Was just reading again a piece about the infamous powercuts at TVC a few years back and it mentioned that Analogue and Digital continuity had no idea what the other was going, resulting in a very amatuerish opt out to Euro 2000.
Anyway, enough of my blaberring. Basically, do Redbee still have seperate continuity for Analogue and Digital or is it all and one these days?
Was just reading again a piece about the infamous powercuts at TVC a few years back and it mentioned that Analogue and Digital continuity had no idea what the other was going, resulting in a very amatuerish opt out to Euro 2000.
When exactly in 2000 was this? The only powercut I can remember was one on the 30 June 2001.
Was just reading again a piece about the infamous powercuts at TVC a few years back and it mentioned that Analogue and Digital continuity had no idea what the other was going, resulting in a very amatuerish opt out to Euro 2000.
When exactly in 2000 was this? The only powercut I can remember was one on the 30 June 2001.
Anyway, enough of my blaberring. Basically, do Redbee still have seperate continuity for Analogue and Digital or is it all and one these days?
IIRC, the separate continuity for analogue and digital ended in the summer of 2000, only a few weeks after the power failure you've read about.
The division wasn't just about continuity; the entire transmission operation was separate until that point.
Analogue still broadcast mainly in 4:3 (with maybe the occasional letterboxed film) and all presentation was 4:3. The digital channels broadcast in 16:9 with widescreen wherever they had the suitable source and pillarboxing used elsewhere. ISTR that *all* presentation was also 16:9, regardless of what would follow it.
During this period, there were sometimes different sources used to be as sympathetic as possible to the viewer e.g a 2.35:1 film shown cropped to 16:9 letterbox on digital whilst on analogue they'd run the same 4:3 pan-and-scan version they'd have for years.
On top of everything else, only the analogue channels supported English regions, digital viewers in England all got the same thing - there was even a 'national, regional' news programme called UK Today (rather odd since it was only made for England - Scotland/NI/Wales were always regionalised from day 1 of digital) which filled the regional news slots!
Since BBC1 (ditto BBC2) between 1998 and 2000 took the form of two completely separate channels which happened to have the same branding and programming, it presumably made sense to have separate continuity too.
IIRC, the separate continuity for analogue and digital ended in the summer of 2000, only a few weeks after the power failure you've read about.
It was later than that, the analogue TX area gradually closed over about 2 or 3 years.
Originally the digital area was only staffed and on air from midday to midnight (except BBC Choice of course which closed at 2am-ish IIRC). 4:3 programmes were played from the analogue area and 16:9 from the digital one. Each passed their respective programmes down lines to the other.
In October 1999 the situation reversed with the digital area open 24/7 and the analogue area open from 12-12. All programmes were played from the digital area and then between those times fed to the analogue one
They gradually reduced the hours the analogue area was open and it was still on-air at least mid to late 2001. Even after that they kept a facility to do split presentation/continuity for a while but I don't know how often it was used
Originally the digital area was only staffed and on air from midday to midnight (except BBC Choice of course which closed at 2am-ish IIRC). 4:3 programmes were played from the analogue area and 16:9 from the digital one. Each passed their respective programmes down lines to the other.
In October 1999 the situation reversed with the digital area open 24/7 and the analogue area open from 12-12. All programmes were played from the digital area and then between those times fed to the analogue one
Very frustrating not to be able to see the BBC2 clock in widescreen during the closedowns of Christmas 1998 - and absolutely typical that a year later, the policy was to use an ident at closedown.
Very frustrating not to be able to see the BBC2 clock in widescreen during the closedowns of Christmas 1998 - and absolutely typical that a year later, the policy was to use an ident at closedown.
I can't quite imagine how frustrating that really must have been for you
I remember the continuity was still seperate when I got digital at the end of September 2001, but I think it stopped soon after. It was quite an interesting novelty flicking between analogue and digital and hearing a different voice say the same thing.
Very frustrating not to be able to see the BBC2 clock in widescreen during the closedowns of Christmas 1998 - and absolutely typical that a year later, the policy was to use an ident at closedown.