[antos]

They have already opened the online applications. Open castings will be held in May. And the season will air in autumn, as usual. With a new production company. Kind of...Endemol Finland will produce the season with Kim Sainio as the executive producer. Sainio worked as the head director in seasons 1-4. He didn't really work with the show after that, until last year he acted as the voice of the talking birdhouse.

[antos]

The logo for this season looks like this:

[Jords]

Looks like a dragon :L

[antos]

Originally Posted by Jords

Looks like a dragon :L

Yeah, well...I kinda thought it looked like something Mozilla would've created. :P

Nevertheless, kind of original. I think.

[Jords]

Originally Posted by antos

Yeah, well...I kinda thought it looked like something Mozilla would've created. :P

Nevertheless, kind of original. I think.

Its Firefox's eye!

[antos]

Originally Posted by Jords

Its Firefox's eye!

So much for the originality then. Maybe Mozilla is the main sponsor this year.

[BBfanUSA]

Hell Theme?

[antos]

I have absolutely no idea of the theme. I guess it's possible, it could be Hell or something very similar. Seeing as the producers here thought season 5 with the Slum/Paradise-theme was a success.

[BBfanUSA]

it would be interesting to see cause i hear that Finland's BB is all about partying every night

[BrutalGentleman]

It should be possible to watch this year's Big Brother Finland 24/7 live video streaming service over the Internet even if you're not located in Finland. You need to pay for the subscription, but that's all - there are no geographical restrictions. See below for the details.

----

Big Brother Finland 2011 - the seventh Big Brother season in Finland - begins in about 16 hours from now, on this Tuesday, 30th of August, at 7 p.m. local time (19:00 EEST, 16:00 UTC/GMT).

According to the TV channel/company in charge of broadcasting the show locally (Sub / MTV3 Oy), they have purchased the necessary distribution rights which allow them to officially accept (paying) viewers from abroad. This means you should be able to create an account in their Katsomo.fi video portal and subscribe to their Internet-based BBF2011 24/7 live streaming service regardless of whether you're located in Finland or not.

The entire BBF2011 season (three months) goes for €39.90. But if you purchase it before September 2nd, you'll get it at the reduced price of €34.90. Major credit cards are accepted... I think.

After the purchase, you simply log in to the following page with your newly created Katsomo account and can then access the live video streams... once the service officially launches later on this Tuesday (the streams are not there yet as of this writing):

http://www.katsomo.fi/bigbrother

----

They advertise they have six different video streams for this season. The exact nature of these streams has not been publicly revealed... but as we got six video streams also last year, you could imagine them having remained more or less the same:

1. "Director's Cut 1"
2. "Director's Cut 2"
3. "Living Room"
4. "Bedroom"
5. "Yard"
6. "Camera Mix"

The DC1 / DC2 streams have human director and human camera operators. In these streams, pictures fluidly switch from one camera to the next, tracking the housemates and following the flow of the events in the usual style of a TV show.

While the DC1 is the primary stream (and the one you'll watch the most), the DC2 stream is used as a secondary stream in situations when people are doing different things in different parts of the house and the DC1 stream can't reasonably show everything alone. At times when the housemates have all gathered together, DC2 may revert back to an identical picture with DC1, but it can also simply display another angle to the situation. Sound engineers controls the mic lines for both the DC1 and the DC2 streams independently, so they can each have independent audio, fitting the picture, and with the irrelevant mic lines closed.

The other four streams are more like surveillance cameras, with the sound only coming from the fixed house mikes (that is, with all the echo, hum of air conditioning, etc.) But even these streams are occasionally adjusted remotely: for example, they might point the camera at a different direction, showing a more relevant view, or switch the view to another camera in the same room. In any case, these streams are not tended constantly by human operators the way the DC1 and DC2 streams are.

I'm pretty sure this year's video stream selection will be identical to the last year's arrangement or at least reasonably close to it.

In addition to the live 24/7 video streams, you will likely find...

1. the dailies
2. the Sunday eviction shows, and
3. the daily "BB Extra" talk shows

...for online viewing in the Katsomo service after they have first been broadcast locally. At least that was the case last year. All these shows are broadcast locally on TV for free, but last year, you needed a 24/7 subscription for getting an online access to the eviction shows and the dailies.

