EastEnders

Listening closely to the video of the original broadcast, I do think I can just about hear the "chatter" under big bens chimes, it's just been rendered quite indistinct by VHS noise and low bitrate digital compression.

Edit: Actually directly comparing the two side by side, the chimes actually start several seconds earlier on the Drama version than on the original broadcast version. On the Drama version they start as soon as they cut to Den, on the original broacast they don't start until he says "Make your new year's resolutions now". The point the drama version fades into the Big Ben footage is a few seconds later too- as you can see by the cars driving across the bottom of the screen, and the sound doesn't sync at the same point of the big ben footage either. So clearly a different edit made for repeats/international screeenings.

Perhaps the indistinct chatter on the Drama edit was deliberate - and supposed to be the sound of the characters in the pub watching the chimes. I doubt in real life everyone is deadly silent as they watch them - I’m normally saying “fill me bloody glass up again!”

And one that tightens up the timings a bit too, which would make sense. I'm sure if the chatter was intentional there would have been cheers at midnight, particularly as once they go back the action everyone is clearly supposed to be having the time of their lives

The UKTV Play file is around 31:30, so even with the edits they made to the episode, it still runs for around 2½ minutes longer than a regular episode.

I see Drama are doing another show from the start: Holby City from Monday at 10am.

They're going to need to find a way to pipe all this directly into my brain because I just don't have time!

There was a run of Holby a few years back, on the Sony channel.

There's never been a proper run through of Casualty from what I can remember. I remember UK Gold showing the 1986-91 episodes a couple of times, and I know there's been re-runs of later series (one of which is ending on Drama after today, showing the 2008-16 series), but I don't remember the bulk of the 90s series ever being repeated.

I remember Really showing the mid 90s episodes a few years back.

No wonder I didn't notice, that's not a channel I'd have expected to see it on.

I was reading the TV studio history website page on Elstree last night, and it claims that the lot work on EastEnders is shot in SD because the outdoor set is so delapidated- that can't be right, can it? I'm sure we'd have noticed if it was. I've had a look through several recent episodes and the lot work looks HD to me. Even if it was upscaled with good equipment I'm sure if it was shot in SD it would still be obvious, compared to the studio footage.

That must be ancient info. This came up a few pages ago here - there was a storyline with the Vic getting burned down, which meant they could redo its exterior to make it "HD Ready", so to speak (I have a vague memory that some of the exterior brickwork was previously just painted on), and it coincided with BBC One HD's launch. But Eastenders's first HD broadcast ended up being a few weeks later for some reason.

That was - yikes - nine years ago.

Previous post: https://tvforum.uk/forums/post1145549#post-1145549

Well it's on a section on the page about the new outdoor set they're building, and the information on that is up to date so I don't know. It seems nonsensical that they would film it in SD though, is that even allowed under the HD production rules? And as I said it doesn't look SD (especially when it comes to things like reading small text on signs in the background, which I'm sure even on the best SD upscaling would still be indistinct), but the guy who runs the site seems to know his stuff about most other things.