ITV3 Cropping or not?

I was wondering why some old programmes on ITV3 with endcaps which pre-date widescreen are in 14:9 or 16:9. Are they deliberately cropped, or were they made that way. For example, the Grimleys was in 16:9, and I'd never seen it before, so I only realised there was something wrong when I saw....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v281/deej_mulder/granadacroppedsmall.jpg

I dunno if this has been mentioned before.

I have also noticed episodes of Wycliffe in 14:9

That was worth reading just to point out the fact The Grimleys is on ITV3!!!!

I wonder if The Grimleys is one of those programmes that was designed to be cropped. I can remember in about 1999 a couple of programmes were shown 4:3 on annalogue but cropped on digital (the only one I can remember by name is Trisha, but I don't want to admit to watching that ) .


I always imagined this was because the equipment to film in 16:9 wasn't there but with widescreen fast becoming standard they were framed so that they could be easily cropped in future without loosing anything important. This is pure guesswork on my part though so is probably bollards, but I think it's a nice explanation of it all

I believe The Grimleys was shot on film, which is framed so it can be matted anyway.

Wycliffe was always 14:9, AFAIK. It was made during that period when it was considered classy to do that.

wow what time and day is it on ITV3?

Just like it's considered "classy" to add that awful fake film effect to everything at the moment.