J. P. Gilliver wrote:

> they do seem to be using the flag properly

Yes, the adverts are flagged as 16:9 and the programme itself as 4:3 and
my player (VLC) switches properly

In message <l0t9ihFi58aU13@mid.individual.net> at Thu, 18 Jan 2024
18:39:13, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> writes
>J. P. Gilliver wrote:
>
>> The credits were only slightly cropped today - for example on
>>"Siegfried" it was only the tail of the G
>
><http://andyburns.uk/misc/acgas.jpg>

Hmm - obviously (assuming that's from the terrestrial version) my telly
_is_ cropping the bottom few lines!

And by 1990 it looks as if they _were_ using the full frame, rather than
allowing for overscan.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward. -Ellen Glasgow,
novelist (1874-1945)

In message <l0ta5aFi58aU14@mid.individual.net> at Thu, 18 Jan 2024
18:49:14, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> writes
>J. P. Gilliver wrote:
>
>> they do seem to be using the flag properly
>
>Yes, the adverts are flagged as 16:9 and the programme itself as 4:3
>and my player (VLC) switches properly

As does my telly, as long as I have the subtitles turned off.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward. -Ellen Glasgow,
novelist (1874-1945)

On 18/01/2024 18:25, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> I was at school in Barnard Castle (yes, the place now famous for its
> opticians; it's actually a town, not just a castle ruin), so knew
> several of the locations, as they weren't far away (Egglestone Abbey,
> for example).

I know Barnard Castle. Not as well as I know Wensleydale slightly
further south but I've been through the town a fair few times and I've
been to the castle. Never been to the optician, though - unlike a
certain advisor of Boris. ;-)

It's always fun location-spotting when you know an area. A few years
ago, the building that was used as the exterior of Skeldale House, in
Askrigg by the church, was officially renamed "Skeldale House" in honour
of its use by the series. Jim Wight, son of Alf Wight (aka James
Herriot), was due to perform a renaming at the ceremony, but he was
snowed off and never made it.

When I went to the James Herriot museum in Thirsk (the real Skeldale
House in the real Darrowby) I asked why the TV series had been filmed in
the Dales rather than the edge of the Moors, and the official answer
(because they had asked the BBC in anticipation of being asked!) was
that the Dales (either Wensleydale/Swaledale for the 1979 series, or
Grassington for the more recent series) were regarded as more
photogenic. That sounds like fighting talk! There are parts of the Moors
(Rosedale, Eskdale) which are every bit as photogenic, and maybe more so
because the landscape is a bit "softer" and less bleak than the top end
of many of the Dales are - fewer dry-stone walls.

Apparently Donald Sinclair ("Siegfried Farnon") didn't like the way he
was portrayed in the books and on TV. The verdict from people who knew
him was that he was even more irascible and more inclined to contradict
himself than in the books and the TV series: Alf Wight had toned him
down a bit to make him "more believable".

I'm not sure how I didn't spot that the web version of ACGAS seems to
have a bit more picture at either side and at the bottom than the
terrestrial and satellite versions which are slightly zoomed in.

It so happens that we have the full DVD box set, so I found the same
shot on the DVD version

https://i.postimg.cc/FHfcCqcn/vlcsnap-2024-01-18-20h14m29s132.png

So the DVD is the full frame like the web, and the sat/terr versions are
zoomed in slightly. Weird.

On 17/01/2024 16:25, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> Just watching All Creatures Great and Small on Drama (FreeView 20).
>
There's a long running thread on Digital Spy, regarding the quality of
UKTV, and a couple have taken to contacting the station. It's a lost cause

Read on...

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2450392/classic-eastenders-quality-issues-on-uktv-drama#latest

In message <6bucnUpY9aWZFzT4nZ2dnZfqn_qdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk> at Thu,
18 Jan 2024 20:28:51, NY <me@privacy.net> writes
>On 18/01/2024 18:25, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
>> I was at school in Barnard Castle (yes, the place now famous for its
>>opticians; it's actually a town, not just a castle ruin), so knew
>>several of the locations, as they weren't far away (Egglestone Abbey,
>>for example).
>
>I know Barnard Castle. Not as well as I know Wensleydale slightly
>further south but I've been through the town a fair few times and I've
>been to the castle. Never been to the optician, though - unlike a
>certain advisor of Boris. ;-)

That's what I was referring to - I don't remember whether there actually
is an optician there! (I was there nearly fifty years ago anyway; I'd be
surprised if there isn't by now.)
>
>It's always fun location-spotting when you know an area. A few years

I suspect that's a reason for the popularity of "Vera" with a fair
proportion of viewers! (Grainger market, the quayside and bridges,
Kielder reservoir, various seaside towns, the Bigg market - plus
Rivergreen Mill, whose resident I know, and was used as a location -
though apparently with lots of trees in pots brought in; I haven't seen
that episode.)
[]
>I'm not sure how I didn't spot that the web version of ACGAS seems to
>have a bit more picture at either side and at the bottom than the
>terrestrial and satellite versions which are slightly zoomed in.
>
>It so happens that we have the full DVD box set, so I found the same
>shot on the DVD version
>
>https://i.postimg.cc/FHfcCqcn/vlcsnap-2024-01-18-20h14m29s132.png
>
>So the DVD is the full frame like the web, and the sat/terr versions
>are zoomed in slightly. Weird.

