BBC Two 2015 with 90s idents

I've made no secret of the fact that, in my opinion, the BBC2 1991-2001 set is the best ident era ever, irrespective of channel. Of course, it's not perfection (I think a few, such as Aerial, would have looked better if they had used a real model) but it's pretty close.

If they were able to go back to the original film elements in order to rescan them in HD (and it is not clear as to whether the film elements are all still in existence to make this a potential possibility), then it would be like all my Christmases come at once, but, assuming the original film elements are all still in existence, I see one thing getting in the way to spoil this... money.

I think really it depends on how long they're planning to keep using them.

Certainly if they know in the long-term they're not going to replace them, it would be nice, but probably an unnecessary expense despite how bad the source material looks even compared to the new logo/Subtitles tag that are overlaid on top of them. They could scan them at UHD and make them even more future proof for the inevitable BBC Two UHD!

Considering they're using next/later slides based on some of the earlier idents (Sign*, Water, Steam), horrifically stretching 4:3 copies, zooming and tiliting the aforementioned idents at a jaunty angle they were never designed for (just to match a trail design style, goodness only knows why is even still in existence), I'm not sure quality of the source footage is the major issue here.

More likely they're content with the selection they have available and perhaps consider some of the earlier examples dated from an aesthetics point of view, rather than a purely technical one?

*The Sign example I saw last night, in primetime no less, is particularly, laughably botched - the easiest thing in the world to seamlessly loop and they've somehow messed it up with a noticeable jump in the video after 5 seconds. Amateurish to say the least.

If they do UHD, It would be a BBC UHD channel to test the waters before launching full channels or not. Depends if UHD takes off or not. I would think of it of that BBC HD channel before they launched BBC Two HD.

The crazy thing is that apart from those slides and the weather, I don't think jaunty angle 2s are actually even in use any more. So the only thing those slides match is the once-a-weeknight weather forecast.

They're getting rarer but unfortunately they're definitely still in use as the default if the programme isn't deemed worthy enough of its own style trail endboard.


As an aside, it won't be long before the resurrected 2000 "2s" (Kebab, Predator, Woodpecker) will have been on screen longer than their original run lifespan (22 and a bit months).

Didn't Predator also make a brief comeback towards the end of the yellow and purple era?

Indeed it did, with the new name Venus Fly Trap:



(Picture from TV Room)

The Christmas 2000 ident also made a comeback for the 2006 Winter Olympics, albeit with a new soundtrack, perhaps that's one of the reasons we got the "TWO TWO TWO" jingle last year, was the original music... destroyed?

Let's never speak of that again.

It never. happened. ok?

I second that. I thought I had those blasted jingles banished from my memory, but now it will take a day or so for them to stop reverberating around in my mind.

Please. Everybody. It was all a bad dream

Apologies if this has been posted before but the 1999 Christmas ident and stings have been uploaded to Behance:

https://www.behance.net/gallery/34227361/BBC2-Xmas-Idents

I think what's most observable is how the 2's character was achieved through relatively subtle movements. It was all in the minor details. The recent Chinese New Year special ident was good and thoroughly well realised, but extremely brash and ott in comparison.