MB wrote:

"S4C, the Welsh language public service TV broadcaster, tweeted: "Unfortunately
following a fire at a London distribution centre we are experiencing technical
problems. Apologies.""

Channel 5 and some other channels were also off.

C4 and C4HD off, C5 and C5HD both ok, along with everything else

oh, C4 SD back now, HD still off

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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"S4C, the Welsh language public service TV broadcaster, tweeted:
"Unfortunately following a fire at a London distribution centre we are experiencing technical problems. Apologies.""


Channel 5 and some other channels were also off.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 26/09/2021 09:41, Dickie mint wrote:

There's loads of information on twitter!

But how much is accurate!

Basically the Red Bee White City playout centre was evacuated because
the fire alarms went off. Loss of programmes I'm assuming because power
was cut?

BBC was unaffected, apart from no continuity announcer so prereorded junctions were used. The BBC have a extensive Disaster Recovery set up
and a simple seamless switch to Salford occurred.

And BBC Coding and Mux is carried out at yet another different 'secret' place.

Those Quarterly Sunday DR exercises came in handy. And it all started
with London Pres decamping to Pebble Mill. We had a 'King Arthur and the Round Table' tape to playout till they arrived!

Some reports say only Freeview was affected?

I saw some reports that BBC were able to switch quickly to Salford
though someone suggested that BBC management want to drop that to save
money.

Red Bee are keeping their head down which is fair enough because their
contract will not involve them dealing with the media and public.

Interesting that none of the BBC haters in the media are congratulating
the BBC on handling it well unlike their friends at Channel 4.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 25/09/2021 22:18, MB wrote:

"S4C, the Welsh language public service TV broadcaster, tweeted: "Unfortunately following a fire at a London distribution centre we are experiencing technical problems. Apologies.""

Channel 5 and some other channels were also off.

There's loads of information on twitter!

Basically the Red Bee White City playout centre was evacuated because
the fire alarms went off. Loss of programmes I'm assuming because power
was cut?

BBC was unaffected, apart from no continuity announcer so prereorded
junctions were used. The BBC have a extensive Disaster Recovery set up
and a simple seamless switch to Salford occurred.

And BBC Coding and Mux is carried out at yet another different 'secret'
place.

Those Quarterly Sunday DR exercises came in handy. And it all started
with London Pres decamping to Pebble Mill. We had a 'King Arthur and the
Round Table' tape to playout till they arrived!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Dickie mint wrote:

Loss of programmes I'm assuming because power was cut?

C4HD had an apology caption, while C4SD had an odd looking "BT hybrid broadband"
slide, or maybe that was an image from an advert that was playing at the time they pulled the plug, and it just got stuck in a frame-buffer somewhere?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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MB <MB@nospam.net> writes:

On 26/09/2021 09:41, Dickie mint wrote:

There's loads of information on twitter!

But how much is accurate!

Many of the reply tweets to Channel 4 were attempts at humour

Basically the Red Bee White City playout centre was evacuated because
the fire alarms went off. Loss of programmes I'm assuming because power
was cut?

BBC was unaffected,

<snip BBC details>

Some reports say only Freeview was affected?

The C4 family of channels was affected on Sky. Some of the things
I saw, after about 8:30pm:

Channel 4 (SD) played vision and (mostly) sound OK, but without
subtitles. Also, the film Deadpool 2 started about 10 minutes
before its scheduled 9:20pm start, after completion of the
previous programme. I hadn't seen the film before but sound
then seemed "odd" - low level and muffled - but that might be
how it is in cinema or after conversion. I noticed some
occasional bursts of 3 or 4 low frequency "thumps", almost like
decaying reverb. The preceding documentary didn't have
noticeable problems with sound.

Channel 4 HD had vision but no sound nor subtitles.

4Music had a (static?) broken up picture, mostly black with
streaks of coloured pixel blocks. No sound - that I remember.

That's just a list of what I tried and remember. Other than
confirming good signal level and quality I wasn't being
scientific about it, and I'd moved to another channel before any
recovery.

--
David

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"Andy Burns" <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote in message news:irasikF5na1U1@mid.individual.net...

Dickie mint wrote:

Loss of programmes I'm assuming because power was cut?

C4HD had an apology caption, while C4SD had an odd looking "BT hybrid broadband" slide, or maybe that was an image from an advert that was
playing at the time they pulled the plug, and it just got stuck in a frame-buffer somewhere?

