It's all been a bit of a blur

The story so far

You may remember that things had been going well, swimmingly well... ah well.

And here we go

So on Sunday we rolled out a few settops around the place and all of a sudden we start getting issues. And on Monday the executive private jet turns up replete with executives and they start complaining about stalled images on WNBC, Those with good memories will recall that during testing in New Jersey the channel that gave the most trouble was WNBC.

Same as it ever was

Cap deaf

Not a new hip hop act, but instead two words that send dread through anyone who remembers issues with DirecTV where the card would refuse to accept messages. And because it would not accept messages, you couldn't tell it to reboot...

We we have the same problem. Not, luckily for us in the settop, but in the system. The problem being that every once in a while the picture would freeze, only to come back some two and a half minutes later. Doesn't that sound like cap deaf. I said, DOESN'T THAT SOUND LIKE CAP DEAF. HELLO?

But now we come to tracing the issue, which took until 4:00am on, well today really, to track down.

So the issue is that for multicast, the routers all send messages to each other to make sure that someone is actually watching the pictures, those that know will liken this to Switched Digital Video. The source router sends - and I've been doing the research hence the 4:00am - an IGMPv2 General Membership Query. We have, as specified in the message, 10 seconds to comply. On occasions we take 9.998 seconds to respond. And when you look at the chaining of the message there's a good chance the origin router times us out and stops the broadcast. Damn you, damn you to Heck...

Two and a half minutes later another request comes in, and this time we reply in a more timely manner - the spec says we should take a random time up to the maximum indicated - and the stream restarts. Pictures are restored and off we go.

So the solution is simple right? We just hack our code to respond, y'know a bit early. So we did; you tell us 10 seconds to comply we'll comply in 5. Give us a second and we'll take half. Fixed, right?

Wrong. Still dropping.

So tonight it was the turn of the router team to get to watch the sun come up on the way home. _This is a lie, the sunrise is so damn' late they got to travel home in the dark..._

Although luckily, not totally in the dark as to what was going on. Seems that between the layer two and layer three protocols these are you watching messages are getting lost. And so although we say yes, the middleman kindly ignores this and tells the boss no. And away goes the stream. Only on the next request does the response make it all the way back and we get a good flow of the stream.

The router development team are now investigating how to fix this properly, having given us a workaround to at least allow folk to watch TV uninterrupted.

In other news

Ian arrived on Tuesday. And this place, like the national debt, has a size and scale impossible to understand until you see it. When a tour takes 15 minutes you know it's a big place and on walking home we passed the BBC operation with the doors open you understand they have a few desks, a computer with I swear Windows for Workgroups 3.1, a Flip video camera - that's who bought it - and a dog. This it seems is all you need. According to the BBC, amateurs.

We had another fire alarm, it was at 4:00pm. OK. 4:00pm. There are signs all over the area - 4:00pm. So why we're standing outside at 12:30 no-one knows. And once again those that were eating, all of a sudden weren't. And I got to break the security seal on the fire doors. Which was strangely satisfying.

Apneic Jay continues to provide us with insights into the American mind. It's a wilderness in there, it is.

Anyway normal* service tomorrow, probably.

* For a given value of normal...

Just some pictures from the park

Don't ask about the Americans, I won't tell about the Americans...

And one from the restaurant...

Encounters with America

Encounters with the most boring American ever.

Apologies [a] for the tardiness - that was Google's fault and [b] some of the language. That is entirely mine.

So, at the risk of insulting an entire nation, here goes.

Today's bus journey - after a 19 minute stand in the drizzle - was not interesting. OK, so the retro '80s video playing on the TV were amusing, in that way all '80s retro videos are. But after a while I realised these weren't all retro, some were new. It seems the program had gathered together Russian, or I suppose more accurately, Soviet bands from the '80s and were playing one of their videos followed by the band playing live at a concert. Now, I may be one to talk, but some of the folks had certainly lived the Life of Pie and were having trouble getting into their costumes. But what really struck me was how can you celebrate the '80s as a Russian. OK, so we're ones to talk what with the Falklands, Miners' Strike, Thatcher, Housing Bubble #1 etc. but Russia? The Mighty Root Vegetable Shortage of 1983? Afghanistan Part 1. And the Clod War. Where stupid people tried to spy on each other without getting caught. Anyway it kept me from having to listen to The Most Boring American Ever.

