EastEnders

That's strange, the picture just went back to "video look" for a few seconds when Sharon was talking to Lofty, then filmised again. I just wound it back and watched it several times to be sure because it caught my attention.

Could it be it went out like that in 1985? Although surely the technology wasn't available to do a pseudo film look back then?

No, there's no way it would have gone out like that in 1985. Not only was the technology to do it in its infancy, and UK Gold showed today's second episode as part of a "Dirty Den Weekend" back in 2003, and that wasn't filmised (though their showing then had the credits from the 1995 repeats).

The fact the picture's so jerky and the text on the end credits looks pixellated is an indication that they seem to have put it onto the server by directly removing every other field, presumably accidently. Even when they intentionally filmised shows they didn't usually do that because it degrades the picture quality so much, there'd usually be some sort of blending or interpolation. Though the fact it went back to 50i for about 5 seconds seems strange.

I've just looked on Virgin Media's UKTV play as well and it's the same- Monday & Tuesday's episodes are 50i, and Wed, Thurs and today's are filmised, so whatever's been done, it's affected the versions of the episodes on there as well. Have they been sent to UKTV in that state?

It's likely the VOD software just pulls the stream from the same copy of the file used for Playout.

I see what you mean about the 25p switch. Almost looks like a good VHS recording.

Was there an edit in the first episode? One second Angie was berating Lofty for breaking a glass thanks to Sharon's flirting and then she was back behind the bar talking to Nick within about 3 seconds.

I was about to ask - if someone loaded it and edited it without due consideration to interlacing, that might explain the missing field.

If they edited it on Windows Movie Maker, anyway...

I used to edit on Windows Movie Maker (and VirtualDub) back in 2004 and always managed to keep the content properly interlaced (and in the correct aspect ratio)

Funny how an 18 year old using basic software could do these things better than people making programmes and working for TV channels

Were you editing SD content in HD?

HD in 2004?

I was altering aspect ratios and letterboxing 16:9 content though, and still keeping it interlaced properly.

Still filmised today, they really aren't paying any attention to their content, are they?

One strange thing about these repeats is seeing characters in consecutive scenes in totally different places. Like today we saw Lofty (half naked) in the Vic, then the next scene he's at Ethel's door (clothed), then we saw Nick Cotton at Ethel's, then at Dr Legg's the next scene, then we see Arthur at the allotment, then back at their house the next scene, then at Dr Legg's the scene after that. Gives the impression the characters are teleporting around.