Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: BBC accidentally broadcasts Aziz Ansari subtitles over nature show

This is topic BBC accidentally broadcasts Aziz Ansari subtitles over nature show in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-04-2016, 09:00 PM:

link to webpage

This is pretty funny.

quote:
A BBC nature documentary got their wires crossed when it accidentally aired Aziz Ansari subtitles from his standup show over their nature documentary.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-04-2016, 09:01 PM:

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 08-05-2016, 07:41 AM:

That's funny!

How does something like this happen, though? I don't know about PAL-land (or if this has changed with HD and digtal broadcasting), but, with NTSC material, the closed captions are transmitted as part of the VBI and decoded in the receiver or with an external box. They are either generated live (as on a news or sports program) or recorded on the same tape as the program material, so I am curious as to how it is possible to mismatch two programs like this.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 08-05-2016, 08:10 AM:

Well I guess nowadays it's all file based, so it's easy to select the wrong one accidentally.

- Carsten

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 08-05-2016, 08:39 AM:

But wouldn't the entire program (picture, soundtrack, closed captions, SAP, etc.) be in the same file?

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 08-05-2016, 08:48 AM:

LOL - that's too funny

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 08-05-2016, 09:00 AM:

quote: Scott Norwood
But wouldn't the entire program (picture, soundtrack, closed captions, SAP, etc.) be in the same file?

Not necessarily, and not for broadcast. It's quite common nowadays to combine them very late in the process, sometimes (near) realtime.

And I think they are rarely using tape nowadays for broadcast.

- Carsten

Posted by Daniel Schulz (Member # 1881) on 08-05-2016, 10:39 AM:

The Chive link gets it wrong, the original incident was reported to have been a BBC documentary streaming on Netflix with the wrong captions. Which makes more sense, since Ansari's Master of None is a Netflix program.

There's a running Reddit thread on the incident, the current theory being this never happened and it's a hilarious Photoshop job.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-05-2016, 11:34 AM:

I'm guessing that, just like in a DCP, the subtitles are in a separate XML file, and some software combines them with the video and audio for streaming.

It does surprise me that there is no safeguard against this, though, e.g. a unique serial number for the program that has to match up for all its constituent files, like the serial number for a DTS track (so that if you don't have the correct audio for the film ingested, nothing will play when the timecode reader detects that film passing through).

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 08-06-2016, 11:58 AM:

Last year there were stills of someone watching the newer incarnation of Sailor Moon, the Japanese animated program, with subtitles from Southpark running with it. The one I recall had the cast of Sailor Moon standing, with the caption "This place is drippin' with Bitches" beneath it. Allegedly someone was watching Southpark, changed the channel to Sailor Moon, but the captions remained on Southpark.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 08-06-2016, 04:03 PM:

Scott,

PAL video does not have the VBI closed captions (on line 21 is it?) that NTSC does. However, PAL video is no longer transmitted now, everything is digital. I don't know how subtitles are handled on digital terrestrial or satellite systems. The BBC has been tapeless for transmission for quite some time now.

This whole thing seems a bit strange.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 08-06-2016, 04:36 PM:

Well, where ever that actually happened, there is no 'natural' relation between an audiovisual program and a subtitle file, unless someone creates a link, and that happens manually. 'Assign this XML to that program playout'.

Once that relation is established, the timecode doesn't care wether it's the right subtitle playing at a certain time. So, human error, not too surprising. Technically, it's much more unlikely to have e.g. a completely different audio track play to the wrong video, because their relation is usually 'hard-linked' and more difficult to break.

- Carsten