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VM
VMPhil
Spencer For Hire posted:
VMPhil posted:
noggin posted:
Looks to me like a design choice rather than a 4:3 rescue job. When 16:9 started you were still designing mainly for 4:3 viewers - so making sure it worked in 14:9 letterbox was definitely your primary task, with the tiny number of 16:9 digital viewers effectively more of an afterthought.

Indeed - the only thing that really makes me wonder if it's cropped is the full screen bits of Clarkson waving his arms about (particularly near the end of the sequence) - if that was 16:9 surely it'd just fill up the whole frame and wouldn't need pillarboxing. Though again they may have just done this to fit in with the rest of the titles.


Just an aside, but I do remember catching a few minutes of that Clarkson series in which he was talking about how the programme was made in widescreen, and if you didn't have a widescreen TV, you'd miss out on the bits of the programme at the left and right hand sides of the screen. This was followed by laughter from the audience who presumably could see something outside the 14:9 safe area that those of us without digital TV at the time couldn't. I've still no idea what it was - probably something xenophobic or sexist.

Go to 50:48

https://youtu.be/UV2vnZwV0pU?t=50m48s (link should go automatically to right time)
Last edited by VMPhil on 10 April 2018 6:05pm
LL
Larry the Loafer
God I'd love for that to happen nowadays just to see the reaction it'd prompt.
JA
james-2001
You can still see some of it in 14:9 even though you can't see the rudest bits!

It's the 4:3 cut-out where you wouldn't be able to see any of it at all, but I doubt many people were watching that way in 1999, with digital TV very much in its infancy.
VM
VMPhil
james-2001 posted:
You can still see some of it in 14:9 even though you can't see the rudest bits!

It's the 4:3 cut-out where you wouldn't be able to see any of it at all, but I doubt many people were watching that way in 1999, with digital TV very much in its infancy.

Though the overscan on CRT TVs of the time would have cut off more on the sides of the picture than we can now see on uploaded videos of VHS recordings today.
EL
elmarko
The irony is that they go to a shot of the ceiling monitor which appears to be 4:3 with a 16:9 frame crammed in with bars
VM
VMPhil
elmarko posted:
The irony is that they go to a shot of the ceiling monitor which appears to be 4:3 with a 16:9 frame crammed in with bars

On the behind the scenes feature on TV Burp Gold 3 from 2010, there's a wide shot of the studio that shows they were still using 4:3 monitors even then. (They were also still using VHS to review programmes).

*
LL
Larry the Loafer
Wasn't there an odd phase where EastEnders clips were being played out from a VHS recording with a BBC Three DOG long after you'd expect VHS to still be used?
VM
VMPhil
Larry the Loafer posted:
Wasn't there an odd phase where EastEnders clips were being played out from a VHS recording with a BBC Three DOG long after you'd expect VHS to still be used?

I think Harry said on an interview somewhere that EastEnders wouldn't send them clips, so they had to say they couldn't use them (on the show). But then they decided to record them off air (Sky+ was mentioned though don't know if that's what they actually used).


I assume it was a case of using DOG-free versions when the broadcaster/producer was happy to send them clean copies, and if not they had to use off-air versions.
LL
Larry the Loafer
Turns out it's addressed as the start of this interview.

DV
dvboy
I would expect them to at least have used S-VHS rather than VHS.

There was a time when Harry Hill would spend a good 5 minutes of TV Burp on something from Living or Bravo or Virgin 1 where clearly they'd been sent it well in advance by Flextech/VMTV who wanted to plug a new show.

BBC Three and Four stuff would have the DOG on but I'd expect they recorded EastEnders from BBC One so it didn't have one. Am I right in thinking a lot of the BBC stuff is cut from the DVD 'Best Of' releases?

Went to a recording of TVB at TVC once, it was really good fun.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
The DVD was pretty much initially never going to happen anyway since going that far would effectively push it out of fair usage, which presumably they could get away with the initial ITV airings but nothing later. Presumably something changed as the shows can now be seen on Gold and Dave and of course DVD (as a repackaged compilation). Wiki suggests Cartoon Network took the show and repackaged it as well.

I think there is some BBC material on the DVDs and I'm sure EastEnders features at some point too.
VM
VMPhil
Cartoon Network showing TV Burp seems odd though they paired it with the made-for-CiTV series Shark Infested Custard.

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