Right, so there are nice Americans. Those that keep themselves to themselves, don't over share and open doors for you. Then there are those that deserve to be on daytime TV. Or maybe even night-time TV. This guy was a Network Analyst, but perhaps was more Networkyst Anal. Oh lord help us from the what correct dose of Doorhingaprol is, and what the side effects are and the best way out of Manhattan when going against traffic and what Minnesota is like in the winter and the summer and the spring and the fall and how many cushions he's got on sofa and whether they really go with the drapes but his girlfriend chose them. And all the time you want to bash him against the headrest shouting 'Autumn, Curtains, Autumn, Curtains' But manners, we are their guests. He kept this up for the entire journey, a good 40 minutes. They didn't have any Kate Bush, but that had a lass singing 'Grandmother'; wasn't the same.

Today's handy hint: Don't drink the premium water in the hotel. Sure it's got minerals and vitamins aplenty, but it tastes like it came from the foothills of Chernobyl...

That Studio

Here it is. At the start of the week it was the Union Jack Flag Jack.

Today's amazing statistic: I had to reboot the settop in te Foyer to put a new version on it. I didn't mean to reboot it, but from the Videoscape Juno Cloud Client Management Console (tm) I accidentally selected in before sending the reboot command. Anyhoo, it had been up 4 days and recording constantly. The recording was 21GB in size.

The office is a changing

My two colleagues have been kicked out of 'our' office and have been given a desk in the IT lair - where I made the classic mistake of speaking mock German in front of a German, two nations down. Anyway, moved in are two guys from IBS Sports. They provide Timing and Score Data into the Customer character systems (they have Chyron, if you're interested. Didn't think so) so when the score pops up you know it's a live 0-0 not a guessed one. And the timing comes straight from the Olympic Timekeepers. Why they don't take the OBS CG feed I don't know. But hey.

IBS has one of those mid-aged, mid-sized mid-west Americans that can bitch about anything - bit like me really, only with more class. It was the range of bitching that impressed in the end. Office [MS] Windows [MS] Office [Physical] Windows [Lack Of]. Keyboard; Typing; Laundry; Coke; on and on and on. And the fact that the laptops provided by Customer weren't quite to spec - bring your own, we did - and they weren't quite right and every time he moved it was accompanied by the word - apols - fuck. Arm up, fuck; arm down, fuck. Walk, fuck; fart, fuck. I mean, ah jeez. And in the end, in the midst of the cursing and the farting and the whingeing, he wondered if he might get some action with one of the young runners that are here. Whaddja reckon?

The reason we're here

Here's a picture of why we need 25Mb data.

Yeah.

Here's a picture of the BOC

BOC == Broadcast Operations Center

This is where all the feeds come into the station and go out. I'll take a couple more piccies later. Well impressive huh?

They way home

Colleague and I walked from the IBC to the hotel tonight, it took about 40 minutes and two security checks. Naturally, all the pictures I took are rubbish, so I'll have to try again.

And that means, that for once, it wasn't raining.

A Broadcast Engineer Speaks Out

See, that's him speaking out.

Now the really great thing about working in Russia, apart from the rain - yes I do go on, but so does the sodding rain and the one thing you expect at the Winter Olympics is snow. And vodka, and there's been sod all of that too. But that's probably my fault... Any way, the really great thing about working in Russia for the Americans is that you get to watch night time TV. This is like daytime TV but for the challenged. No honest, it the same three infomercials every day. Dean Martin Roasts, Soul Sounds of the 70s and this sodding Clear TV. Which is an aerial for digital TV. And they go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on - and to give me my due, I did type that, not cut and paste - 'bout how cable and satellite rip you off for $10,000 - over a period of many years - when you could buy this for just $19.99 plus processing and shipping. And, you've guessed it, call now and we'll double that to two shitty aerials for $19.99 you just pay the additional P&S.

So take a look here for a review and here to buy two of the sodding things. And I hope you get to watch the infomercial too. And those pictures on the TV are simulated, it even says so on the sodding advert. AND at one point they tell you that cable and satellite TV is compressed digital but ClearTV is uncompressed HD digital. Feck OFF I scream at the TV. And the only thing I'm grateful for is that we seem to finally have fixed seek and shuttle and I don't have to watch this any more...  So check it out, especially the actors acting surprised.

Actually there are four ads, no five, no countless. You could spend a fortune on shite like a grill pan with a polar bear shaped handle or a chair that will help you lose weight whilst you sleep and an oxygen purifier cos some oxygen isn't as pure as others. And a cat coffin and burial kit with free fake wounds and a no way window - which is just a wall, really - and some bloke called Gavin from Gavins  Inc where if you call now you can get two Gavins for the price of one.

I should stop now. Because I have this to show you.

