ITV Discussion Thread

The process isn't particularly difficult - but getting hold of the original celluloid could be.

Back in the 80s, shows like Dallas, even comedies like Cheers used to be flown over here in cans of film to be telecinied for playout. When I was in Los Angeles in 1985 there was an interesting article about how "Viewers in Britain see our shows better than we do" - and it explained that when the original film was telecinied in the UK, we ended up with a greater resolution, clearer pictures and more realistic colour.

All of that was quite true, based on the difference between NTSC and PAL.

If I'm not mistaken, all of those shows would have been printed to 35mm film - and you can undoubtedly scan that to (greater than) HD quality. Some things were shot on 16mm - but I think that was limited to cheaper programming. I know, for example, that Take the High Road's location shooting would have been on 16mm or Super16, and telecinied to videotape to be edited into the programme.

So - if someone can access the original reels, then yes - you could be watching some TV shows, comedies and dramas, from the 80s in HD quality.

Just as an addendum to the above - the original Star Trek series has been scanned to HD for a recent release, but they cannot do the same with Star Trek: The Next Generation.

TNG used a very early system of scanning the 35mm film to SD quality tape, and then edited it using a non-linear edit system (much like Adobe Premiere). The original reels of film were not stored, as the programme was designed to be distributed on tape only.

So - ironically it's the slightly older programmes which are more likely to have film versions available to scan in HD; and beyond 1988 there may only be tape left - which means no HD.

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the replies Gavin!

It'd be nice if ITV were able to remaster some of their more high-profile dramas of the past to HD. I could see them being able to make a big thing out of showing something like the original Brideshead Revisited in HD for the first time. It could be quite a nice selling point for ITV3 HD... if of course the original film still exists that is.

Indeed... though, to be fair, even watching upscaled is an improvement on SD at the receiving end!

A friend of mine was watching the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice on Blu-Ray recently. His comment? "Almost as good as HD".

As nearly all drama, apart from soaps and continuing drama, from the early 90s onwards were either on film or "filmic" I would imagine that it's possible to remaster them to make them look really good.... even if they might not look as good as new ones on HD.

As for the extra ITV HD channels, I'd have thought that in the not too distant future, ITV2 could be largely HD. Emmerdale can't be far off going into HD.... and I can imagine the Loose Women and Jeremy Kyle's of this world in HD before long too. (In the case of Jezza's guests that isn't necessarily an appealing thought!!)

The 'filmic' effect you mention is just a post-production technique applied to video. If the original video is SD, it can never be remastered to HD.

One aspect that hasn't been considered in this discussion is whether any of these programmes would actually look good in HD.

We all assume that greater detail is a good thing - but it can show up all kinds of things, like poorly finished sets or costumes. Patchy paint and brush-strokes, the lines where flats meet together, as well as "dirty down" spray and hairspray on glass to stop reflections. All of that can look positively dreadful in a programme where that level of detail was never intended to be seen.

TV (and indeed all creative craft) is only finished to the level of detail expected to be seen - so its not that they were poor tradesmen - just that they didn't waste time on detail that wasn't required.

So it would be very fascinating to see how some shows look after a scan to HD.

I'm finding this, and the discussion on the move to colour, very interesting - thank you chaps.

Well are the current idents HD already?

Also BBC article suggests ITV+1 will launch in January.

Also in another Guardian article it says

It'll be interesting to see whether Sky+ HD subscribers in Scotland (and Northern Ireland?) will get the new HD channels on their EPG. I presume ITV can do whatever they like considering there are no local versions of 2-4.

well I think STV or UTV did launch a STV2/UTV2 channel but closed soon after and they came to an agreement that ITV2 would replace it - might be a similar arrangement.

STV2 was around for a few months - although I don't recall ever watching it. It was billed as "S2" in a star shaped logo.

I thought so - I remember reading that it didn't do all that well, so STV & ITV came to an agreement to have ITV2 in Scotland.

Also, juts wondering if someones read something I've missed - when ITV+1 lauches in Jan 2011 - what platforms will it be on - Sky/ Virgin should be a definate, but what about Freeview? IIRC when the last major rescan happened ( around the time they were planning to launch it before all the regulatory reviews etc - October 2009 I think) well the channel name on the EPG changed from ITV2+1 to ITV+1. An I'm sure at the time they said it would be on Freeview.

Edit: Just found the orginal article from last year.



So I imagine that this will be the same. Not enough space on Freeview with all the micro- regions I suppose.
Although the 2nd point should change now that GMTV/Daybreak is owned by ITV.