[Neil Jones]

you have to look at the recent GOLD repeats of The Thin Blue Line to see someone's marketed 16:9 HD versions of videotaped 4:3 programmes...

*puts head in hands and cries*

I'm sure there are people who think shows went out like that in the 1990s...
Its up there with those who watch 4:3 in stretchyvision.
I thought we were well past this point, and that pillarboxing was going to be the norm... Evidentially not.

[Stooky Bill]

Quite possibly a transfer made back in 1994... which would make it a quite early 16:9 one if it is. Probably made not long afterwards if it wasn't.

Quite a lot of filmed shows in the 90s went out in 14:9, though in many cases that's actually how they are on the master tape- 14:9 in a 4:3 frame, rather than 16:9. That's how the 90s Pride and Prejudice was, then in the mid-00s they started using versions that just cropped the 4:3/14:9 master to 16:9 for repeats and DVDs until they finally did a proper remaster.

Super 16, which I presume most of said filmed programmes were shot on, has a 15:9 aspect ratio, and I guess creating 14:9 masters was a bit of a compromise before 16:9 became widespread to make use of some of the extra picture.

The other Screen One currently up on the iPlayer, She's Been Away from 1989, does look like a proper HD transfer, and also is 15:9, which means we get to see all of the picture on the original film, which is a rarity. These things are usually cropped to either 4:3 or 16:9. On YouTube there's a recording from an earlier BBC4 repeat that's 14:9, so possibly that's how it went out originally.

A lot of the early 14:9 programmes were done like that as a trial to see how the audience accepted the format in advance of digital TV. A range of genres were chosen, I remember at least one episode of Noels House Party being broadcast in 14:9

[Neil Jones]

I thought 14:9 was one of those "compromise" display only formats, not quite 16:9 but not quite 4:3, a sort of halfway house,. Ie stuff was shot 16:9 and then cropped to an extent either side?

[Technologist]

14*9 in a 4*3 frame for analogue rendition 16*9 material gave
something that worked for all..
and shooting 14*9 protected worked for both 4*3 and 16*9 acquistion
see the Widescreen Handbook
www.peternicholls.me.uk 
No programmes were made in 14*9
but an analogue version of a Widescreen programme may be delivered 14*9

[Dadeki]

Whilst we're on the topic, here's an item from Points of View that was broadcast in March 1998 about the BBC transmitting an evening of its programmes in 14:9, as an experiment for the upcoming digital service that was to launch later that year.

www.youtube.com 

Also, here's a very interesting comment from the video that was posted by Chris Wathen about the issues facing the implementation of widescreen:

Part of it was trying to do widescreen too soon which made the transition period longer than it needed to be and as a result handling it poorly, as we iterated through various different cludges on the journey. Widescreen CRT TVs were in practice delivered by making the picture shorter in order to make it wider rather than actually giving you more picture; you couldn't buy any widescreen CRT with the same height in the picture as larger 4:3 sizes. Cludges like rear projection were around for a while but it wasn't until the move to flat panel that widescreen TVs genuinely larger than a large 4:3 set became affordably available.

Then the start of widescreen transmissions were [sic] done before digital broadcasting which could only result in a lower quality broadcast; any form of widescreen transmitted through the existing analogue terrestrial system simply plonked black bars onto the existing 4:3 frame cutting part of it off to make it widescreen. Viewers on a 4:3 set thus lost part of their picture whilst even viewers on a widescreen set were then just zooming in to a part of the picture to make it fill their their screen but either way you now had lower resolution than watching 4:3. Then when it came to production for several years it was common to record in 16:9 but framed for 14:9 but with 4:3 safe graphics. Regardless of whether you had a widescreen or a 4:3 set, or analogue or digital, or any combination thereof, it was a cludge.

[James2001]

On the iPlayer, for some reason the 1990 Christmas special is listed at the end of series 1 rather than series 2 as it should be.

Is someone reading this? It's been put where it should be now!

[Omnipresent]

On the introduction of widescreen, I remember Brookside shoehorned in a story with Max Farnham explaining his new widescreen TV to a distinctly unimpressed Ron Dixon.

[James2001]

I seem to remember Max having that TV a good 2 or 3 years before the show actually went widescreen.

Though bizarrely, from around late 1995, the Brookside omnibus went out in 14:9- though all the examples I've seen online and compared with the original weekday airings, it's cropped with the picture shifted upwards (so all the cropping is from the bottom of the picture). Hollyoaks at this time, on the other hand, was made in 16:9, and the omnibus did have extra picture from the weekday showings.

[Technologist]

Whilst we're on the topic, here's an item from Points of View that was broadcast in March 1998 about the BBC transmitting an evening of its programmes in 14:9, as an experiment for the upcoming digital service that was to launch later that year.

As one of the techies able to put everything "back to normal" that evening the lack of viewer response totally
was at one level gratifying (In that 14*9 would be accepted) and surprising (as there were fewer complaints about the content than usual) - so we stood down most of the extra call handlers we had in .....

Getting programmes made in 16*9 was not as easy as you may think.....
News got things very right with a golf ball before each shot
- so if the camera was not set up right you could see the probelm and sort it out before editing!
(others with a "circle after white balance" less so as it was never square onto the camera)

But there were a few early disasters from which the whole industry learnt...
for instance the programme introduced /hosted by the President of the Ramblers Assocation -
one Janet Street- Porter.
She is rather tall and gangly - and thus does not look like the average person ...

But what went out was most peculiar so much so that a senior engineer phoned the Duty Engineer at TC and he and the Pres Editor impounded the tape.... and contacted the Commissioning Editor.
The tape was analysed shot by shot by his tech team the following day as the Comissioner demanded the Edit Decision List From the Production company / Post house ... and the analysis and EDL agreed about 98% of the time!
There then was a burst of re- education of everyone in the chain - to just be careful -
alongside the wave of panic that the BBC could "see" and "describe how" the error was made
AND were prepared to call in the EDL -
(which was seen as one of those contractual terms that the lawyers had added for no good reason!)
and then demand a re edit for retransmission ......
(which I think in this instance was impossible)

Getting 4*3 material shot 14*9 protected was a good way of getting something recoverable if there had been errors made ......
and this "shoot everything 14*9 protected" message was eventually understood....
(but for reason very different for why Analogue TV was transmitted 14*9)

It also got Directors/ camera operators very senstive to looking towards the edges of frame which led to better overall compostion .....

[Steve in Pudsey]

On Brookside, Channel 4 was experimenting with the Pal Plus format from 1994 onwards, and the Brookside Omnibus was one of the programmes that used the format.