Welcome to the phone of the 21st Century

The unnecto psx-1200. Actually I made the model name up but not the manufacturer. What a great name - get Unnected - there's a slogan for you. I mean, it's almost what you say when you complain about a phone - uh oh, just got unnecto'ed. It's like disconnected, but more so.

So these are the phones that Customer is giving out for local number access. Everyone can have one, they've got literally thousands - I've seen the boxes. You might be thinking they look like a BlackBerry, nah. You might be thinking they have capacitative touch screens. Well they're more resistive in that respect, in that they resist touch. It's more like a jab screen. Not that there's anything to jab, really. If you took a feature phone, and then took all the features away; this is what you would get. A lack of feature phone, a dumb phone. A brick. Bring an unlocked phone, take the SIM out of the phone they give you and you're good.

And now, as the building site clears and the offices become obvious. Allow me to introduce you to the

Corridor of Doom

This is the central corridor down the engineering wing. We're situated about 3/4 of the way down on the right. Before us is production, logistics, runners, studio entrance - with makeup, wardrode, hair - and after us is the tape library, tape ops, graphics and ingest. It's not until you see this that you get an idea of the scale of the place. As we walked in, there was a door open and in there was another studio, I think I've found 6 now. If not more, they're like Easter eggs on a DVD.

Another Colleague came in today, after a 30 hour journey from Denver - NE USA weather - and I think it took him back a bit. The scale of the operation, I don't think Meridian was ever this big, even in it's heyday, is just monumental. Or mental, you choose. And every day some new happens in the commissary, last night - for the first time - we got something other that cake for pudding. It was a tiramisu, complete with Russian spelling. And tonight they have installed the ice-cream cabinet, probably ready for tomorrow. Starbucks is now open 8:00 till 7:00 and slowly but surely the 24 hour rota are going up. The place is coming alive, and it's kinda fun.

Some random notes

Django is brilliant. We've got some issues with the data source in that we want to do stuff it can't. And due to network issues, and this being a cloud solution, there is often sod all data. With a bit of Django, and I mean a bit like 20 lines, we now have a database that can provide multiple lineups just like the real thing. It is stupidly scary. Complete with management interface and everything. It took about 90 minutes to code.

Yesterday I alluded to dogs having a crap time, but they're not the worst off. The worst off are the folks that have to pick the litter up on the highways. Every morning you see them walking against the traffic picking up litter. There are no 'Workforce in Road' signs nor do they wear high-viz jackets. They must be tired of life, is all I can think.

You may have heard of the Ring of Steel, fnarr fnarr Mr Putin, that surrounds Sochi. It is getting stronger by the day as more and more military, police and security guards become present - you can tell them apart by the quality of their footwear. They normally lurk, like trolls, under bridges and for a while I thought this was their nature. But actually it stops them getting wet.

From all the SODDING RAIN.

What day is it?

So I hear Wednesday. But only just.

h2. What day is it?

I think I managed to take some photos today. Not of anything interesting though.

But here's what I've been looking at most of the day...




 Hardly inspiring is it?

Still when you think you've got it rough, there's always a dog to let you know it could be worse...



And in classic dog abilities, it is failing to enjoy this:



The hotel has been under development for so long that there are packs of dogs roaming at night. Silly dogs should have bought a local SIM card. What, sorry. No, wrong window. Anyway, there's a bunch of puppies that live in a crate in the car park. Someone has constructed a kennel for them and in the morning they come out and go exploring. But they're going to be big dogs as they look very German Shepherd-ish. You almost worry for them...

And the dogs at the IBC get a hard life too:



So what else do we know?

Well we created the alternate channel lineup, hence the expanded normal lineup, and the fact that hidden channels are going to have to start at 50, not 30. There are that many streams. And Colleague has had a look at backfilling the recordings, which sounds pretty good and when we upset Customer I'll offer that service to him.

And now we're playing with live and VOD. And the fact the streams don't start at the beginning. But I think I have a nasty hack for that for now.

And it's all a bit busy.

On the way out they've put the banners up and some Russian, well, crappola that I don't understand but then I only had a few minutes to make the last bus of the day. And for some reason, the damn' thing went via the rings... Perhaps that's what the last bus does - makes sure there are no lost buses between the hotel and the IBC.

