It's nice but it lacks the panache of the previous ident (original soundtrack version). The subtitles tag, apart from being almost obsolete anyway, is far too big, as is the BBC logo which could be reduced to half the size it is now and still be effective.
It's just not as 'this-is-HD-the-best-television-can-offer' as the last ident.
Is it m being just critical or is the water close up absolutely awfully animated? I thought it ooked like something out of an early Pet Shop Boys video.
Overall its a nice ident, meaningless never the less, but I'm still quite unsure about the gradient in the BBC blocks.
It is a bit like the Stereo DOG that was used in the 90s that was quietly retired when everything was expected to be stereo.
Was NICAM ever something that you had to switch on or off manually? Or was this flag simply to show off the great new stereo service?
NICAM was broadcast continuously - and in the UK it was always broadcast in stereo mode even if the programme itself was mono. This meant that the stereo indicators on TVs were permanently on, even for mono shows, so broadcasters used to put up a STEREO graphic. (It also made those without NICAM TVs aware that the show was in stereo)
You just left your TV in NICAM mode all the time - and got better sound quality on mono shows as well as the digital path was better than the analogue FM mono audio.
(NICAM was brilliant for its time - and also used in D/D2-MAC. But then it went out at a very high data rate - 728kbps - which is more than the max that Dolby Digital 5.1 is encoded to on DVDs...)
It is a bit like the Stereo DOG that was used in the 90s that was quietly retired when everything was expected to be stereo.
Was NICAM ever something that you had to switch on or off manually? Or was this flag simply to show off the great new stereo service?
NICAM was broadcast continuously -
There was an exception for a while on ITV. Because the NICAM coding within the ITV network was done at source, at the studios within the sound in sync encoders, if there was a feed from a company that had not upgraded to DSIS then the NICAM carrier would be extinguished. This happened for a few months before TV-am upgraded to DSIS and stereo working. Because TV-am's signal bypassed the regional ITV centres and was patched directly to the transmitters 06:00 to 09:25 at the same time as that nice non-sync video cut, there'd be a splat as the NICAM switched, and your receiver's OSD or pilot lamp would change state.
Other non stereo companies feeding a stereo one were unaffected, they continued to use BT audio lines to connect to the network, and those companies that had converted fed their transmitters with a continuous NICAM feed.
It is a bit like the Stereo DOG that was used in the 90s that was quietly retired when everything was expected to be stereo.
Was NICAM ever something that you had to switch on or off manually? Or was this flag simply to show off the great new stereo service?
NICAM was broadcast continuously -
There was an exception for a while on ITV. Because the NICAM coding within the ITV network was done at source, at the studios within the sound in sync encoders, if there was a feed from a company that had not upgraded to DSIS then the NICAM carrier would be extinguished. This happened for a few months before TV-am upgraded to DSIS and stereo working. Because TV-am's signal bypassed the regional ITV centres and was patched directly to the transmitters 06:00 to 09:25 at the same time as that nice non-sync video cut, there'd be a splat as the NICAM switched, and your receiver's OSD or pilot lamp would change state.
Other non stereo companies feeding a stereo one were unaffected, they continued to use BT audio lines to connect to the network, and those companies that had converted fed their transmitters with a continuous NICAM feed.
Aah. I wasn't aware that the ITV network was run like that for live shows. I guess that the TV-am/ITV switching was still transmitter based - and nothing like that really happened on the BBC or C4 transmitters.
The BBC were fed DSIS (the NICAM audio is the same format as the audio use in Sound in Syncs - so you just extract it and remodulate it AIUI - no encoder required) and the BBC Network feed was in DSIS, with local opt-outs also encoded in DSIS. On the soft-opt point you'd hear a splat sometimes as the Vision+DSIS was switched between the network and local feeds.