Central 1998 idents in widescreen

[VMPhil]

This was posted in a thread in the Gallery that was quickly closed, but I thought it may be of interest to others. TV Ark have a copy of a - presumably internal - promo for Central from 1998, that seems to include widescreen clips of the Carltonised idents from the same period. (Warning: the phrase 'Just the ticket' will stop sounding like real words by the time you finish watching)

Some screenshots with the aspect ratio adjusted…









This brings up the question, were they made in widescreen in 1996 when originally done for Carlton, or were they re-rendered in widescreen only for Central in 1998, with the impending launch of digital TV? We will probably never ever know.

[RDJ]

Doubt we’ll ever know.

Central always had access to non-broadcast versions of idents when it came to internal promos.

Just take this Carlton ident at the start of this clip, when Carlton branding was no longer in use on-screen at the time. A non-heart Star formation with a slightly different endboard with an ITV1-less Carlton logo.

https://youtu.be/tQHftMB8IJw

[Nini]

I'd assume idents might do double duty for Carlton for internal and corporate communications, may as well get what you can out of them.

[lobster]

Thanks for posting that video - although the consolidation of ITV was inevitable, I do miss the quirkiness of regional ITV, Central were probably at the top of their game in that era.

My feeling, given the timelines is that they were produced in widescreen- it would have been very shortsighted to be doing new stuff in 4:3 in the mid 1990s with widescreen being the next big thing.

The BBC balloon idents were all shot in 16:9 and they weren’t produced much later, weren’t they?

[Mike]

Remember that the new premises at Gas Street were from the start 16:9 capable, they just didn't transmit that way until long after the Central name had been killed.

Any delivery of branding from 1996 onwards you would expect to been produced for 16:9 capable broadcast I expect however the relevant pages in Lambie-Nairn's book only show 4:3 screenshots of the work for Carlton in early 96, which would suggest that perhaps they weren't.

[James2001]

My feeling, given the timelines is that they were produced in widescreen- it would have been very shortsighted to be doing new stuff in 4:3 in the mid 1990s with widescreen being the next big thing.

Though there are examples of things from even later than that having been made in 4:3 then awkwardly shoehorned into 16:9 after the programmes switched, like the 1998 Emmerdale, TOTP and WWTBAM titles (the Emmerdale ones were used longer cropped into 16:9 than they were in 4:3, I think the WWTBAM ones were too), and suprisingly the sponsorship ads for SM:TV and CD:UK which were made in 2003 were made in 4:3 as the former were re-used for MoM who cropped them, and the first few CD:UK editions of 2004 actually switched into 4:3 just for the sponsorship bumpers before they finally re-edited them with pillarboxes.

I don't know if the actual titles or graphics for SM:TV or CD:UK were made in 4:3 or 16:9, though I have seen someone suggest that CD:UK's titles were redone for 16:9 and you can see subtle differences, but I've never gone to the effort to compare them to check. Both shows were themselves amongst the last shows still being made in 4:3 right until the end of 2003, presumably there must have been some editorial reason for it, certainly not technical seeing as studio 2 at TLS was 16:9 capable even when the shows began back in 1998.

[SonicFan08]

That promo also has four idents that I haven't seen before (like a ident where Central logos in various colors zoom out and one where the blue text changes colors to red)

[From The North]

The ident where CENTRAL zooms in different colours was used to precede F1 at the weekends. The 'wind up' one was rarely used, but used in front of cartoon fillers when they used to have 5 mins for an extra programme.

[CPPAUTTP938]

ITV Went Widescreen In 2001!

[James2001]

ITV were in widescreen well before 2001. They were broadcasting programmes in widescreen from the launch of digital, and idents and trailers from July 2000.

[nwtv2003]

ITV were in widescreen well before 2001. They were broadcasting programmes in widescreen from the launch of digital, and idents and trailers from July 2000.

Indeed, as it was then called C-Day. From memory it was from this point all of Carlton’s presentation went 16:9. (I believe Channel 4 took the same approach.) Granada’s on the other hand only went out in 16:9, before a 16:9 programme, which remained the case until 2002.

[James2001]

I'm one of the people who actually noticed all the adverts and trailers were in 16:9 (well, 14:9 anyway as we didn't have digital at that point) from that date... even ones which were in 4:3 before then. Shows how geeky I was even then, I imagine the vast majority didn't pick up on it.

I might be wrong, but weren't Channel 4's idents always in 16:9 right from the 1999 revamp? They were certainly in 14:9 at least. They did have trailers in 4:3 up until July 2000 though. Discounting the idents they used before pre-school programming anyway (which IIRC were rebranded T4 idents), which was in 4:3 right up until they stopped using them in 2004.

Channel 5 on the other hand still had their presentation in 4:3 (I think many of the idents were shown in 14:9 during the last year or so, but still in a 4:3 frame) until the spring 2002 mini-revamp.

[CPPAUTTP938]

Do You Have Any Footage Of Color Zoom And Transition?

[VMPhil]

Channel 5 on the other hand still had their presentation in 4:3 (I think many of the idents were shown in 14:9 during the last year or so, but still in a 4:3 frame) until the spring 2002 mini-revamp.

On the old TV Home site many years ago, it said that the last set of celebrity idents were made in widescreen, but only ever shown in 14:9 - probably because that’s all Channel 5’s playout had.

It reminds me that the 2006 BBC One idents were announced in the press release as being shot in high definition - but we only ever saw them as SD upscaled (they updated the text/logo animation on them to HD, but the footage was definitely still upscaled).

[James2001]

I'm sure I remember reading that the 2002 BBC One idents were filmed in HD too, but I could be misremembering.