Oh, yeah. Banners. Crappola. Here you go:

Disaster Diary

I thought I would detail what happens in a day. You know, a running diary. But some of the day ran away. Any how, here goes:

7:15 Alarm #1 rings, check mail, twitter and Guardian to find what's been going on in the world - nothing, mostly.
7:30 Alarm #2 rings. Get out of bed.
8:00 Breakfast, where the room is getting noticeably more full.
8:25 Walk to the bus top whilst Colleague tells me of the CNN report on terrorists, gunships and helicopters.
8:30 Bus arrives
8:50 Go past the Olympic Rings for the fist time. There's been something nagging me about the rings and I worked out what it is. They're written country/land on the side so Blue is Europe, Red America and Green is Australia. Yellow is Asia and Black Africa. Only trouble is, the IOC stopped this association back in the 50s when it was pointed out that this isn't what the colours mean [go look it up, it's interesting] and it could be considered a mite racist. But hey, Russia - stuck in the 50s... 1850s
8:55 Go past the Rings in the other direction...
9:05 Security. And today's special - apart from the shoes, which they no longer care about - is that you're only allowed 5 medicines in your one medicine bag. And I have six, I have to throw one away. I kid you not, I couldn't make it up...
9:15 Office
9:20 Coffee
9:25 Code reviews.

And so the day descends into a blur as we do reviews and testing and generally larkery until there's an all-hands to discuss stuff.

12:30 Lunch

3:00 All-hands. Apparently that CNN report has really shocked folk back in the USA so the meeting is to make sure we're all OK with the safety plans. And to tell us that most of the stories are, well, made up. Even NBC news has gotten in on the act of stretching the truth, and they're here. So the gunships only have one helicopter on them, and NBC has more folks on the ground [along with FSB and NSA] so we're safer here than there. At the end of the meeting I tell folk to watch UK news, cos there's none of this on there...

3:30 Customer-man agrees the office may be a mite cold and gets a chippy to remove the aircon. The room warms up. To corpsey warm.

6:30 Dinner

8:00 Download the new code and try it. Audio only works on one channel, so that's not so good...

8:30 Customer-man phones and asks if we can support two channel maps. They want more channels in the IBC but only six in the client area. I say we designed it to do that, so we just need the channel maps and we're good. He is impressed. The official request comes in later.

10:30 time to get the 10:40 bus home, assuming it's running.

Observation Round

This morning's coffee went a bit wrong. The lass serving had obviously had a nice day off and concentration wasn't high on the agenda. So when I asked for a Normal Americano coffee, this is the cup I got.

Yup, instead of my name it says 'Normal' and it's brilliant. She wanted to take it back and give me either a plain cup or one with my name on. But I insisted on having this. Not cos it's funny - cos it is, really - but because I now have it in the office on my desk. And when I look around at what is going on, this cup is the closest to normal I can get. Everything else is just, well, mental.

For example, Customer has brought in excess of 1000 laptops for their staff and due to security concerns, these are likely to be destroyed at the end of the games. In their defence, they are two year old Dell laptops, so they're lucky they've lasted this long, and were used at London. But, still. I'm sure there's many a school in developing nations that would kill for such things.

And the number of staff goes up each day. At the start you could have a choice of table at lunch, now you have to wait for one. And the choice for lunch has expanded with the pizza and burger bars now open.

This is a picture of one of the data centres here. You can see a couple of ASX-9000's here. No I don't either, but they have Employer written on them and they hum something rotten.

The actual work we're doing progresses well and we got brownie points for recording and playing back the football from last night. Apparently there are many Seattle fans working here, so they were pleased with the result. And how the game went. A week on Sunday/Monday we best make sure we succeed again.

But the reason this is Observation Round is I thought I would sum up some of the trivia from the week.

Heating

In the office there isn't any. It is fecking cold, you could keep beef in the office. For weeks. I relented today and wore my thermal liner, the one I brought for mountain activities, to the office. It didn't stop my fingers freezing but at least my teeth stopped chattering.
In the hotel, however, there is an elegant sufficiency of heat. Now, many years ago a friend of mine lived in Moscow and she said the heating came on on a fixed date and went off on a fixed date regardless of conditions. And in Sochi, some 20 years later, it is still the same. It is winter so the aircon blows hot. The air is centrally heated and distributed to all the rooms. Your fan simply controls the flow. My thermostat is at 12C and every night I have to open the window. If I turn the fan off, the room freezes. If I leave it on, without the window open, the room bakes. If I turn it off and close the window the temperature slowly rises but like a frog in a pan you don't notice till too late. So the answer is to have the fan on and the window open and a fabulous temperature gradient across the room. Perhaps those folks in the 4 star hotel have better control of their environment, but I somehow doubt it.

Weather

When you think of the Winter Olympics you think cold, snow, ice. Clear skies and seeing your breath. Sochi is slightly different. You get rain. It is January. You get rain in the morning, afternoon and evening. It is cold rain. The place is miserable. Waiting for a bus is not a pleasant experience. And with the rain comes puddles, and even though this is all new build they are professional puddles that have been doing this for a long time. In places they could be mistaken for the sea, except people would be allowed to swim in these.

