News
BBC POST LAUNCHES
AT THE MAILBOX
BBC Post Production, Birmingham is set to complete its move from
Pebble Mill and launch its new facility in the Mailbox on 6 September
2004. Set in a contemporary space in the heart of Birmingham City
Centre, the new facility will house a range of modern, fully equipped
and inter-connected editing, dubbing and finishing suites, all linked
to a central high speed Unity server.
BBC Birmingham is home to some of the best dramas and magazine
programming on television - from Doctors and Grease Monkeys through
to Countryfile, Houses Behaving Badly and Gardeners World and was
earmarked as one of the key BBC sites that could be integrated more
closely in to the community.
The new BBC Mailbox office complex, which sits amongst the trendy
bars and restaurants in the centre of the city, has been designed
to be more welcoming to the general public with access to viewing
areas such as The Archers and Radio West Midlands. BBC Post Production
has begun to move with its customers to the Mailbox and will be
completely up and running by the time all of its clients have migrated
at the end of Autumn 2004.
BBC Post Production’s facility will house 12 editing suites,
all of which are on-line capable and are built around the Avid Media
Composer and Adrenaline system. All 12 suites and separate digitising
station will be linked by the Avid Unity storage system which enables
flexible and efficient sharing of material and media.
All suites are equipped to work at broadcast resolution and the
on-line Avid suites come with a choice of digital videotape machines
and in the future will be capable of supporting High Definition.
All have sound mixing facilities and digital video effects as standard.
In addition, there are two finishing suites and two dubbing theatres
including one with 5.1 capability. There is a choice of compression
resolutions and widescreen monitoring comes as standard. The finishing
suites are also equipped with a digi-beta and DV machines.
Birmingham's dubbing theatres plays host to high-end dramas like
Dalziel & Pascoe' as well as on-going documentary series like
'Top Gear' and 'Country File'. The premier dubbing theatre features
the Solid State Logic Avant with full Dolby Surround, including
capability for 5.1. Its primary function is to cater for the highest
quality audio mixing demanded by drama customers who wish to work
outside London.
The new Avant is a feature film style desk. It has 24 channels,
but there are also four layers. This enables two dubbing editors
to working on a programme at the same time. One editor can prepare
up to 24 inputs of dialogue and ADR for mixing down to four stereo
pairs, while the other does the same with up to 24 effects tracks.
In addition, Instead of recording those premixes, all the moves
and levels are memorised by the desk - they are 'virtual' premixes.
The other theatre is built around a Soundtracs DS00 digital desk.
Both dubbing theatres have track-laying facilities and can record
commentary to picture. Both run Pyramix for easy movement of your
audio project from vision edit to dub. The track-laying areas have
automated Pyramix editors and can handle inputs from all audio formats.
Clive Hodge, Head of Operations, BBC Post Production comments on
the move: “The Mailbox is one of the most modern, efficient
and technologically advanced facilities in Europe from which we
are able to offer a full range of services to both our BBC and independent
programme makers. Its positioning at the heart of the city places
us amongst our customers and audiences.”
-ENDS-
About BBC Post Production
BBC Post Production, a division of BBC Resources, offers award-winning
creative solutions using the latest graphics technology. BBC Post
Production facilities are the largest of their kind in the UK. Located
in London, Bristol and Birmingham its extensive range of services
include 3D animation and digital effects through to editing, audio
and telecine. Using the most up-to-date technology in comfortable
and inspiring surroundings the team bring talent and experience
to a range of productions, trails and promos. Further information
can be found at: www.bbcresources.com/postproduction
For further information, please contact:
Georgie Hollett, PR and Communications Executive, BBC Resources
Tel: +44 (0)20 8576 2350
Mobile : +44 (0) 7834 845612
Email : georgie.hollett@bbc.co.uk
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