I see that's 768×576. So zooming in to produce an SD image must
inevitably cause some blurring (though I admit I'm not aware of it); as
you say, Weird.

Though if the plot is well enough written, I - and I suspect many -
don't notice technical errors unless they're very glaring; for example,
I never noticed the wooden nature of the spaceship in Blake's 7 until it
was pointed out to me much later. (Evident from the sound of footsteps,
once pointed out.) Or the shaky sets in Cell Block H.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I know people who worry more about the health consequences of drinking a coffee
at breakfast than a bottle of urine at dinner
- Revd Richard Cole, RT 2021/7/3-9

In message <l0tg5oFl04rU1@mid.individual.net> at Thu, 18 Jan 2024
20:31:49, Mark Carver <mark@invalid.com> writes
>On 17/01/2024 16:25, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
>> Just watching All Creatures Great and Small on Drama (FreeView 20).
>>
>There's a long running thread on Digital Spy, regarding the quality of
>UKTV, and a couple have taken to contacting the station. It's a lost
>cause
>
>Read on...
>
>https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2450392/classic-eastenders-qual
>ity-issues-on-uktv-drama#latest
>
I'm not really aware of any major quality problems now - in earlier
series I was occasionally aware of glaring colour problems due to film
stock having faded, which are probably not going to be fixed now, and I
mainly only noticed them on the end credits, which obviously used a very
old piece of film.

The thing I did notice - slight cropping of credits - has been shown
here to be a slight overscan in my telly, which surprised me. But it has
come to light that both their terrestrial (true 4:3) and satellite
(pillarboxed) are zoomed in (though only slightly) compared to their
website or DVD copies; one has to wonder why, as that must be a
deliberate decision. Though I suppose it could be a setting which was
made once (possibly even in error) and then left.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I know people who worry more about the health consequences of drinking a coffee
at breakfast than a bottle of urine at dinner
- Revd Richard Cole, RT 2021/7/3-9

J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> NY writes
>
>> the DVD is the full frame like the web, and the sat/terr versions
>> are zoomed in slightly. Weird.
>
> I see that's 768×576.
With some black at the sides, I wouldn't really call it pillarboxing,
back in the day it would have be lost in the overscan, so they zoomed it
slightly for digital broadcast?

In message <l0uop1Frk8rU3@mid.individual.net> at Fri, 19 Jan 2024
08:04:50, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> writes
>J. P. Gilliver wrote:
>
>> NY writes
>>
>>> the DVD is the full frame like the web, and the sat/terr versions
>>>are zoomed in slightly. Weird.
>> I see that's 768×576.
>
>With some black at the sides, I wouldn't really call it pillarboxing,
>back in the day it would have be lost in the overscan, so they zoomed
>it slightly for digital broadcast?
>
No, the "pillarboxing" referred to is how it's being broadcast on
satellite, i. e. full 16:9 frame with the 4:3 frame (of actual content
pixels) in the centre.

The slight zooming is something else, that's come to light.

That's an interesting suggestion, though - that it's deliberate, to
deliberately throw away some of the frame, to simulate the overscan we
got with CRTs. Anyone else think that might be what someone is thinking?
I can't _really_ see it as making much sense - if only because we now
mostly have bigger screens than we had CRTs. Though I wouldn't be
surprised to hear it has also been done with other prog.s of the era -
anyone? (I don't have the DVDs to compare myself - assuming it wasn't
done for those too! as fortunately it wasn't for the ones someone here
has of ACG&S.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

....Every morning is the dawn of a new error...

J. P. Gilliver wrote:

> Andy Burns writes
>
>> With some black at the sides, I wouldn't really call it pillarboxing,
>> back in the day it would have be lost in the overscan, so they zoomed
>> it slightly for digital broadcast?
>
> No, the "pillarboxing" referred to is how it's being broadcast on
> satellite, i. e. full 16:9 frame with the 4:3 frame (of actual content
> pixels) in the centre.