Building

It's fair to say the place ain't ready - yet (to be honest, neither are we, but we didn't get six years notice). They have the same amount of time to go as we do. Except one is being looked upon by a ruthless dictator that will accept no apologies and the other - yeah, you know the rest. Me and Vlad, best buddies. [What do you call Ventolin for an elf? Imp-haler...]

Yesterday on the way home they were ripping up one of the new roads, and this morning they were putting it back. Some of the old roads however, especially with the buses thundering over them, are ripping themselves up and becoming quite an adventure course.

Traffic

I mention this 'cos it's funny. There are now signs saying 'Olympic Traffic Only'. But I can't think for the life of me why anyone would be here if they weren't here for the games. And even then, they're Russian - these signs are for other people...

Shovels

As mentioned, the Yes Make Happy Work Camp across the way isn't complete and there is a considerable number of workers still building it. Today, as I got an earlier departing bus that strangely arrived at the same time as normal, we passed the workers as they queued to get in the park and I swear half of them were carrying shovels. I can't imagine why you would need so many when the major work is mostly done. Unless, like to a hammer everything is a nail, to a man with a shovel everything is a hole; that needs filling. I can point out a few on the journey to the IBC.

Finally

Welcome to Russia

As we left the airport on Tuesday we got stuck behind a Lada that was weaving all over the road. The driver must have had a couple, and when we did manage to pass him we could see that he was texting. This image is one that kind of burns in, along with the security guard/policeman on every corner.

In some respects, little changes.

This is not a test

To whet your appetite I'll quote Tommy Lee Jones from Men In Black - I'm going to get my gun back.

The best laid plans

I thought that today I would walk to the office, it wasn't raining much so whatever. However I got lost and ended up in Sochi Park, Russia which is a fun park - for a given value of fun. That cloppa castle I've mentioned is a hotel in the park. Security is less intense - come on in - and the workforce is having a Sunday fag mostly. Here are some shots of inside the camp park.

After getting out, and thinking that the park won't be ready by Summer let alone next month, I went to the gate to get in. Well, I looked at it and decided sod that and went back to get on the bus. Here's why:

I reckon on a two hour queue to get through the checkpoint.

This is a test

In the office today was a day of failure. On purpose, I don't quite understand this one but it seems the failure has been successful, mostly, and there are only a few areas that need rework.

So to be more accurate, today folks have been testing what happens if there is a catastrophic failure and systems have to swap over. We did well mostly, one problem is that when both power supplies are disconnected from the VM rack, it doesn't work. Who'da thunk it?

Now we're sat in our ice-box and the alarms go off. We're used to this, we've had 'this is a test message' broadcast all morning. But this is slightly different as a man pops his head around the door and tells us that whilst every other alarm is a test, this one isn't and would we mind leaving. We didn't mind - to start - but the folk eating lunch, they weren't impressed.
We became less impressed when 'mind leaving' became 'mind going outside and standing in the rain' because today it was tipping it down. Big heavy raindrops that were hitting the scaffold and becoming even bigger and more rainy. At least I had a coat.
And that was when it struck me, we were near the security area where I had lost my belt - how hard can it be to go and get it back, or find if it is lost for ever?

You may remember the line that Kay says after getting his gun back:

I've just been down the gullet of an interstellar cockroach. That's one of a hundred memories I don't want.

Well, it's pretty much the same when you want your property back. It's not that it's bad, it's just you get surrounded by six security guards as they earnestly attempt to locate the belt. There are phone calls and discussions and an interpreter is called for and he explains I have to follow him.
We leave the hut and enter the main IBC, but at the front desk there they say we have to go to the front desk at the PRC - the printed word equivalent of the IBC. This involves walking past a dozen or so concessions that are slowly getting to ready to sell stuff in exchange for VISA payment and sod all else. And then in the middle is this:

And just down from there is a Coke stand. The Olympics is certainly coming.

At the Lost Property part of the Main Desk at the PRC the lady tells me they have about 20 belts lost in the scanners. She has a list and asks me to describe it. It's black and belty and goes round my waist is the best I can do. She goes one better and produces my lost belt. Woohoo, no more falling trousers. I'll probably leave it in security again tomorrow, they'll be back to panic stations again.

I make my way back past the McDonald's - you can pronounce it if you try, common words are good as you can learn the language, eventually - and back to the IBC and lunch. It strikes me that having 33 letters must make Hangman a bit harder in Russian. Not as hard as Kanji though: Egg? No. Doorknob? No. Button? No. Duvet? No. Yellow? No. I give up. My word was Empathy. Your turn... Not a game that caught on, I think.

