16-07-2011, 02:47 PM
I think Roger has hit the nail on the head with regards to the BBC. I worked there between 1959 and 1972 and the ethos then was the quality must be the best possible, no matter how difficult it was to achieve. Many of the senior engineers and supervisors were from Alexandra Palace and were very proud of what they had achieved. This rubbed off onto the more lowly grades who tried to keep up the standards. The was even a quality control room at Television Centre where an engineer watched most of the output looking for dropoffs (not dropouts!). Slowly slowly over the years, the standards dropped, each "generation" of operators giving a little less of themselves to the god of quality. Now, after sell-offs and engineer culls, the BBC is a shadow of its former glory. Standards have dropped in both technical quality and program materisl. The pictures we gat on our sets at home may be streets better in resolution etc. But we never had audio level changes of over 6dB between sources, lip sync that never is, sudden cuts away from program endings etc. etc. the list goes on. The BBC cannot possibly hold its hand up and say we're doing our best - they're doing what they must to keep the output going but the caring has gone along with the wealth of experience that has been chucked out with the bathwater - rant over (for the time being).
