The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Printable Version
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RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Technologist - 16-01-2024
(16-01-2024, 08:13 AM)Stooky Bill Wrote: It wasn't theirs as such, it was an IBA/EBU standard that barely anyone else used and didn't catch on.
By the time it merged with Sky it was only 5 years before the first DVB-S broadcast, and 8 years away from the launch of digital broadcasting in the UK. MAC was already becoming obsolete and the IBA was abolished so they were left with it.
If they'd survived they'd almost certainly have ditched MAC and gone with the standard DVB transmission. If it was possible they could have got more channels onto their satellites of course but still no where near as many as Astra. Even if they could stay on Marcopolo, transitioning to digital with so few transponders would have been difficult.
With the cost of owning and running satellites being expensive they'd have ended up on the same satellite as Sky and everyone else. The DVB standard offers everything MAC could and a lot more
The early 1990s were an interesting time as the technology of analogue could be stretched a bit ....
but the Digital answer was not quite there yet!
So we had assorted MACs from the 1980s - about the only one that had any traction was D2MAC as it fiited on cable .... But that did not stop the Europeans for mandating it .....!
We had PAL plus - as demoed on Ch4 - but the super black was a bit of a pain!
And then on the Production side - Snell /BBC R&D Enhanced PAL ...which was almost immdeitely superdcded by SDI SMPTE ST 259M (270 Mbit/s REC601 ) which was just moving out from the labs and was cheaper!
NHK tried to stretch Analogue into HD -(Hi vision) but they were the only ones that got it to work end to end...
(Well there was HD MAC and Eureka 1250 was very good at Production techniques)
and so Leonardo Chiariglione was so frustrated he stopped doing HD and Invented MPEG Video coding...
and NICAM was re -engineered to work at 728 Kbit/secs for Stereo TV sound ...
The ELG was formed - we know it by its 1993 name of DVB - with -S in 1994 and _T in 1997
by which time it was very obvious that the TV world was moving fast to being Digital using standards in Production and emission.. ....
But the early 1990s were full of pseudo analogue things not quite working!!
RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - cityprod - 17-01-2024
(16-01-2024, 08:46 AM)Stooky Bill Wrote: It just depends on which company came up with the idea of making the programme and buying the rights. I suppose their patch isn't too far from Scotland
Around the same time Thames were making their two Adrian Mole series in South West London despite it being set in the midlands.
Another that springs to mind is Wycliffe which was an HTV production despite being set in Cornwall
Wycliffe wasn't just set in Cornwall though, it was filmed in Cornwall, with the production office being based in Truro on the Malpas Road in quite a large building, which if memory serves has been replaced by flats long since.
RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Andrew - 17-01-2024
The one I always remember was Where the Heart is, which was set in Yorkshire but made by Meridian
RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - nwtv2003 - 17-01-2024
(17-01-2024, 06:25 PM)Andrew Wrote: The one I always remember was Where the Heart is, which was set in Yorkshire but made by Meridian
I’m sure WTHI was one that was passed around, I believe Anglia had a credit producing it prior to Meridian, and I think it also had a Granada credit towards the end, as GR/\N/\D/\ which a few shows did around that time.
RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Bluecortina - 19-01-2024
(16-01-2024, 06:16 PM)Technologist Wrote: The early 1990s were an interesting time as the technology of analogue could be stretched a bit ....
but the Digital answer was not quite there yet!
So we had assorted MACs from the 1980s - about the only one that had any traction was D2MAC as it fiited on cable .... But that did not stop the Europeans for mandating it .....!
We had PAL plus - as demoed on Ch4 - but the super black was a bit of a pain!
And then on the Production side - Snell /BBC R&D Enhanced PAL ...which was almost immdeitely superdcded by SDI SMPTE ST 259M (270 Mbit/s REC601 ) which was just moving out from the labs and was cheaper!
NHK tried to stretch Analogue into HD -(Hi vision) but they were the only ones that got it to work end to end...
(Well there was HD MAC and Eureka 1250 was very good at Production techniques)
and so Leonardo Chiariglione was so frustrated he stopped doing HD and Invented MPEG Video coding...
and NICAM was re -engineered to work at 728 Kbit/secs for Stereo TV sound ...
The ELG was formed - we know it by its 1993 name of DVB - with -S in 1994 and _T in 1997
by which time it was very obvious that the TV world was moving fast to being Digital using standards in Production and emission.. ....
But the early 1990s were full of pseudo analogue things not quite working!!
The early 90's were a very exciting time in tv engineering, there wasn't really a lot of easily accessible information around at the time concerning REC601/656 etc. I had to 'do' acceptance testing of quite a fair bit of digital equipment acting as connected digital islands, working how to do measurement and acceptance was quite a challenge. Even the engineers from the kit manufacturers were scratching their heads at some of the questions I asked, most of them arranged informal meetings at the factory with the actual equipment designers which was often quite an eye opener for me in the best sense. I learned lot from them!
RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Technologist - 19-01-2024
Getting digital,islands linked was a great challenge ……
And then needs to adapt the systems timing that analogue relied on Into a digital world
Also the move from a composite signal to Idigital) component…Which was rather new …..
I think we all learnt a lot and the youngsters could teach the old hands as well as vice versa.
But sadly there were fewer youngsters needed …..
and thus a lot of the true knowledge if how to engineer what productions needed was lost.
