I totally agree with you it would be good to hear more of it but again it’ll then become commercialised and that’s the last thing I think alot of us want..

Sounds like a good idea, I would have thought it would cost a lot of money to run though.

It won’t make underground music commercial (cheese), just because alot of people listen to a type of music that doesn’t change it, make it any different and it shouldn’t damage its reputation in anyway. If its good its good, so let as many people as possible experience it !! If something ends up in the charts or liked by non underground people etc it can still be good. Prodigy etc …..

If a track is taken by the cheese crew and ruined as said above, well from my past experience those tracks are not that good to begin with, well when you look back that seems the case IMO.

its a very good idea which a few people have already tried – there is (or was?) the rapture channel in Norwich and Channel U in London (low budget grime station)

many urban music tracks (D&B, breaks) do have videos (which don’t often get seen!) as do most grime and eski cuts – there is a culture of making DVDs on the grime scene but they are very low budget films which are mostly full of sex and violence, glorified happy slapping TBH

tracks without videos could be played but visuals, chatroom style scrolling messages could be shown in their place or TBH any video footage that can use “wild” sound (i.e sound not frame-synchronised to the footage)

The main problem is the costs of keeping the channel running.

I used to be a project engineer for the TV industry and worked for a firm which equipped the BBC, Teddington Studios, all the Granada (ITV) studios; in 2001 I installed an entire studio for a Turkish TV channel in Germany which is a good example of a small channel setup.

the initial capital investment for production and TX equipment is far less than it used to be ; but you still will need specialised stuff like broadcast quality VTRs (probably miniDV/DVcam) and maybe even BetaSP (although its an old format now) as videos for broadcast will still be delivered on tape.

In the TX/Playout area you need one bank of computers, automatic signal routing equipment and device control to put your programmes on air, a GPS receiver or other accurate source of timecode data such as MSF.

and another set of resources for acquisition (camera, microphones) and computers for the edit suites – but as most of your produced material will be 3-5 minutes long it can be edited and prepared on pretty normal PCs! Any PC over PIII 850MHZ with 256MB of RAM can edit miniDV digital video – you don’t even need the top of the range kit of today!

in 1996 one local cable channel (which went bust) spent about €100,000 on equipment initially; nowdays I reckon you could just about do it for €10,000 and €25,000 would buy a very nice setup including some live studio kit

but where the problems set in are the overheads…

there’s the premises rental, staff costs etc (if you want a good channel you need to pay at least some people a living wage, the TV industry is fucked because it exploits naive kids looking for a bit of glamour and makes them work for nothing)

to get on the air you need to rent a 34MB/s data circuit from your playout area to your TX centre (where your broadcast goes into the cable or satellite network) (anything less than this and your picture will look like shit; the main networks use 270MB/s circuits!) – but BT don’t’ do these things cheaply and you have to have your playout area fairly near a telephone exchange

you have to pay the people at Arqiva (formerly ntl broadcast), BT or Sky to switch your circuit at the other end and rent time/space on a spare freeview channel or Sky transponder.

This is assuming you are in the UK though, in Eire it may be easier to get space on another network…

another issue is you would need a license to be a TV station in each country you are seen in

In Britain the station needs to be registed with Ofcom or you are technically a pirate station and can be closed down – in Eire it would be the DCMNR (Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources) – thats a few more hundred euros in fees – and potential delays to the project as you are held back by bureaucrats’ timescales

Also everything you TX has to be recorded and logged for inspection by these men in suits and any whinging member of the public can trigger an investigation of your content (you need to spend more money on logging equipment and admin staff)

To pay for these overheads you need advertising and thats where most stations fall over because there are so many advertising outlets that the prices of airtime and webspace are way cheaper than they used to be – there is loads of competition – you need to have a good sales team and that isnt cheap either..

but then again if those grime stations can do it then go for it – feel free to send me a PM if you want any more detailed advice! (would you be setting up in the UK or Eire, or both?)

thing is people have tried

but the channels have folded because of the “big money” ethos of conventional media and the overhead costs. As I mentioned the actual equipment cost isn’t the problem (its getting cheaper and cheaper!), but the circuit rentals from the telcos and the people with control to the satellites and transmitters – they all want their cut… and the cost of dealing with multiple sorts of Eurocrats whom you must talk to or they will take you off air.

