BBC admit credits are unreadable

Yep - that is just poor implementation in the playout area (to save money) - which is an insult to the audience. The thinking these days goes "Joe Public won't notice" - which is condescending to our audience. The same thinking is behind the reduction in resolution of services on satellite and Freeview (loads of channels are now 544x576 not 720/704x576) and the ever increasing levels of compression.

The jump is caused by the digital video effects (DVE) box that does the shrink being switched into circuit. To do the squeeze it has to add at least one (sometimes more) frames of delay and the switch point is always obvious - as you couldn't chose a signal more obvious to highlight the delay than a rolling caption. If they played the programme out through a matched delay, and fed the DVE with a pre-delayed feed it would be transparent...

Other ECP styles that overlay rather than squeeze or reposition are transparent because they don't need to delay. If the credits were mixing cards rather than rolls or crawls you'd also not see the delay.

What does the ECP even add? Apicture of Jonathan Ross leaning on his desk - why can't the announcer just say his name?

Interesting point - the new edicts are wasteful in the case of JR because the amount of time for editorial content is reduced with there longer being the option of scrolling the credits over the closing musical act.

I would have no problem with ECPs at all if they became PCPs - that is, Post-Credit Promotions. But as usual, the BBC insist viewers "value" them.

Just a quick idea/mock of one option they could go for if they insist on keeping the marketing stuff during credits...
http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/credits_idea01.jpg
...the advantage would be that the credits wouldn't get squeezed, and would allow for either vertical or horizontal scrolling. I find the current design tends to result in the bottom left area being empty, unless they also include a 'Tonight' schedule list.

I think they need to relax on the '30 seconds' time limit. Whilst it's generally sufficient for gameshows other programmes (eg. Doctor Who) have a lot more people to credit. Maybe they should have a maximum end credit length dependant upon the length of the programme. Thus 30 minute programmes would still have 30 seconds, however 45 minute programmes could have up to 45 seconds, and 1 hour programmes could have up to a minute.

As I think I've said before, ECPs aren't the worst idea in the world as they can highlight to viewers what's next etc. even if they're unintentionally ignoring the announcer.

The issue is over designing them - programme makers can make credits which are ECP friendly whilst still having them legible, as shown by the design in use before the shrinking box idea or what C4 do.

I caught an episode of EastEnders on UK Gold which had the right aligned credits and yes, ok it looked a little odd but at least there was space for an ECP if necessary and still readable, fixed-size credits.

There's no way the BBC can "enlarge" the font size without either a total rethink of the ECP design or the problem of credits scrolling too quickly in order to get them all shown. Let's hope they're looking at the former.

That judder as always bugged me too - makes the whole thing look pretty shabby.

The timings as Charlie has said are pretty inflexible too - the credit design of Doctor Who at Christmas looked very poor compared to the previous classy ones and then you've got 1hr shows like Holby which have to now zip through the names so quickly because they've lost 10secs.

Exactly why ITV's "Heart Era" 2000-2002 ECPs were, in my mind, the best set this country has seen to date. Both in terms of the basic accommodating design, and the fact that graphically they looked classy.

In general, it looks so much smarter when ECPs are added alongside credits, rather than the credits themselves being shifted all over the place.

That sums up my thoughts exactly.

But with regards to this: at least it might be a step forward.

I would rather something along the lines of Five, with a slight squeeze of the credits to one side, but no more than a 40% loss of the original screen size so that the closing credits sequence as a whole would still be completely "intact" and readable. I also despise ECPs that use previews or video because they really do ruin the nature of a closing sequence. I much prefer a static logo or image accompanied by a brief "next is...." or somesuch.

Trouble is the introduction of the current ECP was at least three steps back.



This is what I suggested would be better when these were first unveiled:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y163/brekkieboy2001/mocks-other/ecp1.gif


Not the best example with the EastEnders credits perhaps - this style would work better with the character and actor on the same line - but you get the idea.

The new ECP design has actually grown on me, somewhat. True, I'd rather they used a slug instead of a squeeze, but the text is, while small, not distorted, and therefore readable. The problem I have is when the credits are squeezed so that all that's left of the text is a series of little white lines.

When the credits are small, however, the ECP fails. And I still think they'd be better off using a slug.

How about....*shock horror*...letting the credits be credits and not two things at the same time. Are credits not supposed to give credit to the people involved in a show? Does squashing them up not detract from that? Then, announce what's coming up after the programme. I just don't see the need for all the on-screen clutter. Most people are not as stupid as the BBC tells us we are.

That's really my thoughts on the subject too.

When you look at BBC channels (for example, and by no means the worst) they have slowly progressed from:
Ever increasing trailers, to
ECPs taking up ever more room on the screen, to
IPPs (slugs) on some channels during the last few moments of a programme.

Of course, the next move will be the "perma-IPP" placed as a DOG, as VM, Sky & Discovery channels seem to insist on doing to promote the like of "Crocodile Night on Thursday".

I don't need, to know, I don't want to know, and it looks pointless on a DVD of a film I've recorded a year before.