Television Archive

Give the grown-ups a go

Ryan Morrison

Published: November 10, 2009Posted in: General, TelevisionTags: Blue Peter, competition, Doctor Who, doctorwho, Mars, Matt Smith, Peter Kay, TARDIS, Television, Waters of Mars

Every year Blue Peter runs some form of Doctor Who related competition or another – whether it be to design an alien for Peter Kay to dress up as in an actual episode or to re-design the TARDIS interior.

In fact that is the most recent competition from the age old children’s magazine show – a competition to design a new look for Matt Smith’s TARDIS – at least one that will appear in an episode of the new Doctor Who.

The Blue Peter team provided all the info you need including a template, Do’s and Dont’s, a couple of example designs and even a video.

They tell the children (or the Dad’s doing the work anyway) to use the template, include notes on features, use any method you like and to use things from around the house in the design.

This is all very interesting in a number of ways – firstly it means there will be more than one console design in the new series as this only appears in one episode and more importantly – it means we’ll HAVE a new console/TARDIS design.

But the kicker here for me though is the age groups it is open to, the age groups these things are ALWAYS open to. There are three groups (and I have a child in each) the 6 and 7s, the 8, 9 and 10s and finally the 11s and 12s.

But what about the 20-30s, the 30-40s and up? What about those of us that aren’t children but still love Doctor Who, that would love to have a design used in Doctor Who – where is the competition for Grown-Ups to have a go?

I’m writing this now for two reasons 1) I’ve just realised that The Waters of Mars is on this Sunday and the competition closes on Thursday.

I’ve been very good this year and have managed to avoid more or less ALL spoilers for The Waters on Mars to the point that I didn’t realise it was on until I read a tweet.

Still – Sunday is going to be GOOOD.

Doctor Who Awash in Action with New “Waters of Mars” Trailer (wired.com)
Want To Redesign The TARDIS For Doctor Who? (screenrant.com)
Doctor Who? There’s no question who the Doctor is at Comic-Con (canada.com)
Will the Ice Warriors appear in the Doctor Who episode ‘The Waters of Mars’ ? (hubdub.com)
BBC defends Blue Peter contest (news.bbc.co.uk)
Fans to redesign Tardis console (news.bbc.co.uk)
David Tennant and RTD give an exit interview (tvsquad.com)
New Dr Who hailed as ‘the best’ (news.bbc.co.uk)
Doctor Who: Tennant’s exit (guardian.co.uk)

Just…. wow!

Ryan Morrison

Published: May 11, 2009Posted in: General, TelevisionTags: BBC, BBC HD, BBC iPlayer, Engadget, film, Pacific Ocean, Slow motion, South Pacific

As well as being a seriously amazing piece of camera work, a stunningly beautiful footage and as Engadget readers put it … Camera Porn – this is an epic leap in natural world film making by the BBC.

To get the full effect of the video below … wait until the BBC HD broadcast – but failing that click on HD and the full screen it.

It was filmed on a shockingly beautiful new customised camera build in a water tight casing. The camera is the $100,000 TyphoonHD4 camera.

It’s capable of filming in super slow motion and high def at 20 times the speed of a normal HD camera.

It can shoot at 1280 x 1024 resolution at 1000fps which was what allowed the camera man to shoot this amazing footage of surfer Dylan Longbottom inside a 12 foot monster barrel. This is a first of its kind.

Here is a longer version of that very same barell wave clip in the BBC EMP.

It was filmed for the new BBC Documentary series – South Pacific which is on BBC Two on Tuesday nights and also on BBC HD at the same time.

In fact lets make this our iPlayer pick as well.

