Week 33: The calm after the storm

Hello all!

This weekend I have tried numerous times to start writing this post but, as the late time-stamp shows, I have failed. This weekend I was at a church weekend-away at Ashburnham Place, which is an amazing building set in some wonderful Sussex countryside, and today some of my friends and I headed down to West Wittering beach where we had a lovely picnic and for the first time in many years, I took to the water in a kayak. So as you can see I have an excuse to some extent…

Anyway onto this news I promised you from last week’s post…

Those of you who avidly follow this blog will know that I mentioned a couple of months ago that my next placement would be at a company called Ericsson, well I can now confirm that this is no longer the case… unfortunately they were not ready to take anyone for a placement at this current time and so I was given the choice as to where I wanted to spend my next placement. I’m not really sad, if I’m honest, that I will not be going to Ericsson anymore, I wanted something a little more outside?

Instead my next placement will be at a company called Arqiva! This placement is definitely outside as, as far as I’m aware, they own and manage all the transmitter sites in the UK and so I’ll be working as an engineer on television and radio transmitters – specifically in the Crystal Palace-Reigate area. My choice stemmed from the fact that I enjoyed satellites so much from my last placement, I’m not entirely sure at this stage what it’ll involve, but that’ll give me something to talk about in the weeks to come and to spread some more news on things I learn!

Next week I will be heading off to Yorkshire where the Service Management Centre for their Terrestrial Broadcast Services is located and this will involve me going through some training – health and safety of course! I’m hoping that there will be some more news I can share with you on this matter soon, but can’t promise anything. I can say that I’m very excited to go to Yorkshire – hoping to get in some of those Yorkshire Dale views #goals.

On the University front – I’ve finished! Well kind of… All my exams are done, but I still have two assignments to finish off – Audio and Programming, which I’m hoping to get polished off this week! Next week’s post will hopefully be on my Programming assignment if I’ve been good enough and completed it all – it involves me creating an educational game, sounds boring I know, but I think my idea is pretty cool! Hopefully a cool post next week then 🙂

Til then,

Jonathan

 

Week 32: Some of the best places to eat-out in Manchester

Well, what a week it has been! It’s such a relief to get 3 exams out of the way, although there’s still a few more to go!

I’m feeling that I’ve played the ‘exam post’ card quite a few times already, so to do this again would probably be criminal of me. As a result this week’s post will not be about exams *sigh*.

Collectively, as a group, we have been out to a fair number of restaurants since this course started and recently much talking has occurred regarding a food blog…great idea I’m feeling! I won’t be doing it, it’ll be someone else’s job, but as it hasn’t officially started yet I thought I’d steal the opportunity to do a food post.

If you’re not planning to read on then you should know that I will be dropping some interesting news in next week’s blog as to what the future holds… so hope to see you there!

This coming week will be our last, as a cohort, together in Manchester for this academic year and Manc’s food scene is pretty decent from what I’ve seen so far. To mark the end of University for the first year (I can’t believe I said that) I have identified 5 of my favourite restaurants – if you should ever find yourself down that end of England I would highly recommend giving one of them a visit!

• Mowgli Street Food.

Website: www.mowglistreetfood.com

Why go? – It’s something different, food taste was a solid 4 out of 5 and the interior design and vibe is great!

What would I recommend? – Office Worker’s Tiffin

(The food arrives in these little parcels of joy)

It’s customary to have a curry every Wednesday on our course, and I believe we have since we started – yes, that’s a lot of curry houses! It would be very hard to not put a curry house down, although this isn’t necessarily what your standard curry house is, it’s different, and that’s why it’s on the list! As the name suggests – it’s indian street food and instead of ordering your standard curry, rice and naan, the idea is that you order many things in a smaller portion and have a great feast! If you’re brave you can go for a Tiffin – the chef selects what you get – essentially it’s a bit of a roulette, and it didn’t disappoint! There have been arguably better tasting currys in Manchester that I’ve had but this was a nice change and the food was still good.

• Comptoir.

Website: www.comptoirlibanais.com

Why go? – One of the best tasting meals I’ve had, they also do great sharing boards!

What would I recommend? – Mezze Platter and Lamb Kofta Tagine

(The Mezze Platter)

I can’t say that I’ve been to many Lebanese restaurants, however I will now. Another guy on my course, called Jay, kept on telling me to try it out and after I’d read the menu and heard how good he found it I thought I’d give it a go. All I can really remember is that the food tasted really nice, well seasoned, and friendly service – I do have a thing about plates though, and the plates they used were just bland and didn’t excite me about the food – the taste makes up for it 110%! That’s just me being picky though haha!

• Rozafa.

Website: www.rozafa.co.uk

Why go? – Little family run restaurant, with food that has seen some true love and care.

What would I recommend? – Any sort of grill, Moussaka and Garlic Pita

(Solid evidence of homemade food)

It’s a Greek and Cypriot family-run restaurant, surely that should be enough to make you go? Honestly though, the food was very nicely seasoned, the grills are a great option -juicy and tender meat, their chips tasted so great and the Moussaka was so good too! Portion sizes were more than enough, and I like a good portion. I would be careful what you order though as some items on the menu, such as the leg of lamb that is roasted for 3 hours, isn’t really worth your money compared to many other items on the menu. The interior is simple, nothing special, but the family vibe is there. I believe if you go before 6:30pm they have a special early evening price on all items from the menu too – we turned up at 6:20 so were lucky to take advantage of this!

