Oscars 2009 - Live from the Red Carpet on Sky One.

I have no interest in films, celebrities or designer dresses so the Oscars isn't something that really grabs my attention. However, I am interested in television, especially low budget live television so I found my self watching this on Sky One this evening. It was basically Fearne Cotton talking to anyone who walked past on the red carpet that she reconised (I guess she had someone in the gallery helping her, she can't have possibly known everyone and their spouses, can she?). What made it all the more interesting was that E! Entertainment were showing a very similar show presentered by Ryan Seacrest and Sky One's and E!'s red carpet positions were right next to each other. This meant that during quiet moments when E! were on a break and no one of interest to Sky One was was walking past, Fearne Cotton ended up interviewing Ryan Seacrest.

Anyway, the point is I was recording both the Sky One and the E! shows in case we got a moment where Sky One and E! were both talking to each other on air, sadly this didn't happen. At some point during the Sky One show they went to a break, so I stopped my recording to check on another channel with a view to start recording Sky One once they came back from the break. This is the 'interesting' part. I stopped the recording at the start of a promo for Sky Movies Premier and started it again during an advert for a product called Adios. When I watch this back on Sky+, I get the usual 'Recording Interupted' message but I also get a weird testcard...

http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/testcard.jpg

Can anyone tell me what this is? I'm not sure how well you can see it on my screen grab, but the text in the middle reads "PROPERTY OF THE US GOVERNMENT DO NOT DUPLICATE".[1] The smaller text at the bottom left reads "DoD (7) 32-16-12" and the clock counts up to 00:04:00:00 before the test card disappears. What the hell is this? What belongs to the US government? Did anyone else record this show and not stop Sky+ in the same way that I did? Do you see the same test card? It was just after Fearne Cotton had spoken to the 'young stars of Slumdog'. I'll post a video in the morning if anyone is interested.

[1]If I am not around to see any replies to this post, please write to me c/o Guantanamo Bay.

I love the fact that the first thing you do after capturing something that says, 'Property of the US Government - Do Not Duplicate', is duplicate it

DoD stands for Department of Defense. Commercial satellite operators lease bandwidth to the US Government so they can send non-classified information around the world. There was probably a mix-up that led to the testcard (used to introduce each package of information) being shown on air.

davidlees, you have just comitted a federal offence.

*sends to Federal Prisoner davidlees, JTF-GTMO*

Just a suggestion but maybe that was at the end of the 'nominee clip' for Cloverfield?

Probably not from the Oscars nominee clip as this happened after the show had gone to a break but maybe it was part of the Sky Movies Premiere promo that was the first thing shown in the break. Not knowing anything about films, I have to ask does Cloverfield contain a test card like the one above and is it currently showing on Sky Movies?

It will be on sky movies on saturday at 8 which is the usual premier time. But it does have a testcard similar but not just like that, with the same text in the middle though.

So it was possibly the end of a trailer for the saturday night premier of Cloverfield and that came after the usual endcard for dramatic effect.

I think that is the end of that mystery then.

Unless you are part of the conspiracy and this is all a massive cover up.



He is and it is!

I don't think that's likely.

The test card in Cloverfield is in 2.25:1 Cinemascope, whereas this is clearly a 4:3 image.

I think it was broadcast 16:9. My 4:3 capture was all I could manage at 1am last night (see also my spelling mistakes in the original post - same excuse).

Yes, that test card is taken from the opening few moments of Cloverfield and is used in the Sky Movies trailer.

For any Lost fans out there, immediately after this test card in the movie there's a DHARMA Initiative logo in the corner of the screen for a few frames.

Hmm, who added the second line of small text to my post?