My High Tech Blog
Everyone has a Blog it appears. OK this is mine. My professional Blog. In fact I have two others on another site, and no I am not going to tell you where. Those are anon and will stay that way thank you very much. Not sure what I am going to write here. I'll just go with the flow.
Tuesday 5 June 2007, 12:43 AM
I heard that, Pardon?
Dialogue Box. Come on guys, is this a joke?
Now I am not going to make any naughty comments about two techno geeks going on about anorak subjects. After all, I fully admit to be a techno geek myself.
I want you to forget for a moment about my last posting to this blog, where I went on about advertisements, I note that this little ZDNet gem of an item is sponsored by Intel. Not the poorest of IT companies and for whatever they donated, gave them a 15 second silent advert at the start of the playout.
So what did Intel provide? The sandwiches? because I can't see any money being spent on this little production. If any money has been spent. Then you were ripped off. Bad cutting between cameras, jump cuts from wide shot to wide shot, missed opportunities for a close up. Presenters talking to the wrong cameras. a boring blank wall for a set, bland lighting, a demonstration bench half obscuring your display board. A display table made of glass. and really really really bad sound. You call it Dialogue Box, but a lot of time I can't hear the dialogue.
I say half the time, Rupert your voice is OK, Charles, I'm struggling to hear you, your voice does not carry as well as Rupert's, but that is not your fault and shouldn't have to be a problem. You are being let down by the sound coverage.
It's is a number one hanging offence of a TV sound engineer for the viewers not to hear what someone is saying. Normally on real TV, this offence is committed by playing music too loud, but on Dialogue Box, there isn't any music.
So what is wrong with the sound? Well, where do I start? Poor microphone placement, bad EQ on the voices (in easy TV speak that means tone control or treble and bass), poor balancing of levels between the presenters, poor balancing of levels between items. There was one point I was sure one mic wasn't even on. The first presenter to speak was all distant, then the other joined in and we were thrown back in our seats.
So if you are going to do this, please do it properly. The content can only carry the programme so far (and I'm not even going to start on that). spending 15 to 20 minutes watching a programme of poor technical quality will start to become very tiring and you will lose viewers.
So come on, this is not amateur night. It is not class 3B making their own little news programme with the school video camera. Put some of that Intel sponsorship money into the programme and make something both worth watching and watch-able.
By the way, if you wonder why I am so critical about the sound, take a look at my profile, and you might understand.
PreviousComments on this post
Hi Julian, thanks for your comments and for taking the time to watch. Your complaints about not hearing Rupert and Charles suggest that you at least wanted to listen to them, so I hope that you're finding the content entertaining and useful. Anyway, you do have a point about the sound and our production folks say that they are working on a solution.
We really appreciate any feedback, which can only help us improve the show. Please keep watching and let us know how it's going.
Rupert says:".... . ... .... . .... badger ... .. ..... .... Stoke Poges ... ..... .... ..... ..... caked with lard .... .... ..... ..... . . ...... illegal in Kansas ... .... .... ... still chafes..... "
Ah well, bear with us. We've got some great people in production, a brand new studio filled with expensive toys, and me and Charles making it up as we go along. If this was old school, we'd have meeting after meeting, pilot after pilot, test screenings in Wardour Street and a crew of thousands... as it is, we've got an email group of ten, all of us frantically multitasking like an octopus puppeteer putting on the chariot race scene from Ben Hur.
Which is no excuse. The audio needs fixed, as my Scottish other half is wont to say, and it will be. It's on the list. You should see that list: we've got eight shows left in this series (currently planned, at least), and what you'll see at the end is going to be nothing like what you're seeing now. What's going on behind the scenes would, if presented as a DVD-style 'making of' documentary extra, result in a serious adult rating for the whole shooting match... I may do an audio commentary for one of the shows, providing I get an indemnity against being sacked.
But it's great fun, we're learning a lot, we know where we want to get to, and by the joys of Web 2.0 it's all public! Stick around: the best is on its way.
Well I'm pleased that it is on your list. Near the top I hope. I don't want to be discouraging, once you see through the technical problems, the content is not bad. Sadly it is being let down by fundamental errors and these need to be sorted quickly, otherwise all that hard work will go to waste.
Now we've had a few more episodes - what do you think?
(The one due up tomorrow should be a corker)
R
