ITV Discussion Thread

While I'm not directly involved with BBC Breakfast, I am based at MediaCity and from what I've been told by the people there that are, the graphics certainly are HD.

It's practically a requirement that must be, as the Vizrt graphics technology is outputting a HD picture, so it would look wrong if upscaled graphics were used as the overlayed text would be HD.

Graphics in TVC probably haven't yet been upgraded to HD, and so would have been generated in SD and then upscaled and keyed into the HD programme output for BBC News from the Olympic Park.

Actually I know a few people who still say 'Put Tyne Tees on' that with older people, the middle generation refer to it as 'ITV' where I know the younger generation (who are more used to having multiple ITV channels) will call it ITV1.

From what I've been told and seen, the Vizrt system in Salford which is used for NWT and Breakfast is just using a copy of the current BBC News graphics package templates, which are SD and then upscaled to HD. The graphics when designed by Lambie Nain, were never designed in HD, but only SD as i'm led to believe. The Viz system at Salford Quays is HD compliant, mind you.

When BBC News fully moves to Broadcasting House (dates are being banded around as Feb 2013) BBC News will relaunch with refreshed titles and HD ready graphics. This includes Breakfast, who will also be adopting the HD graphics at the same time. The new graphics won't use Gill Sans for the astons/live locators DOGs etc as the font isn't deemed as HD viable. I'm sure if it was, the BBC would have stuck with it being their 'house font'.

The current titles for BBC News (which include the 1, 6, 10 and NC) were all produced in HD and then downscaled to SD for use in the N6, N8 and TC7 galleries which aren't HD capable.

Not sure what you mean. The bulk of the BBC News graphics we see day-to-day - name supers, clocks, story straps etc. generated by VizRT are rendered live. The typefaces (usually TrueType) are not SD or HD - they are vector based and resolution independent, and are rendered either at SD or HD resolution depending on the set-up of the Viz. Text rendered by a Viz running in HD is going to be in HD.

In my experience graphics 'made by Lambie Nairn' are likely to have been example templates that are then coded by designers/programmers in News, possibly with some backings supplied by LN (though more often than not these too are recreated by News).

There may be some elements of the current look that are SD upscaled (certain backgrounds etc.) - however the actual text is likely to be HD rendered, and block colour straps are likely to be have been retemplated in HD. (It's easier to run a Viz in HD than run it in SD and route it through an upconverter...)

I'm pretty certain, watching BBC One HD, that Breakfast are running their Viz boxes in HD, and the results are not upscaled SD.

(And Gill Sans is still the BBC corporate typeface isn't it? The three letters in the BBC blocks are also Gill Sans aren't they? It may not be the typeface used by all channels on screen - but that's as much about brand differentiation as anything. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if News switched away from Gill Sans - they used Swiss for quite a while before returning to Gill Sans with the current look. I've never been that convinced it's a great screen font - particularly the way BBC News currently use it. However I'd expect the 'NEWS' bit of the logo to remain in Gill Sans - just the body text to differ - just as Sport use Gill Sans for the SPORT in their logo, but another typeface (Gotham I think) for their body text)

I don't know anyone who refers to ITV1 as ITV1 unless they particularly want to differentiate from ITV2-4 or ITV1+1. Most people I know refer to ITV1 simply as ITV. But I'm old.

Rubbish Nog, you're barely 97!

But yeah, it's either ITV or Central, ITV1 isn't said!

I sometimes hear ITV1 referred to as "3", due to it's analogue/Freeview channel number.

I think the old ITV franchise names live on amongst older people - particularly in regions where the incumbent has been there for a long time (Granada for instance) I think London has always been a bit of an odd-one-out because of the split nature of the franchise - growing up I don't remember people talking about watching it on 'Thames' or 'LWT', it was always just ITV.

However loads of people in East Anglia in the 90s still talked about watching 'Anglia' rather than ITV.

You've been told wrong. 2 flaws with that story;

Number 1: Why would, in 2008, Lambie-Nairn make titles but not on screen graphics such as astons in HD?

Number 2: The new graphics are different, same layout and typography but rather than using 2 circles to animate on (or 3) they use the transmission rings, they were made by Gareth Price in HD for the move to MediaCity. (Got his name wrong in my last post!

The Viz system in Salford is HD, the gallery is HD, the cameras are HD - there is no upscaling or downscaling in that gallery, it's the playout that is SD!

In Cardiff at least, I haven't heard anyone refer to ITV1 as HTV for a very long time. What was once one of the strongest regional brands very quickly died, probably due to the similarity between 'HTV' and 'ITV'.

The graphics on Breakfast are certainly HD.

And also, here it's usually ITV1. Some of the older generation may call it just ITV or Granada.

You know this forum is about ITV so why are people talking about BBC.... ?