MTV's Technical Operations Dept.

I wonder if anybody from MTV's Technical Operations department reads this newsgroup? I hope so because I sure have a bone to pick with them.

    During today's episode of "Daria" ("The Daria Hunter" rerun) whoever
was running the control board at MTV Central punched the wrong button
and placed a promo slate (the portion of a videotape identifying what's
on it) on the air.  I'm assuming it went out over the whole network.
I'm sure this Carson Daly guy is a great producer and all but we really
don't need to see his name on a promo slate in the middle of a program
segment.
    I do the exact same job for our local ABC affiliate and I would have
caught many different kinds of hell if I had done that locally.  If
MTV's master control operator would like to trade jobs with me, or if
MTV would like to hire someone with 12+ years of broadcast TV
experience, I'll be quite happy to discuss it.

"G.T. TYSON IV" wrote:

<rant> This isn't the first time they've done something like this over the last few weeks. I tape the eps and catch 'em at home in the evening, and for the last 2 weeks, almost all of them have soundchecks running roughshod all over the last segments of the show. It's *sooo* sloppy. It's annoying enough to have to ffwd through the commercials, but to hear Carson and Jesse running soundchecks over the last act of the show for *2 weeks* is inexcuseably sloppy. (Not to mention extremely annoying.) You'd think that they'd ironed the kinks out of setting live shots by now. I'm assuming that someone just isn't turning the right slider switch down, am I right? Or can they just not do soundchecks and roll a tape at the same time? There have been a lot other mistakes of late, but I'm not going to waste bandwith by going into detail. Suffice it to say, MTV needs to get their act together. Again. *sigh.* </rant>

rich.

"How can we be lying if we're on television?" -- Olly.

On Sat, 26 Sep 1998 00:39:44 GMT, [email] ([email]) wrote:

And I thought I was imagining things! It's annoying as hell, but it's also nice to have confirmation of the source (I was starting to suspect my oh-so-wonderful cable company).

Other gripes: Showing a promo card in the middle of the episode and blanking out the sound (like today during "The Daria Hunter"), and shrinking the image down to three-quarter size to break in with some stale "news" from MTV "News" that, naturally, couldn't wait until a commercial break (I'd already heard -- from a REAL news source -- that Florence Griffith-Joyner had died, thank you very much!).

I was hoping to finally get all the "Daria" episodes on tape in SP format (my current copies are EP), but so far, MTV's incompetence is making me wait for the next go-around to grab the ones that got ruined by their stupidity and short-sightedness. :-(

Martin ---- Quinn: You kids know where Grandma's TV is. Go watch something educational. SSW: "Breast implants for chickens???" Quinn & Daria: Not that!!! ---- (To send E-mail, remove the "nospam" from my E-mail address.)

[email] (Martin J. Pollard) wrote:

No, you're not, all though at first I was a little concerned myself when I heard faint voices. But when I could make out the, uh, "special" inflection of Jesse Camp, I then realized that I wasn't crazy.

Yeah!

Same here-- my old VCR went on the fritz, so I finally got a SVHS vcr-- it really is broadcast quality-- for about $330. The tapes are expensive, but I swear, you can't tell it's memorex. Needless to say, I'll have to wait. Again. grrrrr.

rich.

"Woooo, what a racket!" -- General Buck Conroy, Publisher, Brutal Mercenary Magazine.

"It's annoying enough to have to ffwd through the commercials, but to hear Carson and Jesse running soundchecks" Does he ALWAYS talk in that annoying voice, or just when he thinks people are listenng?

mike

Celebrate freedom. Read a banned book.

In article , [email] wrote:

You know what! This is the FIRST time I have been able to actually SEE "The Daria Hunter" and THIS is what I get???

Yeah...do it! Contact MTV's HR department and give 'em your resume. Tell 'em exactly WHY you are doing this.

Take Care, The very cheesed-off --.\\<-H--

On Sat, 26 Sep 1998 13:50:44 -0700, [email] (Michelle Klein-Hass) wrote:

So far, we have three very annoying gripes about MTV's airings of "Daria":

1) Technical screw-ups, including voice checks bleeding onto the episodes and inserting promo cards into the middle of episodes at other than commercial breaks (and sometimes screwing up the audio at the same time).

2) Shrinking down the display to show alleged "news", or running a scrawling message on the bottom for the same purpose.

3) Slicing off the beginning and ending credits when episodes are shown back-to-back. (MY personal pet peeve!)

Rarely if ever do these things happen at the same time, but the cumulative effect is highly annoying. In my case, it's taken me ages to get a complete pristine set of "Daria" on tape in SP mode (I want to replace my EP copies), and thanks to their recent screw-ups, it's going to take even longer. :-(

Martin ---- Quinn: You kids know where Grandma's TV is. Go watch something educational. SSW: "Breast implants for chickens???" Quinn & Daria: Not that!!! ---- (To send E-mail, remove the "nospam" from my E-mail address.)

MTV UK are equally bad, in their own little way. Sound from the beginning of the episode regularly cuts in halfway through. Or visuals from the beginning of the episode. Or the show starts 10 minutes late or early.

Strangely, this only happens with first-run episodes.

Shadowcloak [email] (Do not reply to the other address. You'll regret it. Possibly.) http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/7252/

"Hey, Bernie, could you rig me up for Pac-Man while you guys finish off the planet?" - Zonker Harris