Super Slo-Mo Surfer (buzzfeed.com)
BBC reveals stunning sample footage shot with TyphoonHD4 camera (engadget.com)
$100,000 Camera Captures Slow Mo Surfing, From Underwater [Hd] (gizmodo.com)
BBC HD: Joining the BBC iPlayer family (bbc.co.uk)
BBC HD: All new website and idents (bbc.co.uk)
BBC iPlayer goes high definition (news.bbc.co.uk)
BBC iPlayer goes HD (upyourego.com)

They’re changing Gear

Ryan Morrison

Published: September 30, 2008Posted in: Entertainment, General, TelevisionTags: BBC, blog, James May, Jeremy Clarkson, New Media, Richard Hammond, social media, Television, The Stig, top gear, topgear.com, UK, wordpress

Actually that should be that they’re changing Top Gear – but the headline didn’t really work if I added the word Top before the Gear.

Basically the point of the post is that there will very soon be a new look TopGear.com – not sure if the public service site will be getting a make-over but the commercial one certainly is.

It looks pretty good – from the looks of the beta we’re in for wood panelling backgrounds, glassy effects and very web 2.0ey fonts and colours.

See another picture of the homepage at the bottom of this post v

They seem to be taking the social media thing a lot more seriously as well – they’re splitting the blogs up into: Horsepower, Transmission, The Foreman, The Cupholder, Fast and Dangerous and Sunday Afternoon Club (F1 blog that looks like it may be tied to the BBC F1 coverage somehow).

Playing around with the beta for a while it looks like the blogs are Wordpress hosted – which is an interesting departure for the BBC which uses MovableType for its public service blogs.

Interesting that the BBC public service blogs are hosted on a closed commercial platform and the BBC commercial blogs seem to be hosted on an open source free platform! Hmmm

As well as the very good looking, branded blogs – which will see James May and Richard Hammond join Jeremy Clarkson and Andy Willman as TG.com contributors – there’s a new media player.

It isn’t exactly the same as the EMP (BBC Embedded Media Player) used on bbc.co.uk/topgear (for a start the volume only reaches 10) but it is flash based AND unlike the /topgear player – it actually lets you embed the video.

Or at least that’s what the press release says: “nearly 300 new videos in a bright, big player that allows you to share or take away and out them on your own site.”

Although I haven’t actually been able to find the embed code yet – just a series of links to let you put the video on your social networking platform of choice. I’ll keep looking though.

You can of course just view the source code around the video player to get the embed code.

Episode Guide

There’s also something TopGear has needed for a while – something I started building myself (but got bored/lost interest/got to busy), something available in a very plane way on Wikipedia and something the good folks over at FinalGear are doing.

The most interesting feature of the Episode Guide on the new TopGear.com is the ‘The One With…’ feature – this makes it a lot easier for the more casual fan to find out about an episode.

There isn’t really much more to say about the Episode Guide – it primarily focuses on giving you video clips of that episode (which is what it’s all about really) and has a few little snippets of episode information.

For example: “The one where… Stig outruns a speed camera” and “This is also the one with… Clarkson reviews the Citroen Berlingo (and likes it) and Das Mazda6: Richard finds out if the Mazda6 can take on the Germans”.

Actually – quiz for you – without looking at the site can you tell me which episode this applies to: “The one with… all the poo”.

So back to the blogs

Instead of having the odd article (from the magazine) by Jeremy and James as an article under news and then the odd article by them in the blogs – they’ve now created a blog specifically for pieces by the ‘presenters’.

There is an outline of what each blog will do in the TopGear.com article about the new look site – due to launch on Thursday (although I’m sure it said Wednesday a week ago).

One of the blogs will be called ‘Horsepower’ and will include contributions from Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. There’s also the suggestion that they will respond to comments. Apparently “if what you write is interesting enough, they’ll respond to you.”

‘Transmission’ is all about TopGear the show and will be written by Executive Producer Andy Wilman – in much the same vain the existing TopGear Blog is written I imagine.

Then you have the blogs by the magazine team. ‘The Foreman’ is apparently going to be full of inside information and will tell you “everything the car makers would rather you didn’t know.”

‘The Cupholder’ is the oppose and will be full of “is pure trivia, videos, links and general trivia from all over the world and all over the world wide web.”

