BBC World’s ‘Dynamic Junctions’ project completed

Pro-Bel and Chyron have completed the design and installation of software and hardware for BBC World's newly launched ‘Dynamic Junctions’, which have revolutionised the content between the channel's programmes with new on-screen graphics and video clips.
The Dynamic Junctions project involved a team comprised of staff from BBC World, BBC Broadcast, BBC Technology, Chyron and Pro-Bel, as well as BBC World web administrators Graphico. BBC Broadcast supply and operate the service on behalf of BBC World, the BBC's commercially funded international 24-hour news and information channel.
Dynamic Junctions are broadcast between programmes on BBC World and occupy a variable amount of airtime, depending on the number of commercials that are being screened in a given region. They replace the previous ‘Automatic Break Fillers’, which presented a static programme menu.
Dynamic Junctions are designed to keep viewers updated with current and future programming on BBC World through the use of 15-second trailers and video clips incorporated into the screen. Up to date weather and financial information from around the world is also provided.
The trailers are edited by a dedicated BBC Broadcast production team in London. This facilitates a previously unimagined amount of flexibility and allows BBC World to be far more pro-active between programmes. This flexibility is extended to the on-air BBC Broadcast TX directors, who can tailor any particular Dynamic Junction in both duration and content to reflect rapidly changing requirements in the highly reactive BBC World output.
The scale of the project meant that both Chyron and Pro-Bel engineers worked around the clock to achieve the end result in the desired timescale and based themselves in the on-air transmission environment in Television Centre in London as the completion date neared.
The concept of Dynamic Junctions was created by Neil Parkinson, the Editor of Network Planning at BBC News. He said: "What has been achieved absolutely tallies with my original notion. It is exactly what I had envisaged, and it is fantastic to be able to see it onscreen."
(GB)