The satellite side bars are significant 25% vs the DVD about 4%,
that's why I said I wouldn't call the DVD version pillarboxing

> The slight zooming is something else, that's come to light.
>
> That's an interesting suggestion, though - that it's deliberate, to
> deliberately throw away some of the frame, to simulate the overscan we
> got with CRTs.

not to simulate overscan, but to not show a slim black border to those
watching on 4:3 sets? How many still exist? I think I accused you of
having one!

In message <l0uurlFrk8rU6@mid.individual.net> at Fri, 19 Jan 2024
09:48:37, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> writes
>J. P. Gilliver wrote:
>
>> Andy Burns writes
>>
>>> With some black at the sides, I wouldn't really call it
>>>pillarboxing, back in the day it would have be lost in the overscan,
>>>so they zoomed it slightly for digital broadcast?
>>
>> No, the "pillarboxing" referred to is how it's being broadcast on
>>satellite, i. e. full 16:9 frame with the 4:3 frame (of actual content
>>pixels) in the centre.
>
>The satellite side bars are significant 25% vs the DVD about 4%,
>that's why I said I wouldn't call the DVD version pillarboxing

Ah - I was misremembering; I thought you'd posted a still from the DVD,
which had no black. But that was someone posting a still from the
website (which had no black).
>
>> The slight zooming is something else, that's come to light.
>> That's an interesting suggestion, though - that it's deliberate, to
>>deliberately throw away some of the frame, to simulate the overscan we
>>got with CRTs.
>
>not to simulate overscan, but to not show a slim black border to those
>watching on 4:3 sets? How many still exist? I think I accused you of
>having one!
>
But why would they _want_ to show such a border on CRTs?
My two main TVs are LCD. I do have CRT at another location (I'm not
there though).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep
an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the
soul from desiccation. - Humphrey Lyttelton quoted by Barry Cryer in Radio
Times 10-16 November 2012

On 19/01/2024 10:26, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> But why would they _want_ to show such a border on CRTs?
> My two main TVs are LCD. I do have CRT at another location (I'm not
> there though).

Today's daft/naive question...

Why was overscan ever a "thing" with CRTs? Why were TVs not adjusted so
the height and width of the picture just touched the edge of the
phosphor or the visible part of the screen (whichever was the more
restrictive), instead of adjusting them so the edges were off-screen?

I'd have expected the adjustment process would be to make the picture
slightly too small in each dimension, and then increase each dimension
(one at a time) until the extreme edge of the picture just disappears,
then reduce very slightly to bring it back. (While also making sure that
circles are perfectly circular, even if this means that there is a
slight border at the sides or top and bottom, if the screen is not
perfectly 4:3.)

You adjust an LED/LCD TV or computer monitor so the picture just fills
the screen (indeed it happens by default with modern equipment) so why
not do the same for CRT TV or monitor?

In message <Be6cnT0i1NTH1jH4nZ2dnZfqnPqdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk> at Sat,
20 Jan 2024 22:38:16, NY <me@privacy.net> writes
>On 19/01/2024 10:26, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
>> But why would they _want_ to show such a border on CRTs?
>> My two main TVs are LCD. I do have CRT at another location (I'm not
>>there though).
>
>Today's daft/naive question...
>
>Why was overscan ever a "thing" with CRTs? Why were TVs not adjusted so
>the height and width of the picture just touched the edge of the
>phosphor or the visible part of the screen (whichever was the more
>restrictive), instead of adjusting them so the edges were off-screen?
>
>I'd have expected the adjustment process would be to make the picture
>slightly too small in each dimension, and then increase each dimension
>(one at a time) until the extreme edge of the picture just disappears,
>then reduce very slightly to bring it back. (While also making sure
>that circles are perfectly circular, even if this means that there is a
>slight border at the sides or top and bottom, if the screen is not
>perfectly 4:3.)

It's what people wanted. I always used to adjust my CRTs - monochrome,
anyway - so I could see the whole raster; but most people wanted the
picture bigger even if they lost some of it - and of course programme
makers catered to that, having a "safe" area they tried to keep things
into.

"Must fill the screen" - witness how, when widescreen sets started to
appear (still in the CRT era - widescreen [or rather shortscreen] CRTs),
how many people watched 4:3 material - which initially was still the
majority of what was broadcast - squashed or stretched, rather than
pillarboxed. (Sure, most didn't know _how_ to adjust their sets, but
most sets _had_ an "auto" setting, that switched from pillarbox to full
depending on what was being transmitted - but if you set someone's set
to that setting, as likely as not next time you visited them it would
have been set back to fill-always.) Even now, that's catered to by BBC4,
who crop archived 4:3 material to shortscreen, rather than broadcasting
pillarbox (or flag) - as Drama do, to their credit. (Pillarbox on
satellite, flag on terrestrial, as this thread has discovered.)
>
>You adjust an LED/LCD TV or computer monitor so the picture just fills
>the screen (indeed it happens by default with modern equipment) so why
>not do the same for CRT TV or monitor?

