UKTV Goes Widescreen

Yes - though BBC One on satellite is carried in considerably higher quality than ITV1 - and they both have regional variants to carry.

Thanks for the explanation guys. It is just a shame that some broadcasters such as ITV don't seem to value picture quality anymore. We very much seem to be in the era of quantity over quality when it comes to broadcasting.

Rather oddly, since the changeover Dave appears to be transmitting Top Gear in 4:3 centre cutout, rather than moving to 16:9 or keeping the 14:9 they showed it in before. I did wonder if it's just my PVR which sometimes doesn't switch properly, but that doesn't appear to be the case.


It appears that very few people value picture quality any more, least of all the viewers hence the max exodus to flat panel screens (and what the hell is the obsession with wall mounting?) even though high spec models from reputable brands often display a picture inferior to a no-name CRT from 10 years ago. If the viewership doesn't care that the technical quality of TV is getting worse and worse, the broadcasters certainly aren't going to rush to improve things.

It is the result of two separate issues in broadcasting.
1. Digital transmission allowing compression and resolution to be varied.
2. Accountants becoming more involved with engineering processes.

In the days of PAL analogue transmission - there were absolute quality standards adhered to by all broadcasters pretty much. You couldn't compress the analogue signal, nor could you significantly reduce its quality by reducing its resolution. You could drop the quality during the production process, and it could degrade a bit during distribution and transmission still - but transmission was pretty clean.

These days the source material is probably as high a quality as it has ever been (wobbly miniDV excluded) - but now the quality of broadcasts can be controlled and reduced, meaning a cost reduction is possible.

There is an insulting - "We notice, Joe Public won't" - attitude that has crept in to some areas of broadcasting. What is worse is there is also an "I can't see/hear the difference, so it is all OK" attitude that some producers also have - when in the past their craft colleagues would have had the final say.

I'm not sure you can say that ITV have ever valued "picture quality". As a commercial broadcaster their sole function is to make profit through advertising - something they can make more of by squeezing more channels in.

If they had been able to do that on terrestrial analogue broadcasts I'm pretty sure they would have.

Quite possibly. Although name me a broadcaster which isn't having to keep its costs down these days.

Up until 1991 ITV were compelled to transmit their programmes to a very stringent set of parameters called the IBA Code of Practice. They may not have 'valued' their picture quality but it always equalled that of the BBC, and in some areas exceeded it.

I know. I remember that in the 80s STV used to constantly send bars and tone down to London for monitoring by the IBA (or whoever was on the receiving end).

Just because they had to do it doesn't mean they valued it. If they could have squeezed in extra commercial channels then I believe they would have.

Don't get me wrong - I think 544 x 576 is bad practice, but I'm not surprised given the commercial drive of ITV.

Of course the important difference was from 1955 until 1991, the ITA/IBA were the broadcaster, and the ITV companies were programme contractors holding franchises, supplying their programmes to the IBA .

After 1991 that was turned upside down. The ITV companies became licence holding broadcasters, regulated first by the ITC, and then Ofcom.

Two quite different arrangements. I know which one I preferred.

Indeed - though quite a few of the IBA Code of Practice parameters were nearly impossible to meet ISTR, and caused some ITV companies to produce worse pictures than they otherwise might have if they hadn't been trying to meet them. (Nobody will be able to convince me that LWT's Hitachi cameras were anything close to being watchable - or "broadcast quality"!)

Ha ! Although the Marconi Mk9 produced some awful, and instantly recognisable (even after being dubbed to VHS) pictures. Also used by the Aussies on Prisoner Cell Block H. The only company that ever managed to get half decent pictures from them was TVS, whose engineering dept had made some extensive home-brew mods .

I've got Prisoner Cell Block H on DVD. What was the noticeable flaw with those cameras? To me they looked pretty much the same as any 70s/80s UK VT of the time. A bit of green here and there, problems with light sources leaving an imprint on the picture, but other than that.... If anything the problem with Prisoner was the awful sound quality of the recordings.