BBC Two 2015 with 90s idents

Do you mean restored as in put back in use or restored as in technically cleaned up?


I very much doubt they'll be a permanent fixture, as I say they look a bit crap in HD (compared with surrounding material at least) and they seem to been brought in a bit haphazardly

I reckon they're an improvised stop-gap between the anniversary idents and something new. Because they've nothing else

Especially since we're going into 4K a few years from now, this is definitely a stopgap for the next refresh.

I can imagine something like this happening in a couple days.

"Is your TV bloody broken? Look at how crap that looks"
"No, no. Its just BBC Two"
"Oh, ok that makes sense."

I very much doubt we will have widespread 4K for years. Look how long it has taken to get as far as we have with HD, and there are still loads of programmes still made in SD.

Yeah, 4K is a way off although the visible difference between that and HD will be far less than between HD and 4:3 SD which is what some of these were made in.

I'm not sure what format the early 90s ones would have been recorded on, or stored on since

[Off Topic Alert]
I'm actually surprised by the speed at which some productions are already thinking about 4k. You are right that it's noway near mainstream, the tech to support it (for the production side) is there already. The latest generation of "cinema" cameras are all 4K capable and it can only be a matter of time before the traditional psc/eng style cameras get the 4K treatment to, by then it'll make sense for most to acquire in 4k, even if they only intend SD delivery.

Yeah, I'm saying long-term several years. Changed my wording.

I wonder if BBC will do an ITV and rebrand everything, but keeping the same logos, just tying everything together and tidying up their channels. We all know BBC Two is a complete mess, BBC One is ok and doesn't really need much doing, but the idents are a bit of a mess. BBC Four hasn't been changed for years, although not sure they really need changing. And BBC Three, well has it been confirmed its going online only? I know it was pretty much happening but didn't know if it was 100%. Maybe a rebrand will happen when BBC Three stops being a channel.

We all know though that BBC Two is the biggest problem, so I don't think a full rebrand is really needed although would be nice, but of course its down to cost.

I actually didn't have a problem with BBC Two's 'Window' idents (before they messed them all up with awful music and moving the logo etc). They could easily just reinstate those, including the cappuccino and chase idents. Then just completely redesign the rest of the presentation as that is the big problem. Start from scratch with promos, stings, menus etc making sure no horrible garish colours and fonts are used. Get it all tidied up but making sure it has a bit of personality to match the channel. Why not take elements from the idents, not sure if that would work or not but use a feature from each ident as the focus, e.g. a sugar cube from the cappuccino ident, the trees/sky from the sunroof ident etc.
Like I said, that might not work, but its just an idea.

What would other people like to see, would others be happy with the window idents reinstated (to original form) or would you like to see a complete rebrand for BBC Two?

I'd love them to make new idents but in the style of the 90's ones, where the 2 numeral remains the focus of it, but with something different looking/happening to it for each one. The menus and end boards need to be revamped and it would be nice if they had a distinctive font for the channel in the way that the other terrestrials have.

I actually don't mind the current 90's idents, the only downside is that a lot are cropped to 16:9 and don't look great on BBC TWO HD (which I always watch instead of SD). Perhaps if some of the more classic 90's idents were properly remade but now in HD they could sit alongside some new ones for a hybrid package of old and new to suit everyone.

I think that would be easily achievable, having prop 2's in the days of 3D printing, 4k cameras and easy high frame rates means recreating the old idents, and thus making new ones should be a very easy job for an in house rebrand.

Acquisition in 4K makes sense for lots of reasons even if channels stay HD for a long time to come.

There are so many benefits for shooting in 4K and editing in HD - ease of reframing in post (allowing you to punch into an interview without shooting on two shot sizes), higher quality source pictures improve overall image quality (oversampling means 4K cameras can deliver better HD picture than HD cameras, particular as some single-sensor HD cameras are a bit marginal inHD in many cases), and some cameras that look amazing at 4K can be compromised if you use their internal HD downconversion/crops.

There are also situations now where co-productions are taking place with 4K-ready streaming services like Netflix, Amazon etc.

However, like 3D, I don't think there will be a mainstream linear 4K channel for a while, though I can see next-generation Sky boxes supporting HEVC and 2160/50p HDMI 2.0 output for either download/streaming or DVB-S2 (poss S2X?).

TV FORUM ALERT

No-one else apart from us and a couple of industry professionals are going to notice the "old" BBC2 idents look slightly fuzzy on BBC Two HD.

AS YOU WERE.

If it was just down to the number of people who notice such things, then why do they even bother with idents in the first place. Lets face it, fans of tv pres are quite a niche group. Here we may get excited and worked up over something like new christmas idents, or a channel re-using previous christmas idents, but majority of viewers couldn't care less, yet they still do it.

So the same can be said about the idents looking a bit fuzzy in HD, yes many may not notice it, but surely its about looking professional in everything they do, including on screen presentation, and at the minute it doesn't look all that professional.