the 'BBC' here has black boxes, which contain the letters in white, instead of the white boxes I am used to seeing elsewhere for stills/footage of this era. Also, while the pic is quite small, the BBC boxes here appear to have a lighter tint toward the top, instead of just a solid colour...
I suppose BBC Wales were so keen on using their red underline variant of the BBC logo they appeared on the idents. Putting the red underline on the simple white version would have looked wrong.
1) Would the Christmas idents (1991-96, possibly beyond) have been played off laserdisc?
In the later years of your timespan ('95-'97), the Christmas Idents were played off profile servers. I would have thought that laserdiscs were recorded before that, as this was the format that Presentation used for all their pres items.
Before your timespan and in the glorious days of "live" action christmas idents (the skaters dancing on an iced-over pond an so-on!) they were of course real models filmed in one of the Presentation Studios! I recall an engineer relating a story about an ident consisting of a load of figures set on a model built on a record player. It was controlled from a spare lighting fader in pres B's gallery so that the speed of the turntable could be adjusted by fading up and down!. He told me that it had a tendency to speed up ever so slightly over the course of a few minutes, so the engineers were required to stop it during programmes to prevent the little models from spinning off the recod player!!!
tvarksouthwest posted:
2) MHP has footage of BBC2's 1987 Christmas ident rewinding on air. The tape noise does not look like Betacam, however - what other format could it have been?
In 1987 it was probably 1" ... ? I'm sure someone will confirm when the BBC adopted the D3 format. D3 became the BBC's standard video format until programmes started to be made in widescreen, when DigiBeta became the format of choice instead.
2) MHP has footage of BBC2's 1987 Christmas ident rewinding on air. The tape noise does not look like Betacam, however - what other format could it have been?
In 1987 it was probably 1" ... ? I'm sure someone will confirm when the BBC adopted the D3 format. D3 became the BBC's standard video format until programmes started to be made in widescreen, when DigiBeta became the format of choice instead.
I'd have thought it would have been on the standard 1" tape, however Pres might have prefered it some where locally (like the regular) symbols were rather than in the basement. AIUI the pres areas did have some VT machines for playing OU programmes - if these weren't Beta, then perhaps U-matic or MII?
Before your timespan and in the glorious days of "live" action christmas idents (the skaters dancing on an iced-over pond an so-on!) they were of course real models filmed in one of the Presentation Studios! I recall an engineer relating a story about an ident consisting of a load of figures set on a model built on a record player. It was controlled from a spare lighting fader in pres B's gallery so that the speed of the turntable could be adjusted by fading up and down!. He told me that it had a tendency to speed up ever so slightly over the course of a few minutes, so the engineers were required to stop it during programmes to prevent the little models from spinning off the recod player!!!
It would be what's called "living hold" where it's held on a final frame but it's still alive i.e. the background may still be animating but the logo has formed.
Chances are it was a slipped finger more than anything as when the ident was created, at least 30 seconds living hold would have been left on it.
2) MHP has footage of BBC2's 1987 Christmas ident rewinding on air. The tape noise does not look like Betacam, however - what other format could it have been?
In 1987 it was probably 1" ... ? I'm sure someone will confirm when the BBC adopted the D3 format. D3 became the BBC's standard video format until programmes started to be made in widescreen, when DigiBeta became the format of choice instead.
I'd have thought it would have been on the standard 1" tape, however Pres might have prefered it some where locally (like the regular) symbols were rather than in the basement. AIUI the pres areas did have some VT machines for playing OU programmes - if these weren't Beta, then perhaps U-matic or MII?
The OU machines were U-Matic, but were in a completely separate continuity suite known as OU Con. This was a self-operated presentation suite which could be run by just one person (the announcer) and serve both channels simultaneously! This is why OU of the period contained a lot of clocks, holding slides and music. The announcer could open one channel with an announcement and a "follows shortly" slide, open the other channel, go back to the first channel and introduce the programme and so-on until either channel closed down and went back to Ceefax/Testcard whatever, or they handed control to the full galleries down the corridor.
AIUI the machines in OU Con couldn't be controlled from the main NC1/2 suites and so I wouldn't have throught these were used for Christmas idents.
OU Con was last used for the scrambled night-time service BBC Select, which was the predecessor to The Learning Zone. That will have been in about 1995 I reckon. Again, that was run by a one operator (not an announcer though, as all the con was prerecorded) and the tapes were U-Matic. By the time the Learning Zone launched, the newer automated D3 based transmission area was on-air so OU Con was decomissioned.
The main galleries in the old manual Pres area
may
have had Beta SP machines in later years which were used for emergency fillers. I've
think
I recall someone saying that they did have a shelf of breakdown fillers on Beta...
Before your timespan and in the glorious days of "live" action christmas idents (the skaters dancing on an iced-over pond an so-on!) they were of course real models filmed in one of the Presentation Studios! I recall an engineer relating a story about an ident consisting of a load of figures set on a model built on a record player. It was controlled from a spare lighting fader in pres B's gallery so that the speed of the turntable could be adjusted by fading up and down!. He told me that it had a tendency to speed up ever so slightly over the course of a few minutes, so the engineers were required to stop it during programmes to prevent the little models from spinning off the recod player!!!
The OU machines were U-Matic, but were in a completely separate continuity suite known as OU Con. This was a self-operated presentation suite which could be run by just one person (the announcer) and serve both channels simultaneously! This is why OU of the period contained a lot of clocks, holding slides and music. The announcer could open one channel with an announcement and a "follows shortly" slide, open the other channel, go back to the first channel and introduce the programme and so-on until either channel closed down and went back to Ceefax/Testcard whatever, or they handed control to the full galleries down the corridor.
I hadn't realised OU Con handled both channels simultaneously. But I guess that explains why you often saw a black screen with "OU" in the top left corner before programmes start, indicating that OU Con was in circuit.
The main galleries in the old manual Pres area
may
have had Beta SP machines in later years which were used for emergency fillers. I've
think
I recall someone saying that they did have a shelf of breakdown fillers on Beta...
IIRC you still see the occasional SP standby, as well as D3s and Digis.
