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DOGS

No complaints about DOGs, please (October 2017)

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NG
noggin Founding member
TVam's wasn't as sophisticated, but as it was a simple monochrome key with just hour markers and hands, it was less obtrusive in some ways. It looks electronic, but a very simple monochrome key, but it could have been keyed from a mechanical clock (or on the day the regular clock failed it could have been an electronic clock replaced by a mechanical clock keyed instead)


How could it be monochrome? The TV-am analogue clock started off yellow!


Or do you not mean "monochrome" as in "black and white"?


Monochrome = single colour - doesn't have to mean B&W... Green-screen and amber-screen computer terminals were 'monochrome'...

The TVam clock looks like it could conceivably have been a key-only source, filled with a matte (so it could have been any single colour) and possibly given a mixer edge or drop shadow.
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IS
Inspector Sands
There's no reason why an analogue clock would necessarily have a smooth movement. The ones used full screen by other stations weren't always smooth, in fact the hands of some even wobbled!


I would have thought that the original TVam clock would have been an analogue mechanism keyed onto the picture. As I said on the last page it was a last minute addition, I doubt they'd have been able to suddenly magic up a digital solution to that in a few weeks
BL
bluecortina
TVam's wasn't as sophisticated, but as it was a simple monochrome key with just hour markers and hands, it was less obtrusive in some ways. It looks electronic, but a very simple monochrome key, but it could have been keyed from a mechanical clock (or on the day the regular clock failed it could have been an electronic clock replaced by a mechanical clock keyed instead)


How could it be monochrome? The TV-am analogue clock started off yellow!


Or do you not mean "monochrome" as in "black and white"?


Monochrome = single colour - doesn't have to mean B&W... Green-screen and amber-screen computer terminals were 'monochrome'...

The TVam clock looks like it could conceivably have been a key-only source, filled with a matte (so it could have been any single colour) and possibly given a mixer edge or drop shadow.


I can tell you that they used CDL mixers, similar to the GVG300 (and that it was a lucky escape to have been turned down for a job there!)
NG
noggin Founding member

How could it be monochrome? The TV-am analogue clock started off yellow!


Or do you not mean "monochrome" as in "black and white"?


Monochrome = single colour - doesn't have to mean B&W... Green-screen and amber-screen computer terminals were 'monochrome'...

The TVam clock looks like it could conceivably have been a key-only source, filled with a matte (so it could have been any single colour) and possibly given a mixer edge or drop shadow.


I can tell you that they used CDL mixers, similar to the GVG300 (and that it was a lucky escape to have been turned down for a job there!)


CDLs were used in all three News studios at TVC - N1, N2 and N3, and a stretched one was also used in the BBC's large CMCCR OB truck (which was designed to combine the outputs of other OB trucks, and didn't have cameras of its own) in its 80s iteration.

The News CDLs had built-in synchronisers on each bank - allowing you to freeze, slide, shunt etc. and also coping with non-sync signals if you preset cut them.

The CDLs in News were in use right up until the move to TC7 (1997?) and N6 (1998? 1999?) when Sony 7350s were used. (The move to N6 was before the move to the beige and red look - they replicated the N2 'cut glass blue' look in N6 for a bit)
WH
Whataday Founding member
How ever it was done, the French used the same (or did a credible knock off of the TV-am on screen clock) for Antenne 2's (now France 2) morning show Tele Matin.
Exhibit A..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n5qGDsnsCM


They used that for years, until something ridiculous like 2002 as I remember seeing it when I visited France around that time.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
Looks like that clock on Tele Matin was still in use in January 2002, except it had changed position to bottom left in late 2001 by the looks of it and then lost its drop-shadow in 2002 (there are other videos on YouTube showing that clock in various different colours and tints over the years between 1998 and 2002):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9RE9dGcE1I

By April 2003 it was still bottom left but had been redesigned and the design seems to have stuck, the modern clock is similar to this I believe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQDIdjxWCSk
SP
Steve in Pudsey

Indeed, for a long time BBC Breakfast Time had an "analogue" style clock, but I am sure it was electronically generated.


By a piece of kit called BAT - Breakfast Analogue Time - a Richard Russell production and closely related to the original electronic network clock captions.
MA
Markymark

I would have thought that the original TVam clock would have been an analogue mechanism keyed onto the picture. As I said on the last page it was a last minute addition, I doubt they'd have been able to suddenly magic up a digital solution to that in a few weeks


I'm not sure, it would have tied up a caption camera during the show, and (rather like the BBC regional globes and clocks) would have varied in size and position day to day depending who set the camera up each day !

I reckon it was electronically generated, I do remember GEC McMicheal (who became Vistek, who are now consumed into what is now SAM) showing off such devices at IBC 1984, so they may well have made the box, if only a custom prototype (based upon Mr Russell's design)
JB
JasonB
dbl posted:
Nickelodeon continuity (back in the 90s) always referred to it as a BUG, when they wanted viewers to spot a symbol for a phone in competition.


Their main DOG used to change each day too if i recall.
DB
dbl
dbl posted:
Nickelodeon continuity (back in the 90s) always referred to it as a BUG, when they wanted viewers to spot a symbol for a phone in competition.


Their main DOG used to change each day too if i recall.

Yup! *right in the childhood*
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
dbl posted:
Nickelodeon continuity (back in the 90s) always referred to it as a BUG, when they wanted viewers to spot a symbol for a phone in competition.


Their main DOG used to change each day too if i recall.


But not initially, it was originally a sort of flag type motif they stuck with for a bit. They started to change it daily in the mid to late 90s I believe and this went on for quite a while. The US network eventually settled on a "splat" design and then there was the major rebrand in 2009/10.
WH
Whataday Founding member
I would have thought that the original TVam clock would have been an analogue mechanism keyed onto the picture. As I said on the last page it was a last minute addition, I doubt they'd have been able to suddenly magic up a digital solution to that in a few weeks


The fact that the exact same design was used by France 2 suggests it was a piece of kit that generated a clock. The aliasing of the hands suggest it's a digital graphic rather than a live shot of a clock keyed.

It's not unthinkable that there was some sort of hardware capable of generating a clock by 1983.
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