In the afternoon we carry on testing until we have the double power out, and it takes a very long time to get the servers - especially the DHCP and NTP servers - back up. Whilst this is all going on, I install 13 devices in the Executive Area. They all have a system each so making it work becomes a bit more real. In the boardroom, there are two, by the way.

After installing and we get the servers back, I create some cron jobs to start a recording off. Well two recordings. We have offered to record the NFL Championship Games that aren't carried on NBC channels so we have no guide data for them - we have no guide data most of the time. I also modify the init scripts to ensure we don't accidentally delete the recordings if the boxes dip for a moment. They haven't yet, but you never know. And I set three devices off doing this. Let's hope, hey?

If the recordings are successful we'll play the games back tomorrow.

As Saturdays go, this one went

OK, at this point I would open with a picture showing how the weather/hotel/locale is. But here's a picture of what I got to see once I had entered the IBC today.

This is the inside of the Personal Examination Booth at Security. I think they were having a slow day. It being Saturday and all there weren't as many folk trogging in at 9:00. Or at least attempting to. So Security were less fraught than usual. But I think they had also turned the wick up on the metal detectors - can't show you pictures but imagine an airport on acid. X-ray machines, Body scanners, Metal detectors, bored Russian Security guards, dogs. And it was my lucky day to make the bell ring. The astute will remember my belt has long left me so it wasn't that, and my shoes hadn't set things off the other day. So I find myself in the booth shoeless and fretting. A few minutes later the guard returns with my shoes, that have no metal in them, and a rather apologetic look on his face. I'll give them that, they're more apologetic than frightening, as if having to scan everyone is embarrassing for them. But 1, it's not as embarrassing as the things Putin says and 2, as I read somewhere, they have to win every time - the terrorists only have to win once...

So once re-united with my shoes my bag is inspected. Normally, this is just show computer, open computer, power-on computer. But today, it being a bit slack, they asked me to written some code... Nah. The iPad on the other hand does not need powering on. The iPad weighs more than the Chromebook. I also have to open my medicine bag, in which I keep Ibuprofen, Paracetamol etc. in case it's needed. He asks what it is and I say medicine, blank. His helper explains in Russian, blank. She says Drugs. Ahh, da, drugs. For a minute I expect to hear 'Take one each tablet' but instead he thinks I'm a wimp for having drugs on me. Well, when you've used a pencil as an anti-diarrhoeal, yeah takes some imagining and once done you wish you hadn't, you make damn' sure you have some with you at all times. Imodium, not pencils.

So the day passes and code is tested and we see some improvements. The images are more stable and the tune time better but some times there are no pictures... and in the end I do a mash up of 1.5.0 with a hint of a new brcmtsdemux and a helping of libQtWebKit4.8.1 and every becomes pretty stable. Even search works well. So it's nice to know we have a fallback solution now.

And it means I can do this:

Watch Southampton play Sunderland. And it wouldn't be so bad but people, American people, asked if we could get the West Ham game...

You may remember I said the bus route was a torture so I installed a GPS tracker on my phone and uploaded the route to Runkeeper but if you see a screen like this

I can only apologise. Not only for its presence, but also for the godawful spelling, grammar and just about everything else. "Howard Teece activity 10.38 miles" and I really don't know what the rest means... "activity a total of miles" ?

So, two more interesting pictures for you. One's the correct use of a computer:

And the other is of one of the production control rooms:

You may recall I said there were two studios, and another two live floors. They each have one of these.

And a final fun fact, the switcher in the PCR is a Sony HDVS-7200, its control panel is the spaceship flight-deck on the right; 20 years ago I helped on the prototype of it. They were designed in Basingstoke. Makes me pine for the old days, as does seeing a Tektronix WFM and some Abekas boxes. I thought they had packed up years ago. And there's a shedload of Snell and Wilcox standards converters as all the pictures are sourced 1080i50 and need to be 1080i60 for broadcast. Used to work for them too.

Oh, it's all getting a bit technical

So I'm going to have to cut this one short...

Box Zero Day

Well, not zero. More like Box One Day. But some folks have got a Box One as a product and I wouldn't want you to think we've been goofing off...

In fact, the day starts so early this is what normally greets me:

Although admittedly this is 8:00am. I think the timezones are a bit out, but I could be wrong.

And remember that cloppa castle in the background, that's going to crop up again real soon. Not today, not even tomorrow but soon...

So, after another 40 minute tour of Sochi and Adler (hello rings, hello airport, bye airport, hello rings) I am now determined to get a tracker app so I can see just how bad this route is, and then walk. Once it stops raining.

