studio

A Close up of the cameras used, with the presenter in shot