UKTV Play to go HD - Printable Version
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RE: UKTV Play to go HD - James2001 - 31-08-2023
Looks like all the zooming's from the sides and bottom of the screen as well, doesn't look like anything's cut from the top of the screen.
A total mess that UKTV are handling shows this way, and have been for months. Surely anyone even remotely techically aware should have spotted the issues right off the bat, not let it continue for 9 months and counting.
I've seen programmes go out in all sorts of horrible ways on minor channels, but it doesn't usually happen on the major ones, and when it does it's usually fixed after a couple of episodes at most- not ongoing for months on end!
RE: UKTV Play to go HD - Neil Jones - 01-09-2023
Well the first actor that comes along with a name full of wide characters and you get the attached (click for bigger) on Drama.
You can't seriously tell me those letters literally filled the whole horizontal picture frame in 1991...
RE: UKTV Play to go HD - James2001 - 01-09-2023
Seems quite likely, in my opinion anyway, the issue is with the conversion of SD into HD to load onto their systems, and for some reason it's de-interlacing and zooming into the picture.
Many CRTs, especially older ones, had large amounts of overscan, so the graphics safe area was quite generous to make sure it wouldn't be cut off, there's no way some of the first and last letter of that caption wouldn't have been cut off on most people's TVs if that screenshot is how it actually was.
The credits on today's Casualty were further from the edge of the screen than before (though that could have been variation with the caption generator when it was made), the copyright strap was still virtually at the bottom of the screen though, and it was still filmised.
The zooming is admittedly a lot less noticable than the filmising, likely due to the fact most people will be watching without any overscan, and nothing important will be in the area that is cut off due to the producers compensating for overscan at the time (if you're watching on a TV with overscan added to the already zoomed in picture on the other hand...), it's still something that you'd expect to be picked up though. Regardless of whether the problem originates in Red Bee, UKTV or SES's hands, these are all major organisations who should be versed in proper technical standards, issues like this shouldn't be ongoing for months. Even if UKTV are technically right when people have contacted them about this that the issue isn't in their hands, you'd still expect them to spot there's a problem, find out where it's coming from and get onto whoever is responsible to sort it.
RE: UKTV Play to go HD - James2001 - 04-09-2023
On today's Casualty, the show's logo on both the opening titles and the end of the show was clearly off centre (it hasn't been on other episodes), the copyright strap still very close to the bottom of the screen:
Also the scrolling end credits also had the strange interlacing artifacts I noticed on a couple of episodes a couple of weeks back. So the transfer of this episode has been even more botched than the others.
On an unrelated note, this episode (series 6, episode 12) had two attempts to try and do what was meant to look like a single take following characters from outside into inside, but you can see where the join is (not least due to an electrical fitting suddenly appearing next to the door). I remember picking up on this when UK Gold showed these episodes in the early 00s.
Series 7 starts on Friday, and from what I can remember, this will be the first time it's been shown since the 90s- a shame it's likely to be botched with these filmised, zoomed in transfers as well. UK Gold showed the first 6 series a few times in the early 00s, and also showed series from the late 90s/early 00s, but I don't recall them ever showing anything in between, and Drama's never gone back before series 10 until this particular run. I think Really showed various series at one point too, but again I don't think they went any earlier than the late 90s. I particularly remember the final episode of series 9 whicn ended with a suicide bomber blowing up the ward, and BBC1 did repeat that episode a couple of times during the 90s, but I've never seen it since.
RE: UKTV Play to go HD - TIGHazard - 05-09-2023
In regards to the zooming in, I wonder if these files have a test pattern at the start. Some of the TOTP episodes that escaped the BBC archive have those and if you put them into handbrake, with a long enough pattern at the front it will crop the edges of the frame as the pattern has a bigger black border around it.
Not that I think UKTV would be using something as simple as handbrake but I could see something similar as being the cause.
RE: UKTV Play to go HD - James2001 - 05-09-2023
Though even with handbrake, it doesn't take much fiddling with the settings to stop it zooming in when it detects black bars. While they'd be using something more advanced than Handbrake, it feels like there's people at Red Bee, UKTV or SES (whichever one is responsible) who don't have any real idea what they're doing.
harshy - harshy - 05-09-2023
(05-09-2023, 11:09 AM)James2001 Wrote: Though even with handbrake, it doesn't take much fiddling with the settings to stop it zooming in when it detects black bars. While they'd be using something more advanced than Handbrake, it feels like there's people at Red Bee, UKTV or SES (whichever one is responsible) who don't have any real idea what they're doing.
I don’t think it’s SES they just deliver the channel output to a satellite, it must be Red Bee.
RE: UKTV Play to go HD - Technologist - 05-09-2023
(05-09-2023, 01:28 PM)harshy Wrote: I don’t think it’s SES they just deliver the channel output to a satellite, it must be Red Bee.They do Stockley Park …… https://www.ses.com/ses-signs-bbc-studios-adoption-playout-solutions-and-distribution-50-video-channels
RE: UKTV Play to go HD - dbl - 05-09-2023
Yep, the channels are played out from Munich, Stockley Park serves as a backup, and/or ad-hoc things (i.e. if something needed to be live).
RE: UKTV Play to go HD - harshy - 05-09-2023
Well I will happily work there and sort out the issues I am well versed with ffmpeg, and if they use Handbrake I’ll take a tutorial :-)