So, now there would be some more pictures of inside the IBC, but that's a bit sensitive so sorry...

Now one interesting is that the area Customer has is larger that the area the OBS has and the area the BBC has would rattle around in one of the two studios here. We're talking scale.

The view from my desk is of the IT support desk and a couple of things strike me.

1. It's an IT help desk, and they need one...
2. There are at least 4 folks working here...
3. They are working out the 24 hour rota for them...
4. It looks like the pay desk from Clerks, and I so dearly wish Jay or Silent Bob were hanging around outside the doors and Dante and Randal worked there. FYI: IMDb

But the day ends on a reasonable high with Box Zero. And given that it had to boot - on the right network, took some finding it did - and then partition the drive and then flash the software and then acquire guide and finally display pictures, I think it did OK. But I have to admit the bit where it does the disk takes about 5 minutes and has zero feedback... well that's nerve racking that is

And now we just have to make the box deal with two 25Mb streams.

Oh yeah, it's one o'clock and the heavy metal disco hasn't stopped yet...

Getting to understand things

So after breakfast and a wait at the bus stop:

We found we had missed the bus. Meh, that means a 20 minute wait in the howling gale and lashing wind. I hate the way digital cameras represent weather... But instead the nice lady Customer contractor called us up a minivan bus. And sure enough within five minutes there's a van bus to take us to the IBC. And we get to go the logical way, not the airport way as the mini-van bus can turn left. And also make 180 turns in the road. We're just fortunate the driver kept his hands off the handbrake.

And it was after going through panicky security, hurry up, who's bag, who's bag, and finding I am now one belt short of a pair of trousers, that you understand what the Olympics is all about.

Take this shot of the side of the IBC:

The place is massive, does that explain stuff? No?

Well how about Customer have got 4 studios here? They have Studio 1, 2 and floor 1 [for the Today program, which is not only missing John Humphries but also me*] and floor 2 for Nightly News with Gromit (or someone, Willard White, but I think he was in Diamonds are Forever).

And to go with those studios they have production areas and cameras and racks and sound and all the shinola needed to make TV. And don't forget the graphics areas and tape (yeah!) and monitoring and compliance and continuity. And somewhere in all this is us, 143 deployed settops to see the output of the show.

There are about 3000 Customer folks coming, by the way. More than can attend some events.

But that's not it.

Outside the IBC are literally hundreds of brand new buses all with the Sochi logos on them. And there must be thousands of those mini-vans buses cos there are 20 parked outside my wing of the hotel. And there are 12 wings - which would interest KFC, I'm sure. And 6 hotels.

So it's not about the sport. Really, some bloke sliding down a mountain is nothing compared to the planning and effort of putting the show on in the first place. They should televise the build up, and then mention in the credits who got gold for mixed yodelling.

Any hoo. At lunch I did not have one of these. the C is soft, by the way, like chateau. But that doesn't stop the sniggers...

But to things more important.

Tomorrow we'll start bringing the real settops up, the disk partitioning code is ready and I tested an upgrade to one box that worked so I'm pretty happy there. Mind, playing some of the video they have is proving tricky...

And I leave you with a panorama of the IBC at night...

Yup, it really does change colour...

* cos it should be spelt programme

Wednesday first day in the office

Breakfast

Is provided in a buffet style in what must surely be [a] the least breakfasty place in the world and [b] probably going to be the fitness centre once this is all done.

But as we leave breakfast we get a look at the hotel in daylight:

Now, I'm sure that sooner or later I'll get a nice picture of the place, and the view has been pretty, but what would the fun of that be?

The bus journey

Now, it is said you can walk from the hotel to the IBC in about 20 minutes or you can take the bus. In about 20 minutes. See, thing is, they didn't do the roads too well and the buses - which drive on the right - can't turn left. So we end up at the airport before we can go round a roundabout - or circley-ways as the yanks call them - so we can head back to the IBC. Now, we're still in the woods as some of the turns can only be made by aiming at X and hoping you miss X, don't crash into Y and end up in Zed. And then we're at the IBC.

The IBC

I'll post some pictures of the International Broadcast Centre tomorrow when the weather's worse but it's a big ol' place. With airport type security and more on the way in. So you don't have to empty your bag or anything but you can't take a bottle in. Or a flask. So my nice new empty water bottle is now in recycling. Very apologetic, they don't understand, it's the IOC's rules. Something with having to drink Coke and not water. But there's a way around this.