And then there is the non F1 racing stuff with ‘Fast and Dangerous’ and the F1 blog in the form of the ‘Sunday Afternoon Club’.

Speaking of the F1 Blog – apparently they “have big plans for that when the BBC takes over the F1 coverage next year.”

/topgear

Then there’s the BBC and the issue of what will happen to /topgear with the launch of the new look and fully interactive topgear.com.

On the FinalGear Forum – controlspecimen asked the question of the public service Top Gear site “So.. is bbc.co.uk/topgear defunct now?”

That’s an interesting question – the problem is that bbc.co.uk/topgear isn’t allowed to link to topgear.com for a lot of political reasons.

So there is a bit of a requirement/expectation that the BBC has at least some kind of public service site for one of its most popular shows.

I wonder whether they will just move it towards /programmes instead – a number of programmes just have their own branded /programmes site now. Seems to make more sense than building their own site.

But there might also be an expectation that /topgear is kept and includes advert free versions of all the videos on topgear.com for a UK audience.

More still

There’s also all the usual games, car news, car stuff and a car chooser.

Actually the car chooser is pretty cool – in stage one you tick a few boxes for what you want in a car, stage two you move a slider to show how much you want to spend.

And in stage three you refine your choices.

It then orders the cars and you can add as many as you like (I think) to your ‘car bar’ that you can then use to compare your shortlist and read a mass of technical details, see photos and read the TopGear review.

It’s all very impressive and I can’t wait until its finished and live. It’s going to be great to have another place to regularly read the writings of Misters May, Clarkson and Hammond.

Oh and it looks like TopGear will be back on TV around 2 November – I’ll try and do a piece soon on what’s going to be in the upcoming series.

Speaking of which – there will also be a schedule that shows when TopGear is on TV – although most of the time it will just be repeating the word Dave over and over and over again.

What I need from a TV site

Ryan Morrison

Published: September 18, 2008Posted in: General, TelevisionTags: BBC, BBC FOUR, BBC One, BBC Three, BBC Two, itv, Media, Television, Television channel, Television network, Television program

I want you to take a minute and think about something for me. It’s a simple question ‘what do you want from a TV channel website?’.

I’m not including children’s channels or news channel’s in this question – but specifically the general entertainment channels like BBC One, ITV 2, E4 and FOX.

I’m also not talking about the websites for a television SHOW – I’m talking specifically about the network portals.

I know there is an argument that suggests the concept of a ‘network’ is a bit of a waste of time online – as much as linear programming is – but you also need to look at the fact that multiple millions of people actually watch these networks and associate shows with them.

So that out of the way – what you’d want from a television network portal.

Here are a few of the things I’d have on my list: A list of shows on the network, the ability to watch the network live, the ability to watch the shows listed in my own time and a schedule of what’s on.

That is pretty much exactly what the team behind BBC /tv and all the separate TV network sites have achieved with their new re-launch.

All the new TV network pages are designed to a standard template (yes including BBC THREE) and have /programmes at their heart.

Every one has the ability to find out what’s on, it tells you what’s on right now and gives you quick links to watch what you’ve missed on the iPlayer.

BBC THREE and BBC FOUR both go one step further and give you the ability to watch the channel right there – live and according to the BBC Internet blog post – this is coming to BBC One and BBC Two soon.

The pages are exactly what you want from a TV network homepage – they don’t contain to much information, they let you watch the shows they have on the network and are easy to find your way around.

One

Two

Three

Four

Kryten Kryten Kryten Kryten

Ryan Morrison

Published: September 16, 2008Posted in: General, TelevisionTags: Ashley Hames, Leo Laporte, MacBreak, MacBreak Weekly, red dwarf, robert llewellyn, Top Trumps, Windows Media Player

I was going to write a post about one of my new favourite shows and it was going to be called ‘Love the Show – Hate the Player’. That isn’t the name of the show, just the name of the post.

