"BBC TWO is changing"

Who cares why it appeared - a great ident!

To start the day on TWO: Ceefax slide, followed by good old colour bars!

Then, everything was plunged into blackness...

Momentarily stuck on the Ceefax slide thereafter with music playing until it was finally resolved.

Eh?

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/bbctwo_snapslemish1.jpg http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/bbctwo_snapslemish2.jpg
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/bbctwo_snapslemish3.jpg http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/bbctwo_snapslemish4.jpg

Was this ever used?

Yes.

...though the picture was a fish in Belfast. "Slemish" remains on the BBC Northern Ireland Shelf of Symbols and is occasionally shown to over-excitable school children on tours of the building by equally over-excitable continuity directors.

Slightly odd occurrence before Meet Joe Black (25 mins ago).

Invisible Walls was the ident. It played to 23 seconds and then went to black, leaving only "Subtitles" and the logo visible for the last couple of seconds.

Thing is, I thought this only happened when an ident has played its full duration?

I've seen Invisible Walls run for over 24 secs (28 if you count the special 40 Years version), so can anyone explain when/why it cut out in the same manner as a finished ident play?

Cutting to black at the end of the ident is daft. Why don't they just end the animation with the last frame of the ident, making it a little less obvious that there has been a cock-up?

Speaking of idents never used, I found this on www.completefabrication.com:

http://www.grangehill.net/img/bbc2xmasunseen.jpg

It looks like several variants of BBC2's 1997 Christmas ident were made, featuring different celebrities peering through the snow dome. But we only saw Vic, Bob and Ulrika - and a generic version. Why did they get chosen and not the others?

In the past when it happened with Capoeira and Skateboaders ahead of Breakfast, it has simply cut to black after the allocated duration the playout server gave for the ident plus an extra second or two. Strange that it would fade to black as the music lasts around 35 seconds as we have seen with Ice Cube being played in full and starting after 5 seconds or so of the normal Invisible Walls theme.

Thanks for that...I don't see the point allocated durations myself (as opposed to allowing the ident to *potentially* run its entire course should some cockup lead to that); are they mandatory?



Were they the main focus of the Xmas campaign? I don't remember it that well myself, but I was thinking if that were the case, it could explain why they were chosen over the others. Still, it was odd not to include all the variants, no matter how big or small their part in the promotions; if they're there, why not use them? I certainly don't see anything wrong with having Clarkson and friends in a '2' ident anyway.

Clarkson's face is aesthetically displeasing, and as such should have no part in an ident.