[DTV]

An era when such attention to detail was a matter of course.

An era or an ethos, though? How much was down to the standards that Lambie-Nairn instilled in his company?

[Mike]

An era when such attention to detail was a matter of course.

Totally agree, and it's the little things like that which I love finding out about 20 odd years down the line.

Although looking at the three examples of this design we have in 16:9 you can see that despite the future being widescreen, they weren't designed for 16:9 use, nearly all the action takes place within the 4:3 frame - it's only by chance some elements extend beyond that into the 14:9 area, and anything on the outer edges is non-existent, it leads to this strange disproportionate feeling on the NSE titles of the era, and the later SET titles. I discount the unused 'London Live' titles as they were designed with a different colour palette and making full use of the frame (and I'm glad they didn't get used), but the colours all seemed rather 'off'.

Next question is were the floating/spinning maps on the regional titles physical elements that were shot on film and composited on, or entirely CGI renders?

[Steve in Pudsey]

I'm not sure how much thought went into the placename choices, otherwise the unfortunate rearrangement of the letters of Scunthorpe on Look North might not have happened.

[Mike]

I'm not sure how much thought went into the placename choices, otherwise the unfortunate rearrangement of the letters of Scunthorpe on Look North might not have happened.

Or perhaps the opposite? Maybe the artists thought they'd include that deliberately...

[VMPhil]

Did North West Tonight only go widescreen after they moved on to the LDN-inspired titles. Was trying to find a clip on TV Ark but even the 14:9 clips are from that bizarre era where they put 14:9 black bars on top of the 4:3 picture just to make it *look* like it was in widescreen, complete with a split second at the start every night before they appear, revealing the ruse.

[Mike]

Did North West Tonight only go widescreen after they moved on to the LDN-inspired titles. Was trying to find a clip on TV Ark but even the 14:9 clips are from that bizarre era where they put 14:9 black bars on top of the 4:3 picture just to make it *look* like it was in widescreen, complete with a split second at the start every night before they appear, revealing the ruse.

NWT didn't get any gallery updates until 2006, when it switched to widescreen. Quite late on in that arena but I think it was because of the impending move to somewhere else.

Here's a post on the blue place about it from March 2006
www.tvforum.co.uk 

BBC North West Tonight: LIVE NEWS - LOCAL NEWS - YOUR NEWS - Page 58 - TV Forum
TV Forum Light Dark System Default Homepage TV Home The Newsroom Media & Tec…
  Source: www.tvforum.co.uk

Which is surprising how close the technical refit came to the very good 2007 graphics (18 months).

[James2001]

Did North West Tonight only go widescreen after they moved on to the LDN-inspired titles. Was trying to find a clip on TV Ark but even the 14:9 clips are from that bizarre era where they put 14:9 black bars on top of the 4:3 picture just to make it *look* like it was in widescreen, complete with a split second at the start every night before they appear, revealing the ruse.

The MOSI in Manchester actually had the actual piece of equipment that added those bars on display at one point (maybe they still do, it was 2015 when I saw it) amongst a bunch of old equipment from Oxford Road.

[Mike]

The MOSI in Manchester actually had the actual piece of equipment that added those bars on display at one point (maybe they still do, it was 2015 when I saw it) amongst a bunch of old equipment from Oxford Road.

www2.ppauctions.com 

Peaker Pattinson (Auctioneers) Ltd
Welcome to the on-line marketing and information area for Peaker Pattinson.
  Source: www.ppauctions.com

One of them? Though I suspect nations and regions ARC was done on a more simplistic level, I know Birmingham used their aston to add them in.

[Steve in Pudsey]

It wasn't really an ARC, just superimposed letterboxing to 14:9

[James2001]

Not really sure why they did it, if the regional studios weren't kitted for 16:9 then really it should just have gone out in 4:3, the cropping to 14:9 was incredibly messy.