• Sapporo Teppanyaki.

Website: www.sapporo.co.uk

Why go? – It’s a visual and culinary experience. Exciting.

What would I recommend? – I couldn’t say…

(As you can see…quite a show)

It’s a bit of a cheat me putting this restaurant down…I haven’t actually been yet! I do put this down on very well informed grounds however, as I’ve been told from a few people that the food is great and the atmosphere is quite ‘wow’! I can assure you that I will be visiting this coming week and will let you know if it is anything other than ‘wow’ next week! Google rates it a solid 4.5 out of 5 too…

• Luck, Lust, Liquor and Burn / Almost Famous

Website: www.lucklustliquorburn.com and www.almostfamousburgers.com

Why go? – Wacky twist on burgers that you’d never expect and some great burrito combos.

What would I recommend? –

From LLLB: F-Bomb and Wonder fries

From Almost Famous: Johnny Mac and Magic Waffle fries

(I can’t comprehend the wackiness)

Before you say anything…Yes, I have just put down two different restaurants in one point and that’s because they are owned by the same people and in Manchester they are right next to each other! I can’t explain how cool these places are… it’s making me hungry thinking about it! The Magic Waffle fries have popping candy, JD maple and bacon rain on them… it’s wacky okay! They’re by far the unhealthiest restaurants on this list but by far the coolest. Their cocktails are superb, the atmosphere is cool and the service is great – they’re always packed too, so that’s always a good sign! I always feel stuffed after coming out of there so try and hold yourself back if you can aha!

So there we have it! List done 🙂 I will say that these are my own opinions and that I have not been paid to do this at all… you may disagree with my choices but I’d like to think I have a fairly good idea as to what is good and not good food…I’d also love to hear what you think if you ever do go to any of these restaurants! Honestly these are some of the greatest places I’ve been, they wouldn’t have made it onto the list otherwise.

Tune in next week – I’ll be dropping some interesting news as to what is coming up!

Have a great week,

Jonathan!

 

Credit to the above named websites and also www.tripadvisor.co.uk and www.pinterest.com for the use of the images on this post.

Week 31: A dog walk a day keeps exam stress away!

Hello!

I feel like I say this every week now, but, this week has passed very quickly! This week’s post will be more of an update than anything else, as quite frankly, it’s hectic.

This past week was spent at home – for private study of course! Yes, I’m sure it appears to you all that I’m hardly at university, and I suppose you’re correct when you say that! However, there has been plenty of work to do and continues to be…the great news is that it will all be over in 3 weeks time! Yes, no more work for this academic year!

This coming week we have our first set of exams. It’s the Computer Networking module and so I’ll be down in Birmingham for the very last time this academic year! The exams consist of one written, an online and a practical. In theory it’ll be straight forward but plenty of prep will hopefully be going on in the next few days in order to prepare for this!

I’m feeling a little bit more ready to go and get stuck into these exams now, as this past weekend I took a fair amount of time out to spend time with friends and go on some very relaxing dog walks! Dogs are so great! So here’s to the week ahead! All the best to everyone else on my course, but also anyone else who is taking exams this week…do your best!

Til next week!

Jonathan

Shortest blog post yet? I’ll make up for it…

Week 30: Get Those Antenna Where I Can See Them!

Hey!

As promised, this week’s blog is brought to you again by Jacob, who was assigned to work on a Scottish elections OB as their engineer! It’s all very exciting, I hope you enjoy…

I was never one for an all-nighter. When I say never, I mean never; I have not once been awake to see the sun rise the next day. So what better an opportunity than to do it whilst working on live TV! This is a brief account of my Scottish Election story, though it may be boring as nothing particularly bad went wrong, but for me that was just the way I wanted it!

 

The Scottish Parliamentary Elections took place on Thursday, the same day as some Mayoral elections and PCC elections. For BBC Scotland this meant going live to 24 locations covering about 90% of all the declarations. These feeds went back to Pacific Quay (PQ) in Glasgow. Here they had set up Studio A as the election Hub with several huge LED screens to view statistics and a giant Augmented Reality stage on one of the floors in PQ for an even more involving experience with detailed interactive graphics to depict the way the electorate were voting.

 

On a broadcasting note, there was quite an array of different ways in getting the declarations and stories back to the studio. Every location had to communicate with The Hub (this is where all incoming calls and video feeds were received, which were then whittled down to send a couple for Studio A gallery to pick up on). Communication and talkback were mainly using a DSL line at the venues via VoIP, although there were variations as some used a 3G/4G connection. Then for the actual video and audio there were some Sat trucks, WMT Mobile bonding and then some using satellite internet for IP streaming.

