Not necessarily. The local news and programmes could have been opted in to a feed with the idents, promos and network programmes.
They could, though it wouldn't be as good on air, also some things might still have to be fed to the UK - fast turn around promos or adverts for example. These days they'd be done by file transfer
Apologies for going slightly off-topic, but were/are the French networks easily receivable on the islands (their use of SECAM notwithstanding - didn't that just appear as black and white on a PAL set?), and were/are there much demand for them?
Channel TV was fiercely independent, until shortly before ITV's final offer and acceptance
That's not quite true, as they were using ITV1 branding for a number of years before being bought by ITV plc (they used ITV1 idents with Channel Television added underneath), with Channel Television idents only appearing before local programming.
They actually just used the normal ITV1 idents on their feed of Meridian, except at key junctions when they used the “ITV1 Channel Television” idents (mainly, as you say, before local programmes and opt outs). They could have continued to opt out of every junction after 2002, but made a conscious decision not to.
Channel TV was fiercely independent, until shortly before ITV's final offer and acceptance
That's not quite true, as they were using ITV1 branding for a number of years before being bought by ITV plc (they used ITV1 idents with Channel Television added underneath), with Channel Television idents only appearing before local programming.
They actually just used the normal ITV1 idents on their feed of Meridian, except at key junctions when they used the “ITV1 Channel Television” idents (mainly, as you say, before local programmes and opt outs). They could have continued to opt out of every junction after 2002, but made a conscious decision not to.
Makes sense. I just haven’t heard that expression before.
TSW did tend to mix out of imports to a “presentation” slide, which caught Channel out when the TC at Derry’s Cross did so prematurely. Very similar to what used to happen to Tyne Tees in 1993 when they were working off a dirty YTV feed.
Yes, think of the letter V as a graph of video level (y) over time (x). It's a cut with a linear fade to black and a linear fade back up.
There's also a U transition, which has a longer period of black. Useful when some sort of external switching like an aspect ratio change is needed to be hidden. In the early days of digital TV the BBC used a 12 frame U transition in and out of every 4:3 programme on their digital networks, this in theory gave set top boxes and their own ARCs enough time to subtley change ratio in the black
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 31 January 2019 7:09am - 2 times in total
Apologies for going slightly off-topic, but were/are the French networks easily receivable on the islands (their use of SECAM notwithstanding - didn't that just appear as black and white on a PAL set?), and were/are there much demand for them?
The only thing common with French analogue TV was the use of 625 lines.
We used negative modulation, and FM sound, they used positive modulation and AM sound. Therefore, (in either direction) an unlocked negitive picture, and no audio, using a bog standard telly. There were multi standard TVs available though, because France was somewhat a TV standards island
Makes sense. I just haven’t heard that expression before.
TSW did tend to mix out of imports to a “presentation” slide, which caught Channel out when the TC at Derry’s Cross did so prematurely. Very similar to what used to happen to Tyne Tees in 1993 when they were working off a dirty YTV feed.
Quite honestly, in those dark days when the BBC Nations worked off a 'dirty feed' of BBC 1 and 2 network, it was much the same ? I used to think as they did a slow dissolve of the BBC 1 globe into Star Trek, I wonder how that looks outside of England !
There's also a U transition, which has a longer period of black. Useful when some sort of external switching like an aspect ratio change is needed to be hidden. In the early days of digital TV the BBC used a 12 frame U transition in and out of every 4:3 programme on their digital networks, this in theory gave set top boxes and their own ARCs enough time to subtley change ratio in the black
Yes. This was only needed for DSat (because Sky boxes don't/didn't support AFDs), which used ARCs + MPEG2 aspect ratio switching (which only changed on a GOP boundary) between 16F16 and 12F12 encoding. As this isn't frame accurate, the 'U' helped hide the switch (though you'd still see sometimes see stretched/squashed video sometimes)
BBC DTT used AFDs and a constant 16F:9 signal that either carried 16F16 or 12P16 content (which I think was the format 4:3 was ingested in) - and thus no GOP-based MPEG2 header switching and asa result you got frame accurate aspect switching on a 4:3 display (as the receiver was doing the centre-cut, under AFD control, not the broadcaster upstream of the MPEG2 encoder)
If Channel carried adverts from mainland UK, i.e. from the TVS/TSW feed, would Channel have received a percentage of the ad income? I'm meaning if there were five adverts in a break, Channel shows two from the islands, one for the co-op, one for a car dealership, I know Channel would get paid for them. But if the other three came from the TVS/TSW feed, such as for Levis, Renault cars, and Coca cola, would Channel have received any income for those?