You're back early, aren't you Ian?

[lovingboth]

I am not sure whether the issue was at our end (but at least two other places had problems) or at their end in London, but the live broadcast of Don Giovanni from the Royal Opera House tonight was totally unwatchable, with the picture repeatedly breaking up / freezing / disappearing / going out of sync.

You couldn't even shut your eyes and listen to the music - there were thirty one interruptions to the sound during the overture alone. (Yes, I was counting. It was the only thing you could do.) And it stayed like that into the start of the action, which was the point at which the audience gave up, en masse.

The worst bit was the short sections of ten seconds or so when everything was ok before the hope - oooh, is it going to be all right?!? - was dashed by yet another break up / freeze / disappearance / out of sync issue.

Argh. Let's see what they do about it.

Comments

[barakta]

Arg, how annoying. Do we think this was weather or bad tech?

[lovingboth]

Forecast wind affects satellite dishes, who knew? :)

Why, given the forecast, there wasn't an internet stream set up, I don't know. It would certainly be fast enough here and anywhere else with a fibre connection.

Somewhere in the Netherlands is being smug about it being ok for them, so it's probably at (numerous) UK locations - this makes sense as presumably the uplink is one biiig stable dish.

[barakta]

How annoying! Hope you manage to get to see a suitable replacement production soon.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I didn't go. I did briefly wonder where my previous self had gone when I decided that staying in and fixing busted old computers with my housemate was going to be more fun than going to see Don Giovanni, but it sounds like it was just the right decision. (Also I saw the Scottish Opera production in October and really my opera budget should be spent on things I've seen more than six months ago).

What a pain for you, though!

[lovingboth]

I am always up for seeing a new production, because you can always learn from them. If it had been a rerun of the previous ROH production, the one we saw, I wouldn't be as upset.

Interestingly, although they've approved other people's posts about how awful it was last night, and some other comments of mine, they've not approved my comment about how awful it was and asking why; how can I be sure that it won't be the same on Sunday (one of a very small number of encore showings is nearby); and why there isn't going to be a more general reshowing. Anyone north of Leeds has just two choices: Teeside or Paisley!

I do know it's going to be on BBC4 in April, but even with the recent introduction of BBC4 HD solving most of the 'over compressed video' problems, the sound quality is never up to much.

[ludy]

Bah! Sorry your treat didn't work out ...