These days as “the cloud” now works faster .the timing of the analogue days
all be in in milliseconds rather than the nano seconds is neede as the signal is no longer clocked
at field /frame rate ….after all,analogue was true real time.
RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Frappé - 22-01-2024
As it's grown into quite a big discussion of its own, the posts around the infrastructure and facilities getting everything ready for the new 1993 franchises have been split off into their own dedicated thread.
https://pres.cafe/showthread.php?tid=660
RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - procrastination - 22-01-2024
Been reading the last few pages and have a couple of topics I want to ask about.
1) Years ago in Malaysia I saw a couple of episodes of Mr Bean that had the Thames skyline frontcaps, even though they were using the blue triangle endcap. (I remember one episode was the one where he thumps the Queen Mother, I can't remember what the other one was.) Years ago I remember someone on TV Ark's old forum saying that international copies still had frontcaps after the practice was abandonned domestically.
a) Was Thames sticking its frontcap on Mr Bean only, or were all programmes frontcapped?
b) Was Thames the only company sticking its frontcap on international copies or did other ITV regions do this as well?
c) If the answer to the other ITV regions is yes, when did they stop?
2) I remember during CITV's Old Skool Weekend "Mike and Angelo" and "Sooty" carried Thames frontcaps, but frontcaps were abandonned on CITV. Were those 2 programmes shown outside of CITV as well like Supergran?
RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - Neil Jones - 22-01-2024
(22-01-2024, 10:32 PM)procrastination Wrote: Been reading the last few pages and have a couple of topics I want to ask about.
1) Years ago in Malaysia I saw a couple of episodes of Mr Bean that had the Thames skyline frontcaps, even though they were using the blue triangle endcap. (I remember one episode was the one where he thumps the Queen Mother, I can't remember what the other one was.) Years ago I remember someone on TV Ark's old forum saying that international copies still had frontcaps after the practice was abandonned domestically.
a) Was Thames sticking its frontcap on Mr Bean only, or were all programmes frontcapped?
b) Was Thames the only company sticking its frontcap on international copies or did other ITV regions do this as well?
c) If the answer to the other ITV regions is yes, when did they stop?
2) I remember during CITV's Old Skool Weekend "Mike and Angelo" and "Sooty" carried Thames frontcaps, but frontcaps were abandonned on CITV. Were those 2 programmes shown outside of CITV as well like Supergran?
1) This Transdiffusion article seems to suggest front-caps were still used internationally long after the domestic network had stopped using them - "The old Thames mirror frontcap has been spotted before episodes of The Bill (for example) made well after 1988 when shown in certain countries. That Thames frontcap has even been briefly featured in an episode of The Simpsons, which shows how important this form of frontcap branding has been in cultural terms.":
https://transdiffusion.org/2004/05/24/frontcaps/
(The Simpsons reference is almost certainly the "Do Shut Up" segment from Season 11 where its claimed Do Shut Up is England's longest running series - and they're showing all seven episodes
)1) a) in theory all of them, but Mr Bean was an indie production (Tiger Aspect), not a Thames show. It was just presented by Thames to the ITV network (and later Central).
1) b) in theory, no - I think the ITC catalogue (Lew Grade's concept that made a lot of early ATV shows) retains the bulk of this both then and now.
2) Mike & Angelo ran practically forever and outlived Thames by some considerable margin (it transferred to an Indie after 1992). It was exported (and that's why they changed the music on it for the foreign market to the better known version) but AFAIK didn't air outside the CITV show, it being a children's show. Sooty has probably been aired in all kinds of slots over the years on both the BBC and ITV such is his appeal to all ages. According to Wiki he first appeared on a Sunday.
RE: The Media Question Amnesty Thread - James2001 - 23-01-2024
The Thames situation is always confusing when it comes to frontcaps and endcaps, as they've quite often changed them for repeats and DVDs.
For example the Dangermouse and Duckula DVDs have the skyline frontcap on all episodes, even though as CITV shows, Dangermouse wouldn't have had it after the fourth series, and Duckula never would have, and the last 2 series of Dangermouse and all but the first series of Duckula were shown after Thames changed their logo. Plus there's no endcap on any episode, which there was on the original broadcasts.
And mid-90s CITV repeats of Spatz and early 00s Granada Plus showings of French Fields had the skyline endcap (and I guess it's possible the frontcap was on the tapes, but not broadcast by them), even though both shows were made after they stopped using that logo.
And of course under Pearson and in the early Fremantle days, the endcaps on repeats and home video releases were usually replaced with the current Thames ones (even when the frontcap was kept.. or put on something it wasn't on in the first place)- even though it's mostly stopped, these copies still pop up from time to time, for example with Strike It Lucky on Challenge (where they also edited the openings of the first 2 series to hide the animated transition from the frontcap).
When UKTV Play put up the earlier episodes of The Bill a few years, they had the original frontcaps up until the end of 1992, but during 1993-98 episodes, they used copies with the 1997 Pearson Thames frontcap (with the exception of a few 1996/97 episode which did have the original Thames/Carlton endcaps), seemingly Fremantle still don't want to leave in the mentions of Yorkshire and Carlton. When they reached the point in 1998 where the show was no longer commissioned though Carlton, they went back to the original endcaps (with the ITV URL clumsily blanked out).