 

For me however, it was rigging and monitoring a WMT. My unit was in a simple rackmount case. It took the SDI with embedded audio that first went through a SSD recorder (which I used for monitoring purposes) then looped through to the WMT. In most cases it was desired to have the WMT using a DSL line and the 8 sims (ordinary phone sims with different carriers) working together offering extra levels of redundancy. But for my location it was impossible to get a DSL in the flight case so I used some extra antennas. I had two omnidirectional and one directional that would help me get some extra coverage so the 3G and 4G speeds were nice and high to get some good bandwidth for streaming the IP encoded video. This data, just like any IP traffic, is forwarded to the destination which in this case was the playout servers at PQ. All the separate WMT streams could also be managed and statistics viewed via an online video manager interface.

 

Naturally, the election counts often need to happen in large indoor spaces so leisure centres and sports halls are ideal. But less ideal for broadcasting from. Particularly where I was in Clydebank where it was a massive metal cage, essentially acting like a vast Faraday cage. Whilst the camera was positioned up on a balcony I ran a long SDI barrel down a flight of stairs and to just inside a fire exit where my flight case was positioned. Then I rigged the antennas just outside on two tall stands and ended up getting some excellent signal. We did not have a single fault with our broadcasting the whole night over our several live broadcasts, which I for one was relieved about, as were the cameraman, producer and presenter I was with.

 

After the bundle recounts we finally had our second declaration, next the interview with the MSP who had won the election by 109 ballots for both TV and radio. Then it was a case of packing up and taking all the equipment back to the hotel, which I unloaded and loaded into a taxi back to PQ. By that time it was around 7:30am, and it was a wonderful morning in Glasgow: PQ was still broadcasting and the overnight team were waiting on the last couple of declarations, and, as I’m sure is no surprise, everyone was extremely tired. But it had been a fantastic night/morning of broadcasting, delivering the informative, educative and entertaining programmes that the BBC is known for. As for me, I went to the hotel, had some breakfast and was off to bed after 26 hours awake. Still, roll on May 2020!

 

Jacob

Week 29: The Critical Bandwidth :O

Hello!

This week’s post is going to be a bit more informative as opposed to the past few weeks where I have just given my opinion on what’s been going on. There’s mainly two reasons for this; I’m currently finalising my audio assignment, which is looking into audio compression and it’s perceptual effects, but also because my mind is so clouded with a load of random rubbish, that if I were to offer my own opinion on the situation in hand I fear it would be catastrophic.

So as my assignment is looking at audio compression, I think I’ll take a tap off of that and spill some of that on here… don’t worry I won’t go into as much detail as what I have for my report, but just an overview whilst explaining some of the terms should suffice.

In the world of codecs and audio compression there are broadly two main types you can come across; lossy and lossless. The first, lossy, produces a file which is of a considerably reduced size due to the fact that data has been lost, whereas the latter, lossless, produces a compressed file where the original data can be perfectly reformed from the compressed data. Typical instances of lossless would be .zip files and lossless audio is only really used for archiving. Mainly the compression we use on audio is lossy because we want the file to be smaller in size. This could be because we want to transfer music over the internet or because we don’t have much room left on our devices.

There are some compression methods which totally suck and produce terrible audio files, however, there are some other compression methods which are not half bad and most of the time you cannot actually tell the difference between the compressed and the original file. For example in my project one uncompressed file had a size of 15.5MB whereas the variable bit rate compressed file was only 2MB and you really couldn’t tell the difference!

Bit rate is basically how many points are plotted per second – the more that are plotted, the better the representation of the audio signal and therefore the better the audio sounds. The variable part of that just means that a different bit rate is used throughout the audio file. This is one of the ways in which audio can be compressed fairly efficiently. If there is not much happening during some parts of your audio file then less bits (information) need to be stored for that part of the file, whereas in parts where more happens then you’ll need to store more information about the audio as more is going on. This can be better than using a fixed bit rate as some parts of your audio may not need as much as others and therefore you are just wasting your space with information you don’t need.

Another way which codecs can reduce the size of your file is through the exploitation of critical bands. The human hearing system has a limited ability to decipher the difference between two tones that fall into a given frequency region because they appear to merge into one. This is the critical bandwidth. If one sound is louder than another sound which is still within this ‘critical bandwidth’ then the louder sound will mask the quieter one out. This is where the perceptual concept reduces the data; the quieter sounds within the critical bandwidth are either removed or reduced by assigning fewer bits to it, thus reducing the size of the audio file, while at the same time, failing to produce any audible difference – depending on how harshly it is used.

Anyway, that’s all for now before I start rambling on ahaha!

Hoping this proves to be vaguely interesting and maybe next time you download an mp3 from youtube-mp3 or whatever you’ll think of this post and what’s going on!

In other news; some of the guys and girls from our course are heading off to Scotland to help out with outside broadcasts for the elections this week, so, if you see anything on a beeb channel to do with this, maybe spare them a thought as I’m sure they’ll be tired and probably cold! I’m actually sad to be missing out – it’ll be fab I’m sure!

I’m hoping I’ll be able to get some exciting news on that into next week’s blog as they’ll also be testing new ways to get footage between places.

For the rest of us it’s revision…so I’d better get on that now.

All the best!

Jonathan