Customer

Now, to get into the Customer area, which is about 1/3 the IBC, you need an Customer Staff badge. To get the Customer Staff badge, you have to go into the Customer area. You can see the problem here, right? Luckily someone got me mine.
But once through all this rigmarole, you need a coffee. But that's OK cos Customer have provided a solution:

Free Starbucks. Except the coffee is made by Russians and therefore kicks a bit. First coffee where not only does the cream float, but also the sugar lumps. And you do need them.

And now to our office past a stack of TVs for the various settops.

I then meet folks again, they say hello make sure I've got everything including a chair. Which is nice as they'd like things running by Friday if possible [Championship Games?]. Oh and at at least 15Mb/s and some at 25Mb/s.

So that's us busy then. We can just about manage 15Mb/s but 25 is out of reach. However, recording and playing back are possible if done as separate tasks. That's a massive startup script for the hospitality suite, but we can do this. It's for the troops after all.

And after that it's lunch. But Customer have thought of that:

And have provided an all day restaurant, with views of the mountains.

So I've battled with the data rate with base and I have looked at the disk partioning that needs doing for the boxes. And I'll continue with that tomorrow.

Dinner was in the other restaurant at the hotel - Italian for those folks not from Italy...

The joy of an overnight flight.

The 10:30pm flight from Heathrow to Moscow can be marked by a couple of things:

• Aeroflot UK staff haven't heard of the IOC accreditation being used as a Visa, so there's a slight delay...
• Son, that ain't hand luggage, that's luggage
• The heat. The incessant heat. Word to anyone on the flight, bring some water with you.
• When they say 'the flight is open for boarding' that's your last announcement. So everyone gets on. Don't go expecting ordered rows or zones. When they say get on board, you can stample grannies. I think. But not babushkas, cos they will stample back...
• Dinner is a choice of beef with vegetables or chicken with porridge. That could be a translation issue as the meal is actually chicken with boiled oats. Ahh, right. Well you gotta try these things.

The arrival in Moscow is marked by a greeting from OGOC volunteers:

They see us to immigration where the use of IOC accreditation as a Visa is a new thing... And then to the departure area for the Sochi flight.

You have to admire Mastercard who have guerilla marketed Moscow airport...

Once we land in Sochi we can see an array of volunteers at the validation booth:

Well, they're standing right next to it. So, having collected my bag, I approached them. And no, this is not the validation booth you're looking for. You have to go to the one in International Arrivals. So there's basically 10 folk in brightly coloured tracksuits, ahh the 70s, keeping each other company.

So we're met by Stan from NBC and he takes us to International Arrivals and we get Validated. I'm one of the lucky few that seem to have been processed correctly. Some of the others have had their picture covered with the RFID token, so now need a new badge or some extreme surgery.

Outside the weather is typically Winter Olympics:

And Sochi looks exceptionally welcoming... We drive around and through Sochi in a brave attempt to see something less grey but fail and go to the hotel. Which is exceptionally soviet modern in appearance. So modern that not all of it is complete.

We're dropped off at Building One but our rooms are in Building Two [yeah, see? soviet] and so we trog over there. We're each given a key and wander off to our rooms. Now, it's whenever o'clock as far as I can tell and there's a bed with my name on it, so the brain's having a wind down so instead of making the correct decision it decides 'Oh, they've given us jumpers' but then the dormant [majority] part kicks in and adds 'and boots, and toothpaste in the bathroom'. So I end up back in reception - or whatever you're going to call the lobby with a desk in - to get a less occupied room.

Now, the rooms are small. They could actually benefit from one less bed. And one more cupboard cos that would bring the number of cupboards to one. There's hanging space and a shelf or two, but no actually cupboard. Or anything resembling drawers.

Or a safe, which is perhaps the most concerning...

It is however, sparkly new and clean.

It even has tea and coffee making facilities. No tea or coffee, but facilities.

So tomorrow and it's off to the IBC; the NBC offices closed 5 minutes after I got here so I couldn't get a NBC pass for the various areas. And frankly you would not have wanted me typing - as can be witnessed here.

Finally Megafon have a Sochi offer for phones. It's called the "Welcome to Sochi" plan and gives a SIM with 3GB data and an international calling plan for 1200 Ru, £25 or so. The Megafon store is situated between the domestic and international arrivals halls and I'm sure the NBC staff will let you go get one. It does take a while, mind. But then anything with a computer does. There's free WiFi in the hotel too. It's quick at the moment, but then there's only about 10 folk here...

Evening Update 

The restaurants are reasonably priced with smaller dishes [the Russian restaurant served a nice rabbit stew in a small bowl] and some beer. The drawback is that they can't charge to the room nor do they accept American Express.
There is also an Italian restaurant, but I haven't found it on the grounds I don't have a map of anything.