Casualty

I haven't watched Casualty for ages, but watching the current episode on iPlayer, it appears the filmic effect has returned, which really jars with the soapy format of the drama.

Isn't everything on iPlayer delivered as 25p?

Noggin should be able to confirm that some of the 720p output is 50p.

Can't comment on Casualty specifically I'm afraid - because I have no idea! - but iPlayer does support 50p video on the two highest HD profiles: ~2 and ~5 mbps. So, if you're on HD mode and if you have a sufficiently high download speed, you'll get the smooth 'video look', if applicable to that programme. (On web, at least - I'm not entirely sure about smart devices and consoles, it may vary)

Casualty has been shot on film for a good few years now - it stopped being shot on video a long time ago.

The 1,000 episode is on this Sunday.

Actually it's always been shot on video, technically - it's just now shot at 25p instead of 50i (and when the film effect first came in, I think it was done in post).



Saturday (it says on Digiguide). They don't seem to be doing anything special for it. You'd think they'd destroy the ED again, or something.

Casualty was originally shot 50i, and for a brief period a horrible 25p 'film effect' was added in post. This was a really early version (I think it was something like 75% field drop/25% field blend in a low-resolution Charisma DVE - not the decent quality ARC100/ARC110 or Alchemist processing that followed. It looked dreadful.) After a brief period the show returned to 50i and continued that way for a long time.

It then switched to 25p and this may have co-incided with the switch from SD to HD - but it certainly has been 25p for a good long time.

I don't think Casualty has ever been shot on film. Even in the early days in the 80s, the location stuff was shot on video I think.

As for iPlayer, on some platforms there are now 1280x720/50p and 960x540/50p profiles, which are deinterlaced 50i with full motion, so these days iPlayer CAN deliver fluid motion on shows shot 50i natively (Entertainment, Sport and most other studio-based shows). Not all platforms yet receive these profiles (my Sony UHD Connected Red Button set was still stuck at 25p last time I checked, but my PC, my Chromecast - with the right settings adjustment - and my Apple TV 4 all happily run the 50p profiles)

Last weeks episode was really noticeable for how bad it looked on iPlayer. I was watching via the iPlayer Kodi add-on. Now Kodi unlike the current official iPlayer app can be forced to the highest settings possible, so it's likely it was streaming the 720/50p profile.

I am so accustomed used to shooting in 25p the sight of 50i in a viewfinder makes things look "too smooth" and fluid and I can't get used to it, only 1 show I work on uses 50i, everything else is 25P. But I remember vividly thinking the opposite when 50i was the norm and I first started to shoot progressive, it looked stuttery and wrong. Now I hardly ever notice, the one recent exception where I found it positively distracting was on a recent Top Gear when they used a mix of 25p and 50i content in the same show, having the two next to each other in studio and VTs was jarring.

Do they just chuck everything on at 720/50p, even if it doesn't need it? I suppose the repeated frames compress well, but I can imagine it might confuse some playback systems, especially if they're trying to do something motion related.

Does your setup allow for 50Hz over HDMI?



And now we've got the likes of Peter Jackson and James Cameron trying to go the other way, shooting theatrical films at 48 or 60fps, and most people find that jarring and wrong. Just takes getting used to (if it ever takes off; it seems dead for now).



But it's traditional. We're surrounded... by film!

Yes it does, I'm using the manual setting of 720p/50Hz with no scale. The tv is set to 'Just Scan'

Watching on iPlayer via the desktop, it's outputting at 720/25p and while it has the film look, is a lot clearer with no judder.