Top of the Pops

I think it's actually shot on 35mm film, rather than filmised; the clip comes from a filmed concert, "From a Distance - Cliff Richard: The Event", which I believe was issued on video, and certainly broadcast on ITV (with simultaneous stereo audio across most ILR stations) during Christmas 1989.

The picture looked a bit too clean to me to have been film, especially with 1989 telecine technology and presumably no digital cleanup tools, no noticable dirt, scratches or grain and the image looks quite "video-ey" even despite that, but I guess I could be wrong. It's an extremely clean and sharp telecine transfer by 1989 standards if it is film.

No - that definitely looks like good quality film. There are no late-80s video camera artefacts on it (tubed trails, CCD white/red lines on highlights, no blown out highlights, no detail enhancement or aperture correction 'edge' effects etc.) and nor is there the tell-tale vertical resolution drop of late 80s field-dropping in a DVE.

That's film.

Yes - agree. None of the tell-tale signs of late-80s electronic video cameras.

I'm perpetually slightly miffed that they won't upload SD material to iPlayer at 50fps.

Would Starlight/Numero Uno at 10:45 come with a flashing images warning these days?

They do, but for me it only works if I watch iPlayer through the TV. If I try watching it on a computer it doesn't work. At least, this was my experience with the older Louis Theroux programmes on there.

It depends on the delivery route I think. Some SD shows are compliance edited in HD these days - so are treated similarly to HD originated shows.

Just tried TOTP and Dad's Army and yes, turns out they are 50fps but only on the telly.

SD material is 50fps certainly through all the TV-based iPlayer platforms I've used (Virgin, Sky, Roku/NowTV, Samsung and Chromecast), it's only on the web they're restricted to 25fps for some reason.

On a similar note, the ITV Hub app via Virgin has recently bought in 50fps playback, though the Roku/Now TV version is still 25p. Can't speak for other platforms as I haven't tried them recently.

ITV content via Virgin is strange because it's delivered in two ways- through Virgin's own own demand interface, which has always been 50i, but is still only SD (and low bitrate SD at that), but they also launched the ITV Hub app on there around 18 months ago, which has content in HD, but was only 25p until recently. As opposed to BBC content which has only been available through the iPlayer app for years. Virgin doesn't have the All4 or My5 apps , Channel 4 and 5 content is only through Virgin's interface (Channel 5 content has HD, Channel 4's doesn't).

I still wish more streaming services would bring in 50/60fps streaming, especially premium one. If the BBC and now ITV can do it, why can't the big players like Netflix and Amazon? With UKTV bringing in the early series of The Bill as streaming only, it's incredibly frustrating it means we can only see it in 25p, and badly deinterlaced at that (lots of jagged lines and very jerky movement).

Amazon Prime Video have 50 or 60fps streaming for their live sport output. They switched very soon after they started doing Tennis.

I can also confirm that ITV Hub on the Apple TV is 50fps.

TOTP may be treated as HD within the BBC now - as the repeats have often been taken through an edit to comply them for modern broadcast standards (particularly for photosensitivity) and this may mean the final delivered master is now HD.

I don’t think it is HD on iPlayer - the BBC logo in the top left would look a lot sharper if that was the case. I’ll have to check get_iplayer but I don’t think the maximum resolution for the shows I looked at were 1080 or even 720p.