The show is called Top Trumps – it basically does what it says on the tin and sees two grown men playing real life Top Trumps.

One of those men is Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Scrap Heap Challenge, Various uber geek web projects) and the other is Ashley Hames (Sin Cities).

The idea is a simple one, in fact as simple as the game that inspired it. Robert goes in one direction looking for something (first episode was a boat, second was a plane) and Ashley goes and looks for something else of the same thing.

They test their things out, see what they can do and gather facts. They then meet at the end to swap notes and gather scores – and as with Top Trumps the winner is the one with the most high scores (the best card).

It’s a simple format for a show but one that works so well that I’m shocked it hasn’t been made before to be honest.

The series started on the 8th September but I didn’t hear about it until after that – actually through a Tweet by Robert Llewellyn himself.

This is where the crap player bit of my title comes in – it has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the fact the Five insists (as does 4 and ITV) on using that craphole piece of arse – Windows Media Player – as its platform of choice.

But I don’t want to talk about any of that. Not the brilliant new series, not five’s arse end of a donkey’s nutsack of a player – no I want to talk about Red Dwarf.

The actual bit that the title refers to

You see I’ve been so busy with work recently that I missed a story that would normally have had me heading for Wordpress within seconds – Red Dwarf is coming back.

Now I’ve already admitted to being a member of the fan club as a teenager – I own all the DVDs twice (box set for saving, vanillas for watching), have brought the books and the Audiobook versions of those books.

Image via Wikipedia I’m now trying to get my five year old son into it – he likes the slapstick but, and quite rightly, most of it goes well over his head.

Anyway back to the point. Red Dwarf is coming back. Let me say that again: RED DWARF IS COMING BACK!!!

After what is approaching a ten year break – Robert Llewellyn has let on (at a convention and on MacBreak Weekly with Leo Laporte) that there will be some kind of special episode or mini series.

I don’t know anything else about it and I’m guessing you all knew about this long before me (the video at the top of the page was originally posted last week and the MacBreak Weekly was also from last week (I’m seriously behind on my podcast – I’ve got about 40 to listen to if I want to catch up – and I do) and I think the originally story was like two weeks ago.

So I think, with all that in mind – the only thing left to be said is: RED DWARF IS COMING BACK!!!

Top Gear 100

Ryan Morrison

Published: August 26, 2008Posted in: General, TelevisionTags: BBC, Harry Enfield, James May, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, stig, Television, top gear, Winter Olympic, Winter Olympic Games

If you’ve read my blog anything near occasionally you may well have noticed a fascination I have with Top Gear, ok obsession (my wife insisted I put that). Well in November Top Gear (the new format) will reach 100.

Read the rest of this entry »

Added value or extra cash?

Ryan Morrison

Published: July 12, 2008Posted in: Entertainment, General, Podcast, TelevisionTags: bands, BBC, bbc music, interactive, interface, iplayer radio, Music

A lot of people listen to BBC Radio stations on the internet and even more listen to on demand show – both music and speech based ones.

Read the rest of this entry »

Calling ‘The Doctor’

Ryan Morrison

Published: June 30, 2008Posted in: General, TelevisionTags: 07700, BBC, cable and wireless, Doctor Who, dr who, Master, Sure Mobile, Television, Time Lord, United Kingdom

Here is an article I wrote for bbc.co.uk/jersey. It isn’t often I write articles that carry across and can also be posted here – this was one of the few.

Read the rest of this entry »

Doctor Who and Clifford

Ryan Morrison

Published: June 30, 2008Posted in: General, TelevisionTags: BBC, BBC iPlayer, bbc iplayer radio, BBC Radio, Catherine Tate Show, Jonathan Ross, Sarah Jane Adventures, Television, Television program, torchwood

If someone asked me to come up with three shows broadcast on the BBC that are most like Doctor Who the first thing I’d ask would be ‘most like in what way?’

Read the rest of this entry »

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