If the playout centre suffered a power loss, where did the captions come
from? Are there data centres downstream (ie between playout and terrestrial/satellite transmitters) which are capable of inserting "Fault" captions?

In the days of analogue TV, would there have been similar equipment sites
that are remote from the VTR playout or the studiom which could insert a
simple caption?

What is the policy with fire alarms and cutting power? Do they feed playout from a UPS which is isolated from the mains feed and which retains power for
a while if there is a building fire alarm unless the fire happens to be affecting / caused by the playout equipment? Or do they just cut the power
no matter where the alarm is?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 10:08:36 +0100, MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:

Interesting that none of the BBC haters in the media are congratulating
the BBC on handling it well unlike their friends at Channel 4.

I don't think the main criticisms of the BBC these days are anything
to do with its technical competence.

Rod.

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On 26/09/2021 11:45, Roderick Stewart wrote:

On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 10:08:36 +0100, MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:

Interesting that none of the BBC haters in the media are congratulating
the BBC on handling it well unlike their friends at Channel 4.

I don't think the main criticisms of the BBC these days are anything
to do with its technical competence.

Rod.

Whilst in the job I was on the BBC's Disaster Recovery committee. And
involved with planning changes for DVB. It was all taken very seriously
and different scenarios tested every rehearsal day.

And as mentioned the beeb has been reheasing a Disaster Recovery every
quarter for many years.

With the two prestigeous programmes on BBC1 Saturday night effectively unaffected I don't think any mandarin at the beeb is going to raise
their head and suggest cuts are made in DR?!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Some a channels had the program guide but no content on the station. Maybe there is a TV terrorist quietly working away setting fires at transmitters
and control centres.
Brian

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"MB" <MB@nospam.net> wrote in message news:sio3lc$nij$1@dont-email.me...

"S4C, the Welsh language public service TV broadcaster, tweeted: "Unfortunately following a fire at a London distribution centre we are experiencing technical problems. Apologies.""

Channel 5 and some other channels were also off.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 26/09/2021 11:34, NY wrote:

"Andy Burns" <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote in message news:irasikF5na1U1@mid.individual.net...

Dickie mint wrote:

Loss of programmes I'm assuming because power was cut?

C4HD had an apology caption, while C4SD had an odd looking "BT hybrid
broadband" slide, or maybe that was an image from an advert that was
playing at the time they pulled the plug, and it just got stuck in a
frame-buffer somewhere?

If the playout centre suffered a power loss, where did the captions come from? Are there data centres downstream (ie between playout and terrestrial/satellite transmitters) which are capable of inserting
"Fault" captions?

In the days of analogue TV, would there have been similar equipment
sites that are remote from the VTR playout or the studiom which could
insert a simple caption?

What is the policy with fire alarms and cutting power? Do they feed
playout from a UPS which is isolated from the mains feed and which
retains power for a while if there is a building fire alarm unless the
fire happens to be affecting / caused by the playout equipment? Or do
they just cut the power no matter where the alarm is?

I think Coding and Mux is done elsewhere, where there will be emergency
caption generators.In my day (retired in 2004) Red Bee was also C & M
for the commercial stations.

Red Bee are saying a fire suppresion system. Which presumably means
power is cut?

Summation, from a reliable source, here; https://cleanfeed.thetvroom.com/9502/preswatch/fire-at-playout-centre-knocks-out-tv-services/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 10:08:36 +0100, MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:

Some reports say only Freeview was affected?

My wife watches a few Freeview programs and she said there was a
sound/vision synchronization problem making everything unwatched.

Steve

--
Neural Network Software http://www.npsnn.com

JustNN Just a neural network http://www.justnn.com SwingNN Prediction software http://www.swingnn.com

EasyNN-plus More than just a neural network. Setup free from. steve@easynn.com

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On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 12:49:18 +0100, Brian Gaff \(Sofa\) wrote:

Some a channels had the program guide but no content on the station.
Maybe there is a TV terrorist quietly working away setting fires at transmitters and control centres.
Brian

.....and electricity links.

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On 25/09/2021 22:18, MB wrote:

"S4C, the Welsh language public service TV broadcaster, tweeted: "Unfortunately following a fire at a London distribution centre we are experiencing technical problems. Apologies.""

Channel 5 and some other channels were also off.

The fire suppression system went off at Red Bee's playout centre on
Saturday. It's still not clear whether there was a fire or not.
However, I gather the percussive effect of the gas discharge may have
damaged some equipment, notably Hard Drives in the servers etc.

There are still problems this morning. C4 and its siblings still appear
to be struggling.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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