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IT
itvblocks
Watching some old "Rogue Traders" clips and I have found a minor mishap here during a full Watchdog episode where the wrong VT got played!

The wonders of live telly ay?

(Blip is at 47:50 if the link doesn't work)

VM
VMPhil
Bit of a minor breakdown here (including ITV trials/slides being rewinded) (If it doesn't show up below it's 0:36-1:08 ).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7RkJ7_NeqI

Interesting to see this, although I think it's being fast forwarded not rewound, as the last slide says 'The End ('appy Christmas)' - presumably a message from Yorkshire who were sending it to all the regions? (The testcard says 'YTV Network 1')
EL
elmarko
If you pause it a split second after that you can see "GRA 5" in the testcard ever so slightly. There was something above that too so I played with the colours and it says "GRANADA MCR" I think.

https://imgur.com/a/wri7efp
VM
VMPhil
If you pause it a split second after that you can see "GRA 5" in the testcard ever so slightly. There was something above that too so I played with the colours and it says "GRANADA MCR" I think.

https://imgur.com/a/wri7efp

I've downloaded the video and gone frame by frame, after the Heartbeat trail there's a list of the slides followed by each slide with and without the programme name (and some have alternative slides).

*
CO
Coronavision
Very odd that those graphics would appear on a network feed at all, never mind on C4. They were local and did not appear outside the YTV/TT regions.
IS
Inspector Sands
Very odd that those graphics would appear on a network feed at all, never mind on C4. They were local and did not appear outside the YTV/TT regions.

They have just been using the graphics for the menu of what was on that feed/tape. That was never meant to be seen on air - just a nice/easy way for their promos department to knock up a list of contents

Presumably Yorkshire fed down a whole load of promos and slides etc for C4 and other regions to use. What you're seeing is the tape they recorded that on fast forwarding rather than playing - looks like it was meant to be a trail for Heartbeat (which was of course a Yorkshire production)
Anglialad and Coronavision gave kudos
RO
robertclark125
It could be GRANADA NCR not MCR. NCR stood for network control room, and is seen at the end of a closedown video on TV ark.
BE
Bennyboy1984


Just came across this one, what would cause it to play in sound only?
MA
Markymark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2tFDaX-tuU

Just came across this one, what would cause it to play in sound only?


Perhaps a faulty VTR, or perhaps the video (but not the audio) not being correctly routed to NC1, or perhaps something else
BL
bluecortina
Very odd that those graphics would appear on a network feed at all, never mind on C4. They were local and did not appear outside the YTV/TT regions.

They have just been using the graphics for the menu of what was on that feed/tape. That was never meant to be seen on air - just a nice/easy way for their promos department to knock up a list of contents

Presumably Yorkshire fed down a whole load of promos and slides etc for C4 and other regions to use. What you're seeing is the tape they recorded that on fast forwarding rather than playing - looks like it was meant to be a trail for Heartbeat (which was of course a Yorkshire production)


Every Thursday morning there was a playout of trailers and promotional material from each ITV company to all the others - at least from all those that had material they wanted to contribute. It was co-ordinated by ATV (and probably Central latterly). It went on for a couple of hours. If you were sat on the VTR at the receiving end(s) you had a list of what was coming from where and you either recorded the whole lot or recorded whatever you wanted from the list. It was very common to see various circuits come and go as ATV switched between the companies circuits and so seeing the circuits idents was quite normal. It was also not at all unusual for a ‘sending’ company to put up a caption if there was a last minute change of material, or indeed material not making it at all. Although this was a very well co-ordinated operation, time was usually of the essence so if you finished your bit early it would be a courtesy to put up a caption saying ‘that’s it’ or some such so that the network could proceed to the next source if it was available to ATV. Sometimes a company would finish early but you couldn’t proceed to the next company because of circuit limitations.

I would fully expect C4 to be across this operation as they too needed some of this ITV promotional material. Looks to me that C4 just recorded the entire ITV promo feed and the computer cued it to the inputted ‘in’ point as required on the tape. So, likely just a man/machine interface cock up.
SC
Si-Co
Very odd that those graphics would appear on a network feed at all, never mind on C4. They were local and did not appear outside the YTV/TT regions.

They have just been using the graphics for the menu of what was on that feed/tape. That was never meant to be seen on air - just a nice/easy way for their promos department to knock up a list of contents

Presumably Yorkshire fed down a whole load of promos and slides etc for C4 and other regions to use. What you're seeing is the tape they recorded that on fast forwarding rather than playing - looks like it was meant to be a trail for Heartbeat (which was of course a Yorkshire production)


Every Thursday morning there was a playout of trailers and promotional material from each ITV company to all the others - at least from all those that had material they wanted to contribute. It was co-ordinated by ATV (and probably Central latterly). It went on for a couple of hours. If you were sat on the VTR at the receiving end(s) you had a list of what was coming from where and you either recorded the whole lot or recorded whatever you wanted from the list. It was very common to see various circuits come and go as ATV switched between the companies circuits and so seeing the circuits idents was quite normal. It was also not at all unusual for a ‘sending’ company to put up a caption if there was a last minute change of material, or indeed material not making it at all. Although this was a very well co-ordinated operation, time was usually of the essence so if you finished your bit early it would be a courtesy to put up a caption saying ‘that’s it’ or some such so that the network could proceed to the next source if it was available to ATV. Sometimes a company would finish early but you couldn’t proceed to the next company because of circuit limitations.

I would fully expect C4 to be across this operation as they too needed some of this ITV promotional material. Looks to me that C4 just recorded the entire ITV promo feed and the computer cued it to the inputted ‘in’ point as required on the tape. So, likely just a man/machine interface cock up.


Fascinating stuff. I believe last-minute promos/ads used to be transmitted to the regions at about 10.30 each weekday morning. There was a break in schools programmes from ATV that companies had to fill locally (with local programmes or an interval caption) because the network was unavailable due to this promo exchange. I’m not quite sure why, as surely there was more than one “line” available.

As recently as the late 2000s, there were still dedicated times of the day when LNN would feed promos and/or ads to STV, UTV and YTV (NTC) which they recorded down the line.
IS
Inspector Sands
Sounds similar to the old BACC advert playouts where new adverts were played out twice a week from various facility houses to ITV and other commercial TV companies. That was (in the 90's/2000's at least) all sent out and presumably co-ordinated from LWT.

I'm surprised that they'd play out directly from the feed record tape, I'd assume the ones they wanted would be comped into a cart machine or similar, though if something was only getting a couple of plays then probably not worth doing that

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