TV alert / bipping ... what is going on?

Amandine.K · Post by **Amandine.K** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:49 am

I don't know enough swedish or finnish to understand. It seems to be some kind of alert. Anybody knows anything about it? I tried teletext, yle but I don't seem to find anything...

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enk · Post by **enk** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:20 pm

Today or the other day? The other day they were warning people in a certain area
to stay indoors due to a fire at the Abloy factory.

-enk

Amandine.K · Post by **Amandine.K** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:26 pm

I got it today, about an hour ago.

enk · Post by **enk** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:29 pm

Ah, no idea then, sorry!

-enk

catfish78 · Post by **catfish78** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:31 pm

The one I saw yesterday said something about the channel line up changing.

Mark I. · Post by **Mark I.** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:34 pm

It was a practice / rehearsal alert today.

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 2:15 pm

Amandine.K wrote:I don't know enough swedish or finnish to understand. It seems to be some kind of alert. Anybody knows anything about it? I tried teletext, yle but I don't seem to find anything...

The public emergency announcement system, which operates through both TV and radio (and looks like this on the TV) is routinely tested on the first Monday of each month (at 12 p.m., I think.) What you saw today was one of these test runs. They will also do a similar test run annually on the 11th of February, which is the national “112 Day”, or “Emergency Number Day”, intended to raise awareness about public safety issues and emergency services.

The last time this announcement system was used “for real” (which was actually also the very first time, since the whole thing is rather new, only having been in operation for a couple of years!) was on last Friday when there was a fire at the Abloy factory in Joensuu and it was feared that the smoke would contain some highly toxic chemicals. Emergency announcements – if there is an actual emergency and not just a test run – will also be posted on the YLE Teletext pages 112 and 866, which is where you can check them out if you missed the text on the scrolling announcement ticker.

There has also been an occasional (green?) scrolling announcement ticker about the revised logical channel numbering plan on TV during the last few days, but this has nothing to do with the emergency announcement system. (The change in the channel numbering plan was carried out today, and is mainly about Urheilukanava and YLE Teema changing places. The change may require you to reset the channel list on your TV or set-top box and search for the channels again.)

otyikondo · Post by **otyikondo** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 2:27 pm

A number of people have been wondering why the Joensuu alarm went nationwide. Is there no means of localising such public service alerts? I'm all in favour of the idea as such, but wonder if it might not have been overkill to blast it out to people in Turku and Tornio, who probably only got confused and rang the regional emergency response centres...

Maybe they wanted to try it out in a real-life sitation and figured it was a good idea to make sure it worked everywhere, regardless of the fact that the danger was restricted to three or four Joensuu suburbs.

EP · Post by EP » Mon Feb 02, 2009 2:36 pm

Is there no means of localising such public service alerts?

Many have asked that, and the answer is no, it is not possible to localize alerts. I don´t know why not, after all it is possible to localize TV advertisements.

otyikondo · Post by **otyikondo** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 2:48 pm

EP wrote:
Is there no means of localising such public service alerts?
Many have asked that, and the answer is no, it is not possible to localize alerts. I don´t know why not, after all it is possible to localize TV advertisements.

EGGS ACKLY. And local/regional news broadcasts, too.

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 2:53 pm

otyikondo wrote:A number of people have been wondering why the Joensuu alarm went nationwide. Is there no means of localising such public service alerts?

It can be localized for FM radio, but I’m not sure whether the system allows the same for digital TV. It’s perhaps more difficult to tap into the digital TV stream locally, at least if you want to do it smoothly and without glitches... you’d need to decompress each individual MPEG-2 stream in at least two multiplexes, superimpose the ticker, recompress the streams and re-do the statistical multiplexing magic... that’s technically possible, of course, but perhaps it would just be too much trouble for this purpose.

otyikondo wrote:I'm all in favour of the idea as such, but wonder if it might not have been overkill to blast it out to people in Turku and Tornio, who probably only got confused and rang the regional emergency response centres...

On the other hand, had the fire reached the hydrogen cyanide tanks, it could have been a major catastrophe... and this way the locals who weren’t watching TV perhaps got a heads-up call from their relatives living in some other place. Getting it elevated on the national level was perhaps not the most elegant way to deal with the announcement problem, but I guess the local fire department chief thought it was a necessary precaution, given the rather dangerous circumstances and his best assessment of the situation at the time.

It was the first time when this system was actually used, anyway, so I guess they’re still in the experimental phase where they’re establishing the conventions for when to use it and when not to.

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 3:02 pm

otyikondo wrote:
EP wrote:
Is there no means of localising such public service alerts?
Many have asked that, and the answer is no, it is not possible to localize alerts. I don´t know why not, after all it is possible to localize TV advertisements.
EGGS ACKLY. And local/regional news broadcasts, too.

Local ads and news are separate “shows”, though... with clearly defined, pre-scheduled “junction points” where the local broadcast begins and ends... which is not the same thing as smoothly adding on-screen graphics to a show in some areas and not in the others. (Back in the analog days it would have been easier but now I assume it must be quite complicated, with the individual video streams being compressed and several streams having been multiplexed together.)

Bavarian · Post by **Bavarian** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 3:48 pm

Couldn't they localize it by having the alert only go out over certain transmitters?

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 5:33 pm

Bavarian wrote:Couldn't they localize it by having the alert only go out over certain transmitters?

It’s a scrolling ticker, on multiple channels, superimposed on the top part of the screen, over the regular programming. And the beeping that accompanies the message is mixed to the original audio track. You’d need the equipment to do this kind of mixing and massaging of the DVB audio and video streams locally at each transmitter site, and some sort of out-of-band channel for reliably relaying the emergency notification text/graphics to each of them in the first place. As I said, it’s probably doable, but rather complicated and expensive when compared to a centralized, nation-wide system (and perhaps it would also make the system more vulnerable to technical malfunctions.)

Then again, if it was something that would completely cut off all regular programming for the time the message is being displayed, the equipment at the transmitter sites wouldn’t need to be quite that fancy.

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