Where's Duffers gone?

[Victor Meldrew]

The last 3 or 4 stages of the Giro (on Eurosport International on analog) have had no commentary at
all, just the sound of the helicopter and crowd. I know I moan about Duffers incessant prattle but
it's taking me ages to figure out who's in the lead and who's following.
--
Victor Meldrew

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[Stephen Clark]

"Victor Meldrew" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> The last 3 or 4 stages of the Giro (on Eurosport International on analog) have had no commentary
> at all, just the sound of the helicopter and crowd. I know I moan about Duffers incessant prattle
> but it's taking me ages to figure out who's in the lead and who's following.
> --
> Victor Meldrew
>
> Remove bra to reply by e-mail.

He was there, with Sean Kelly, on my NTL Digital system. Yesterday, however, there was no sign of
them (stupid tennis/Henman!). Was it on and I missed it?

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[Pete Biggs]

Victor Meldrew wrote:
> The last 3 or 4 stages of the Giro (on Eurosport International on analog) have had no commentary
> at all, just the sound of the helicopter and crowd. I know I moan about Duffers incessant prattle
> but it's taking me ages to figure out who's in the lead and who's following.

There's something funny going on with the analogue Eurosport satellite sound channel. English
commentry is now on another frequency [will post later] but yesterday, sound on cycling and tennis
was about a 60 seconds ahead of the pictures!

~PB

 

[Pete Biggs]

Victor Meldrew wrote:
> The last 3 or 4 stages of the Giro (on Eurosport International on analog) have had no commentary
> at all, just the sound of the helicopter and crowd. I know I moan about Duffers incessant prattle
> but it's taking me ages to figure out who's in the lead and who's following.

Experiment with the sound frequency. British commentary is now on 7.38 (mono)...BUT they're
commentating on a completely different tennis match

the British Eurosport sound (ie. sound from the digital sister station). I really hope Europsort
hasn't given up on English viewers for Eurosport International for good and this is just a
temporary glitch.

~PB

 

[Philip Taylor -]

He has been there, but remenmber that he is on the left channel while the helicopter (and other
sound) effect are on the right, so if you accidentally turn off stereo sound, or select
right-channel only, you'll get the symptoms you describe. I echo what the other responders have
written : at the moment, sound and vision can be anything up to five minutes out of synch. If you
can understand German, you can follow it on digital rather than on analogue (I do both : picture
from digital mixed with sound from analogue!).

** Phil.
--------
Victor Meldrew wrote:
>
> The last 3 or 4 stages of the Giro (on Eurosport International on analog) have had no commentary
> at all, just the sound of the helicopter and crowd. I know I moan about Duffers incessant prattle
> but it's taking me ages to figure out who's in the lead and who's following.
> --
> Victor Meldrew
>
> Remove bra to reply by e-mail.

 

[Howard]

I had this problem but found he was still there on a different audio channel. Try switching audio
channels on your satellite system. A broadcasting **** up maybe?

 

[Pete Biggs]

Philip TAYLOR [PC336/H-XP] wrote:
> He has been there, but remenmber that he is on the left channel while the helicopter (and other
> sound) effect are on the right, so if you accidentally turn off stereo sound, or select
> right-channel only, you'll get the symptoms you describe.

Depends how you have your receiver setup - there are various audio options that can be set for each
programme channel. The comentary sound channel has all the ambient sound mixed in so there's no need
for stereo (I would find that crude stereo annoying).

Eurosport seems to have suddenly dumped English commentary altogether for Eurosport International,
and are now just providing commentary (on 7.38) which is synchronised to British Eurosport - which
may or may not be the same as EI at any one time!

Especially now we're getting German on-screen graphics and presenters, it looks like the Astra
analogue channel has effectively become German Eurosport. Great timing for le Tour! :-(

~PB

 

[Philip Taylor]

Pete Biggs wrote:

[snip]

> Depends how you have your receiver setup - there are various audio options that can be set for
> each programme channel.

Very true : apologies for the over-simplification.

> The comentary sound channel has all the ambient sound mixed in so there's no need for stereo (I
> would find that crude stereo annoying).

It does, but the ambient level is far lower on the commetary channel than on the other; I normally
feed the commentary channel to both speakers -- Duffers is much clearer then. By the way, the
original message spoke of "Duffers incessant prattle", and I confess that when I made the (forced)
transition from Channel 4's TdF commentary to Eurosport's, I felt exactly the same (and I /really/
missed C4's French signature tune, "Frere Jacques"), but having now got used to Duffers' style, I
actually enjoy it. I tried listening to the German commentary a few days ago, and it's really flat
in comparison : no excitement at all. (The same can be said for K1, if anyone else's viewing habits
include that : the British commentators go absolutely bananas, whilst the Germans treat it very
matter-of-factly). National traits, perhaps.

Philip Taylor

 

[Pete Biggs]

Philip TAYLOR wrote:

>> The comentary sound channel has all the ambient sound mixed in so there's no need for stereo (I
>> would find that crude stereo annoying).
>
> It does, but the ambient level is far lower on the commetary channel than on the other

Oh right, thanks: I've never thought about it like that. I would like to hear the ambient sound more
clearly so I'll try some special mix instead of my usual whacking up Duffers to 11!