----

Besides the streaming video service and the recorded shows, there's also the official BBF2011 website with news, video clips and updates (the site has also not launched properly yet, as of this writing, but will probably get more content and a better layout soon enough):

http://www.sub.fi/bigbrother/

----

Then there's the official discussion forum:

http://keskustelut.sub.fi/forum/big-brother-2011/

And, alternatively, the unofficial - but rather popular and well-established - local fan forum, BBPlaza, which usually caters for foreign / English-speaking visitors if needed, especially during international housemate exchanges:

http://bbplaza.net/forum/
http://bbplaza.net/

----

Last but not least, there's BBViewer - a free Windows software application for viewing the official Big Brother Finland 24/7 video streams in a more convenient way: in multiple panes and arrangements, without having to use a clumsy web browser:

http://bbviewer.blogspot.com/

BBViewer requires a user account in the Katsomo portal and a paid subscription to the BBF2011 24/7 live service. It does not allow watching the streams for free, but it's a great app for viewing them - much more convenient than the official browser-based interface.

This year's version of BBViewer has not been released yet, but the developer is committed to releasing it soon after the launch of the season... after which it will be available for download on the above-mentioned site.

----

Hope this helps for starters... and serves as a starting point for anyone interested in the Finnish edition of the show! If you try to subscribe to the live 24/7 service but encounter difficult Finnish words, use Google Translate to your advantage. Or ask for help here, or on the above-mentioned forums.

This year's BBF house is said to be more colorful than ever... although that does not necessarily amount to much.

The tagline of the 2011 season is "More secrets than ever."

[BrutalGentleman]

A couple of screenshots from the 24/7 live service:



Viewing Director's Cut 1 at the moment. The black bar below the video window contains links to the other video streams. You can also open a live thumbnail preview pane showing what's going on in the other streams by clicking the "Näytä kamerat" link.

I already gave instructions on how to subscribe to the service in my previous post. The streams weren't yet up at the time, so I could only guess at how they're assigned and labeled this year. It seems the former "Camera Mix" stream has been replaced with a "Kitchen" stream. In other regards, the stream selection remains the same as last year.

Key to the labels of the streams:

Director's Cut 1 = Director's Cut 1
Director's Cut 2 = Director's Cut 2
Makuuhuone = Bedroom
Olohuone = Living Room
Piha = Yard
Keittiö = Kitchen

You can find pictures of the house and the housemates here... or maybe Antos wants to post them straight in this thread.

[Ryan.]

Looks like a fan project

[lostalex]

Looks like BB China.

[Patrick]

>>>>>>>

[Sam:)]

Ewwwwh that house is cheap

[BrutalGentleman]

Upcoming housemate exchange. The exchange will take place between BB7 Finland and BB4 Norway on Friday (according to the Finnish production team) but possibly on Sunday (according to the Norwegian production team). During the weekend, anyway. The Finnish housemate chosen for the exchange will be revealed today (Thursday).

BBPlaza, which is an independent Finnish BB fan forum, has traditionally opened a couple of English language threads for foreign exchanges so that fans from both exchange countries can meet and discuss, maybe ask background questions about the housemates and the events in both houses, or get translation help from each other. And just for general commentary, too, of course.

Related threads in English:

Housemate swap between BB Finland 7 and BB Norway 4 (BBPlaza - see here for instructions on how to subscribe to the 24/7 live feeds)
Big Brother Norway 4 - Live discussion topic (BBPlaza)
Big Brother Finland 7 - Live discussion topic (BBPlaza)
Big Brother 7 Finland (World of Big Brother)
Big Brother 4 Norway (World of Big Brother)
Big Brother 7 Finland 2011 (The-site)
BigBrother Norway 2011 (The-site)

Related threads in Finnish:

Asukasvaihto (BBPlaza)
Kuka asukasvaihtoon? (BBPlaza)
Big Brother Norja 2011 (BBPlaza)
Big Brother Norja 2011 - 24/7 keskustelu/raportointi (BBPlaza)