Home & Away

Wasn't that from what Paul Maruess said after the Bill was recommisionned until 2010 that he was looking at numerous options for the show, one of which was a "possible switch" to HDTV?. Though it's worth wondering why they would as there is no HDTV here yet, unless they're counting on future repeats and the international market.

One think I'd wonder though if if the bill do go HDTV, would they keep the 50fps, or would they drop to 25fps? I think though if the producers of The Bill wanted it to be filmic, it would be by now.

In Australia most of the dramas made on Channel 7 are in this new format, I noticed this while I was there last year but Home & Away wasnt already in that format as Channel 7 makes most of its dramas it was probably how they want all programming made in same style. As Neighbours is not made by Channel 10 which airs it this new style is unlikely as the BBC also gets a say in Neighbours production.

Well bring it on, that's what I say. I'm all for anything that improves the picture quality. However I'm annoyed that in the case of Home & Away they've decided to drop the frame rate too. Fair enough if shows want to do that from the start but I don't think it works so well changing it 15 years in!

Having said that I always thought Home & Away looked beautifully clear before; I heard somewhere that Channel 5 has a higher bandwitdh than most other channels, or was that just on sky? (I have NTL) Either way it looked great, especially those location shots on that gorgeous beach. The all new HDTV episodes also seem a bit darker as well as being jerkier.

Nope - that is not what it says.

They are shooting Home and Away at 1080/25p. They are then downconverting this to 576/25p for transmission at 576/50p (or 576/50i over PAL analogue)

They are capturing a full 1080/25p image, downconverting to a 576/25p image for editing (which can be carried and edited losslessly as a 576/50i signal as long as no vertical viltering is done to remove interlace flicker) They are then FRAME doubling the 576/25p edited conversion to 576/50p (by showing every FRAME twice)

Nowhere does it say, unless I am missing something, that they are field doubling anything. There are no fields in use in this chain - they are going from a 1080/25P (i.e. frame based) original to 576/25P (i.e frame based) for editing then back up to 576/50P (i.e. frame based) for transmission.

This is because the Australians have a reasonably unique 576/50p semi-HD standard (a bit like a lower res version of the US 720/60p system running alongside their 1080/60i and 1080/24p standards) The 576/50p signal contains a full 50 progressive frames per second (no interlace) - so a single 25p frame will be shown twice in the 50p signal, in the same way that a film frame would be carried in this format. (Effectively a waste of the extra frames - as there is no difference in the detail between the two 50p frames...)

At no point do they use an interlace format - apart from possibly as an intermediate carriage format (where editing is carried out using 576/50i kit - but this is lossless on a 25p signal - if - as they say - no vertical processing is carried out - which would be the case with some DVEs and some slow motion effects)

So there is no FIELD reduction and no 288 line issues to worry about surely?

The same "1080/25p downconverted to 576/25p" master can be interlaced (possibly with a bit of vertical filtering to reduce interline twitter) to 576/50i for transmission in the UK (and it will look very similar to - though a bit cleaner and sharper than - 576/50i flickered to 57625p) It will have full 576 line detail across both fields, but with no motion between fields in the same frame.

The key to making something look like film, though, is not just fiddling the field rate, you also have to alter the lighting, the gamma, and other colour balance details in the camera (as well as reducing the amount of artificial detail that is added)

I believe Holby City has already started shooting HD as well - though I believe they have stuck with a 50i format, 1080/50i, rather than going 25p. (I think this is to avoid the backlash casued when Casualty flickered - and to keep the same look that they had with 576/50i shooting.)

I have videos of some Channel Seven HDD episodes and they don't look any better - in fact, actually a bit worse in my opinion. I agree, a show that uses a lot of location shooting is so much more 'real' in the normal format - watching it before I could almost be on the beach with Noah and co, now it just doesn't seem the same.

Don't spoil it for us Jonnie - we like an element of surprise!

I have videos of some Channel Seven HDD episodes and they don't look any better

At a guess, they were recorded onto VHS from a standard-def downconversion - in which case, of course they won't look any better!

Oddly, my download only seems to have the audio, not the pics.

I see they've updated the audio - is that still the Robertson Brothers or have they been junked?

Whoops! Wrong page!

You can download a video of the new Oz credits here:http://www.backtothebay.com/multimedia/credits.shtml

The current UK ones are the August 2003 credits - there was a video up on the old site but it seems to have disappeared.

Yes that is still The Robertson Brothers singing on the new Oz credits

Ok just commenting on a few different things raised here, so bear with me. I really wouldn't worry about the HDTV thing too much. I was a little horrified myself in July when suddenly one Monday night H&A looked and felt totally different, but after a couple of weeks you really don't notice it.

If you want to see H&A in High Definition, see it on a HD TV, don't judge it from what you've seen taped off analogue or SD. On HDTV the picture is absolutely brilliant.

As for Neighbours going HD, It won't be for a long time yet I don't think. Channel Ten's drama programming they've made themselves has been in HD, but seeing Neighbours is made by someone else, they're probably just sticking to what they've got now.

Finally I think we're actually onto our third set of H&A titles this year. There was the first lot from the season return in January, followed by the slight change a few weeks later, and the past couple of weeks there's also been a slight change I think, just with changing the groups slightly. And trying not to give too much away here, after next week, we may have another slight change.

That's a fair point. I watched tonight's episode (the fifth one made in this format) and as the credits played at the end thought to myself "I didn't notice the HDTV thing". On rewinding the tape, of course, I realised it WAS done in HD. So I guess you do get used to it quite quickly.