DOGs and Other On-Screen Clutter

I'm not the one calling other members w*nkers!

But yes, this thread does seem to have been hijacked by the trolls.

Yeah but you knackered yourself by calling them plonkers.

You may well be totally right, but if they are trolls, that's exactly the kind of response they're after.

Hence the friendly urge to take a step back

Anyway, regarding the thread, I voted to keep DOGs (and you know as well as I do that I am broadly in agreement with many of your views on television and pres), but as has been said elsewhere it's to wind T1T up, cos it's funny

I hear the distant rumble of a Virgin Pendelino train ... followed by the rattle of the keys of a moderator . . .

I'm not trying to be a Troll, but tvarksouthwest you seem to start arguments in a lot of threads. In the last couple of weeks you've had arguments in the Casualty and CBBC threads, do you look for fights?

Unfortunately I'm not the kind who can take a step back, even if I realise I am playing into peoples' hands.

But in an attempt to try and turn this into constructive debate:

DOGs improve the look of a channel
How, for goodness sake? They are an intrusion on the visual integrity of a programme and certainly not what the director/producer intended it to be viewed. A DOG looks even more out of place when displayed over an archive programme. And they're NOT there to help viewers identify which service they are watching, as broadcasters' PR people would have us believe; they are nothing but an exercise in corporate ego-waving. When details of the service being viewed can easily be accessed at the touch of a button, they are even less "necessary".

ECPs
Another intrusion on the integrity of a programme; they deny the producer to end his programme in what he/she deems to be an appropriate manner. Promotionally they also go against all the logical rules; if you want people to stay on your channel, surely the best thing to do is hold off telling them what's next until you absolutely have to? Yes, ECPs are being noticed but in more and more cases they are seen as an unwelcome intrusion and it's all for nothing if the marketing message is lost.

Producers need to accept that viewers will switch over during credits; and if anything the BBC's new ECP format will get people flicking over even earlier once the credits roll.

The whole thing is just poor.

The opening waffle forgiven, of course Astons are necessary, for news - it's no wonder people are voting 'Yes'.

To be slightly pedantic - omit Astons from the question and even then, 'necessary' is the wrong word - categorically none of those are actually necessary for function at all - whether people think they are acceptable is what I imagine was really meant.

The other problem lies in this: I think ECPs are just about acceptable on ITV, but also feel they should not be present on the BBC at all -- this poll is too hideously simple for me to indicate that; a single Yes/No option to a whole load of pres elements like these is no way to gauge opinion really, is it?

Why are they acceptable on one broadcaster but not another?

Given that the technology exists to place messages on-screen on an STB, is it not now time to broadcast programmes clean, and have the graphics displayed by the STB's software in a manner that can be cancelled at the viewer's discretion? (I am of course referring to programme advertisements shown within programmes, and the channel ID DOG, not the completely necessary captions within programmes).

I can accept ECPs, but the rest is an unnecessary and often irritating intrusion.

The other issue is of course size. This is where HD comes into its own -- the IDs can be made much smaller without becoming illegible.

And of course, when downscaled to SD it just becomes illegible. Genius.

Who exactly watches an HD channel in SD?

If it shrinks DOGs so that they become practically invisible then I'm all for it.