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Channel 4HD is a direct simulcast of the core Channel 4 schedule. A proportion of the programmes will have been originally made in the HD format, these will include some of our well know US series and films as well as some Channel 4 commissioned programmes. The Channel 4 Group is committed to increasing its investment in HD production and acquiring programmes in the HD format. We fully intend to increase the proportion of our schedule which is made in high definition over time. The remaining non-HD programmes will be up-converted from the SD source material.
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Some of the older programmes we broadcast weren't made in HD, so we have to “upconvert” those from standard definition (720x576 pixels), but since 2011, we requested all of our commissioned programmes to be made in HD.
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Where we can acquire a programme or a film with surround sound, we use it. This tends to be movies, and blockbuster U.S series. More recently there have been a few UK programmes delivered with surround sound.
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There's a common complaint from the viewing public that commercials sound too loud when compared with programmes.Why is this? To gain impact, commercial advertisers tend to "compress" the sound levels which means they lift them all up to the higher end - and this is what creates the greater impact. However, when compared against programmes which have a wider dynamic range - a wider variation in sound levels - this can cause irritation, because the two types of sound treatment don't sit very well together. Channel 4 has recognised this as a problem for viewers, and we use perceived loudness meters which give us a measure of the way the brain perceives the actual loudness of the sound. This allows us to adjust the levels of commercials and other interstitial material in accordance with Ofcom guidelines, so that they no longer cause irritation when compared with the wide majority of programme types transmitted by Channel 4. We continue to strive for an even perceived loudness through all our programming junctions on all our services.
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Occasionally we are not able to subtitle the programmes we had hoped to. This can be due to technical problems with our transmission or the unexpectedly late delivery of a programme. We do understand how frustrating this is and we always try to fix the problem as quickly as possible.
If you continue to have subtitle problems across all of your channels (and not just one), make sure your receiver is set up correctly.
Most problems with subtitles used to be caused by poor reception. However, now that all TV is digital, if there is a reception problem, it will affect the video and the audio and the subtitles equally. -
The majority of our overseas programme sales distribution is handled by All3 Media International for information and sales contacts, click here
Please note we take no responsibility for Third Party sites.
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Applications for current vacancies will be acknowledged by email or post as soon as possible. Due to the volume of applications received, for some vacancies, we regret that we are not able to provide feedback to individuals who are not invited for interview.
All current vacancies can be found on our 4careers site - please click here
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Channel 4 is a commercial operation and like all organisations we have to balance the need to respond to comments and requests with the resources which that inevitably incurs. Our aim is to try to minimise overheads so we can maximise our programme spend. We have looked at our call volumes and times of peak demand and have arranged the opening hours with this in mind.
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Programme listings are sent to press two weeks in advance of transmission for all our channels. Until schedules are released to the press, the information is sensitive and embargoed. This policy applies equally to repeats and first showings. So, if you can’t find details of your favourite programme in your TV listing magazine, EPG or on our website, it is not scheduled and we are unable to confirm when it will be.
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When a show is live or completed very close to transmission, it is not possible to prepare the subtitles in advance. To provide subtitles on live programmes (or on programmes completed very close to transmission), we employ a technique known as broadcast stenography or stenocaptioning.
Stenography is a type of machine-written shorthand based on phonetics, as used to record proceedings in courts and for parliamentary committees. Our stenographers employ the same technique, with the difference that the shorthand outline is translated by computer and transmitted instantly to air. Our stenographers are very experienced, but when writing previously unseen material at speeds of up to 240 words per minute, some mistakes are inevitable. They may occur because a word may come up that has not been fed into the stenographer’s dictionary, in which case the computer will supply a "phonetic" translation.
Sometimes the speed at which they work makes it inevitable that a finger will be in the wrong place, and a simple word will translate as something completely different. Mistakes may in fact represent only one finger error or “typo”. We also use speech recognition technology to provide live subtitling. A speech subtitler listens to the commentary and "re-speaks" it into software which recognises the speech and translates it into subtitles. Speech recognition produces a different range of errors to stenography as the software attempts to "make sense" of the sounds it hears, so instead of seeing phonetic translations, words may appear out of context.
The average person speaks over 240 words a minute and although this is fine for the average listener, it is much too fast for anyone reading subtitles, especially with a picture to watch at the same time. Subtitlers, therefore, have to reduce the number of words that are said so that the subtitles can be read in the time it takes the speaker to say them. They must also synchronise the subtitles with the soundtrack and make it clear who is saying what. In order to achieve all of this, it is sometimes necessary to edit the soundtrack and careful yet quick decisions have to be made about how best to do this.
With all this in mind, a small delay between the words spoken on screen and the subtitles appearing is inevitable. We aim to keep this delay as short as possible, but it is often more noticeable on an unscripted programme such as Big Brother where often several people are talking at once. Subtitles on live programmes are therefore not precisely synchronised with the soundtrack, as you may expect in pre-recorded programmes. Our live team constantly work towards eliminating errors and consistently achieve extremely accurate results across a wide range of programmes. However, live programming presents some of the biggest challenges to live subtitlers and some mistakes are unfortunately inevitable.
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