> By the way, the original message spoke of "Duffers incessant prattle", and I confess that when I
> made the (forced) transition from Channel 4's TdF commentary to Eurosport's, I felt exactly the
> same (and I /really/ missed C4's French signature tune, "Frere Jacques"), but having now got used
> to Duffers' style, I actually enjoy it. I tried listening to the German commentary a few days
> ago, and it's really flat in comparison : no excitement at all. (The same can be said for K1, if
> anyone else's viewing habits include that : the British commentators go absolutely bananas,
> whilst the Germans treat it very matter-of-factly). National traits, perhaps.

I enjoy listening to DD a well. Only trouble is that he can be a distraction from the action - so I
get fed up with him at times. Still, I'd miss him if he weren't there at all.

~PB

 

[Pete Whelan]

Pete Biggs wrote:
> Philip TAYLOR [PC336/H-XP] wrote:
>
>>He has been there, but remenmber that he is on the left channel while the helicopter (and other
>>sound) effect are on the right, so if you accidentally turn off stereo sound, or select
>>right-channel only, you'll get the symptoms you describe.
>
>
> Depends how you have your receiver setup - there are various audio options that can be set for
> each programme channel. The comentary sound channel has all the ambient sound mixed in so there's
> no need for stereo (I would find that crude stereo annoying).
>
> Eurosport seems to have suddenly dumped English commentary altogether for Eurosport International,
> and are now just providing commentary (on 7.38) which is synchronised to British Eurosport - which
> may or may not be the same as EI at any one time!
>
> Especially now we're getting German on-screen graphics and presenters, it looks like the Astra
> analogue channel has effectively become German Eurosport. Great timing for le Tour! :-(
>
> ~PB

I got this reply from Eurosport:-

The Eurosport feed in analogue on Astra is still available in English and German language (7.02 Mhz
for English audio, 7.20 Mhz for German audio). However, although the English commentary is
maintained, this signal is principally for the German market since Britain has now for some years a
version specific to them which is British Eurosport, available on cable operators and via the Sky
platform. Therefore, there are now some German "programming windows" on this signal, in which we
broadcast programming specifically for the German market. These windows are in German language only,
both on the English audio and the German audio feed. So if in general you require the English
commentary, please don't adjust your receiver away from 7.02 MHz. As soon as the German window has
finished, the commentary will return to English language. There are also some other production feeds
on this satellite, these are not aimed at viewers and the audio feeds will change frequently.

So it sounds a bit hit & miss, especially if you want to get the longer coverage that the analogue
channel quite often gives compared to British Eurosport

Pete

interchange 12 for 21 to reply

 

[Victor Meldrew]

In article <[email protected]>, Pete Whelan <[email protected]> writes
>Pete Biggs wrote:

...snip...
>
>So it sounds a bit hit & miss, especially if you want to get the longer coverage that the analogue
>channel quite often gives compared to British Eurosport
>
Or indeed if, like me, you've only got an analogue dish.

--
Victor Meldrew

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[Philip Taylor -]

Victor Meldrew wrote:

[snip]

> Or indeed if, like me, you've only got an analogue dish.

Now /there's/ a fascinating thought : what shape exactly is an analogue dish, and how do you prevent
it from receiving digital signals ?!

** Phil.

 

[Victor Meldrew]

In article <[email protected]>, Pete Whelan <[email protected]> writes
>Pete Biggs wrote:
>
>I got this reply from Eurosport:-
>
>The Eurosport feed in analogue on Astra is still available in English and German language (7.02 Mhz
>for English audio, 7.20 Mhz for German audio). However, although the English commentary is
>maintained, this signal is principally for the German market since Britain has now for some years a
>version specific to them which is British Eurosport, available on cable operators and via the Sky
>platform. Therefore, there are now some German "programming windows" on this signal, in which we
>broadcast programming specifically for the German market. These windows are in German language
>only, both on the English audio and the German audio feed. So if in general you require the English
>commentary, please don't adjust your receiver away from 7.02 MHz. As soon as the German window has
>finished, the commentary will return to English language.

Except that on mine it didn't :-(

Mine was (and still is) set to 7.02MHz but I could hear neither the English or German commentary. I
noticed that they'd suddenly started that split-screen stuff, with a German bloke introducing the
cycling, but I couldn't hear him. All I could hear suddenly was the helicopter (after hearing
Duffers for all the earlier stages).

Someone else suggested leaving the audio set to stereo. Mine has never been set to stereo because
both the commentary and all the race/helicopter sound came through on mono (and I haven't got a
stereo TV in any case). Just checked out the stereo thing and on my receiver it allows 4 stereo
combinations (each one having audio form different frequencies on each channel). The only
combination with an audio channel at 7.02MHz has English & German commentary simultaneously, which
really ain't much use!!! Admittedly that was on a boxing broadcast but surely the idea is you set up
a channel and leave it, whatever the programme?

I'm still confused chaps :-(

--
Victor Meldrew

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[Gary Knighton]

On Sun, 01 Jun 2003 21:50:02 +0100, contributor Philip TAYLOR had scribed:
> I confess that when I made the (forced) transition from Channel 4's TdF commentary to Eurosport's,
>

While mentioning the TdF on television and being a little behind on reading. Highlights (and maybe
lowlights) of the TdF are being shown on ITV1 (traditional ITV) in the small hours starting
tonight, so insomniacs and videos at the ready for those us who don't have satellite, cable or
digital decoders.

Gary - the 'thread sweeper'

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