Good question. I suppose some justification with really old CRT sets
that _were_ quite rounded (especially in the US for some reason), but by
the end of the CRT era, the vast majority did have fairly square
corners. But still overscanned in most cases.

I suppose to a small extent if you've got to set up to allow for slight
drift, you might overscan a _bit_ - also if you're concerned about
burn-in (or the opposite) - but it was usually far more than either of
those would explain.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I know people who worry more about the health consequences of drinking a coffee
at breakfast than a bottle of urine at dinner
- Revd Richard Cole, RT 2021/7/3-9

NY wrote:

> Why was overscan ever a "thing" with CRTs? Why were TVs not adjusted so
> the height and width of the picture just touched the edge of the
> phosphor or the visible part of the screen (whichever was the more
> restrictive), instead of adjusting them so the edges were off-screen?

Picture width varying as the set warmed-up?

On Sun, 21 Jan 2024 00:22:45 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver"
<G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

>>Why was overscan ever a "thing" with CRTs? Why were TVs not adjusted so
>>the height and width of the picture just touched the edge of the
>>phosphor or the visible part of the screen (whichever was the more
>>restrictive), instead of adjusting them so the edges were off-screen?
>>
>>I'd have expected the adjustment process would be to make the picture
>>slightly too small in each dimension, and then increase each dimension
>>(one at a time) until the extreme edge of the picture just disappears,
>>then reduce very slightly to bring it back. (While also making sure
>>that circles are perfectly circular, even if this means that there is a
>>slight border at the sides or top and bottom, if the screen is not
>>perfectly 4:3.)
>
>It's what people wanted. I always used to adjust my CRTs - monochrome,
>anyway - so I could see the whole raster; but most people wanted the
>picture bigger even if they lost some of it - and of course programme
>makers catered to that, having a "safe" area they tried to keep things
>into.

I suppose it depended on whether you thought you'd paid for the
pictures or the screen. If you've paid for the picture you want to see
the whole of it, but if you've bought an expensive TV set you've paid
for the screen so you might want to see all of it filled with picture.

It was possible to adjust height and width so they were only just
beyond the edges of the screen, but such was the stability (or lack of
it) of early electronics that if you did this, the edges might later
drift into view, so it was usual to overscan a bit more to allow a
margin for error. Even the magnetic field of the Earth had a
noticeable effect if you adjusted a CRT raster very precisely and then
turned it to face a different way, so it would be no good to do this
as a factory setting.

If you adjusted for the edges there wouldn't be anything you could do
about the corners, because early CRTs had very rounded corners and you
can't fit a square peg in a round hole, as they say, but people
accepted that.

Rod.

In message <o1kpqitkhrpd7om2vbarfm6gmih8ddida3@4ax.com> at Sun, 21 Jan
2024 08:28:08, Roderick Stewart <rjfs@escapetime.myzen.co.uk> writes
>On Sun, 21 Jan 2024 00:22:45 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver"
><G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

[You snipped other quoting details - this wasn't me:]
>
>>>Why was overscan ever a "thing" with CRTs? Why were TVs not adjusted so
>>>the height and width of the picture just touched the edge of the
>>>phosphor or the visible part of the screen (whichever was the more
>>>restrictive), instead of adjusting them so the edges were off-screen?
[]
>>It's what people wanted. I always used to adjust my CRTs - monochrome,
[]
>I suppose it depended on whether you thought you'd paid for the
>pictures or the screen. If you've paid for the picture you want to see
>the whole of it, but if you've bought an expensive TV set you've paid
>for the screen so you might want to see all of it filled with picture.

Interesting hypothesis!
>
>It was possible to adjust height and width so they were only just
>beyond the edges of the screen, but such was the stability (or lack of
>it) of early electronics that if you did this, the edges might later
>drift into view, so it was usual to overscan a bit more to allow a
>margin for error. Even the magnetic field of the Earth had a
>noticeable effect if you adjusted a CRT raster very precisely and then
>turned it to face a different way, so it would be no good to do this
>as a factory setting.
>
>If you adjusted for the edges there wouldn't be anything you could do
>about the corners, because early CRTs had very rounded corners and you
>can't fit a square peg in a round hole, as they say, but people
>accepted that.
>
>Rod.
But by the end of the CRT era, with "FSTs" and mostly solid-state
electronics (other than the tube itself, obviously), both of these had
become smaller effects than the amount of overscan still in widespread
use.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"... four Oscars, and two further nominations ... On these criteria, he's
Britain's most successful film director." Powell or Pressburger? no; Richard
Attenborough? no; Nick Park!