The big companies themselves are having trouble keeping some channels on air! Here in England the BBC is relocating to Manchester and commercial ITV channels went down from 16 companies to just one with loads of jobs lost (but a lot of second hand equipment some of it quite new on the market)

however there are supposed to be new changes to make smaller channels easier to start up across the EU – if you know any record company types or other philanthropists (who won’t keep interfering with content) its still worth pursuing; its technically easier than ever to do this than before; and your production base will also be equipped to provide audio programming (radio stations) and web content as well so adverts can be sold in more than one place…

on the subjects of “sell outs”, worth remembering that in the early 90s a lot of cash gained from the more “commercial” rave tunes was re-invested in studios for the use of more underground artists..

extreme is a good example; but although based in the UK their playout/TX is in the Netherlands. ISTR investigating how they did it a couple years back and found that the Netherlands place was originally formed from a pirate broadcaster as the NL authorities (in the 1980s?) decided to license broadcasters on an “anyone can do it basis provided they complied with reasonable technical standards to prevent interference or danger”

The problem with Britain is perhaps simply this – the “old guard” of media executives and personalities do not want to let go (look at all the ancient presenters who seem to be coming back these days!).

They would rather pilot the ship on to the rocks than let a fresh new crew take over.

awryt all am wonderin wot all of u’s experienced folk of wot i myt be thinkin of buyin ano it is quite shit lol but the rest of it is dear think about gettin it with my buffday money (sm day as acidfairy :D) so heres the link ppl.. http://www.rs100.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=41_82&products_id=372

theres a shop in glasgow no doubt u’s awredi ken tht but anyway 🙂

catch yees

kl cheers m8 🙂

kl cheera fairy is it the RS-100 shop he’s at cause dats where am plannin on goin the one in glasgow 🙂 a wud imagine the folk in there r party goers lyk 🙂

I think it’s a great idea.

By way of getting *something* off the ground, getting organised and stuff, has anyone ( and I’m looking at you GL ) looked into broadcasting over the web using the NSV format ( or something similar ) ?
http://www.nullsoft.com/nsv/

Examples of it running can be seen in winamp ( media library->winamp / shoutcast TV , depending on what version you use )

The setup and running costs would be *much* cheaper, no need for a licence ! and if all goes well, could be useful to be able to *prove* that you can do that sort of thing.

Rob

good idea to use all the media channels. the dance scene has always been evolving to advance technology for pleasure….

i would worry about the hold that sponsors and donors have over content most of all. Especially it becomes increasingly difficult to resist them when they try to push their agenda when the faithful have put so much of their lives and energy into a project for previously sound/idealistic reasons.

Just look at many of the previous great underground/minority dance music scenes/genres that have turned to commercialisation – usually starting as a ‘blood sweat and tears’ affairs with a strong identity, and ending up as someones income. Once that happens it becomes difficult to have the energy to resist wanting to get good at the commercial side; advertising, sales and promotions speak, mass media and marketing, after all thats why these things exist: to make money, feed the family and the bank account.
Then someone comes and puts the hard sell and offers more of the above for something that doesnt fit the original plan or feel the same. Before long the whole thing is totally misshaped and people think its a sell out. Which technically it is.

Maybe we should enjoy our underground music scenes here as we have the social and economic environment to indulge in what is essentially a totally frivolous past-time and get less hung up about whats ‘underground’ or not? If you note only until recently did less economically developed places have a desire or inclination to have such a cultural phenomenon. Its the preserve of those with enough economic security to invest time into it and still feel they may eat at the end of the day.

lets have the full broadcast and if a tunes good its good and if its pop then call it so. even if it feels a bit wrong, good luck mate!

ive heard whispers that level-1 who host partyvibe radio are looking into video streming as well. i suggested doing my vj sets to acompany the radio, but theres no reason why telly couldn be broadcast the same way.

as gl was sayign some of the major costs of telly are teh telecommincation network costs, and (as skype has proved with phones) there are ways round that. my half bro is in tel-coms, and he was saying a mate of his at the office does the streaming for odeon cinema trailers online. i’m trying to get a meeting sorted for the next month or so, as whatever info i can get out of him would be invaluable. the trouble is i know fuck all about streaming tech, so i dont even know what to ask him! if i could sort it out, you interested gl?

i think level-1 are already on it to an extent, i guess im best off staying out of this as it goes over my head somewhat. i just thought that odeon bloke might be a good link, i guess i’ll see what SdZ says and get him to pass on the message.

i spose the obvious but limiting way round the synch problem with video and audio is to have them broadcast from the same spot, so i could vj round a mates house while he’s mixing and send it off complete. but i spose thats just avoiding the issue.