Date   : Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:14:40 +0200
From   : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: Fw: Fwd: ITV Teletext to shut down in January

Philip Pemberton wrote:

> There pretty much isn't any "regional franchising" left /now/. Turn on, 
> tune in, see ITV logo, turn off.

Yes, isn't it sickening how this squashed green-blob-on-white 
half-screen credits nonsense (to give ITV a unified branding? what's the 
excuse?) is being retrofitted to older programming? I was watching 
something the other day (I forget what) and instead of the still-photos 
credits and Thames logo, it switched to the crappy generic "ITV credits".


> I haven't watched ITV in ages -- when the TV is actually hooked up /for/ 
> TV, I end up watching one of the BBC channels. And I actively avoid 
> Channel 4 and "five".

I liked "Supernatural". Well, those that I remembered to watch. I have 
been recording every "Gossip Girl" since near the start of this (third) 
series in case it is good, not yet made time to watch, it isn't a high 
priority really. I quite like "Mentalist". Some of the films are good, 
once in a while. Um, you can tell I am struggling... I don't think I 
have yet forgiven ITV for canning "Rosemary & Thyme", a very 
mom-friendly series that wasn't aimed at total dicks, unlike I would 
imagine are the entire demographic of anybody who actually watches 
programmes containing a person called Katie and a person called Peter. I 
watched one once to see how bad it could be. A new low point in my life, 
on par with learning "My So-Called Life" had been cancelled...


As an amusing anecdote, I have a brief recording of "Alone In The Dark" 
(Christian Slater/Tara Reid) which was showing on both ITV4 *and* Zone 
Horror at the same time on the same night. Different positions due to 
different advert timing, but anyway, it amused me...


> Filmfour is "alright" if you can live with the adverts,

It's amazing what you can do with VirtualDub. :-) I like that FilmFour 
is one of the few movie-only channels that actually understands aspect 
ratios. I record all of my TV in 16:9 anamorphic when I can - for 
non-geeks that means it is a widescreen picture 'stretched' to the size 
of a regular telly. Why? Because it increases the resolution, plus it 
future-proofs my XviDs. I tell the codec it is a 16:9 picture, and the 
DVD player will then either letterbox it (for a traditional TV) or send 
it out stretched (for a widescreen TV).
When you are dealing with a pre-letterboxed picture, like most of those 
on Zone Horror, you don't have that choice. I wonder how a widescreen TV 
would handle a widescreen film letterboxed into a traditional frame? I 
would like to think it would throw away the black bars and zoom the 
picture up, but I have doubts as to if many TVs are that clever. Quality 
would suck, in any case.


> truthful I'd rather spend a few quid a month on one of the online DVD 
> rental services and watch what I want, when I want.

Don't have that option, and as I tend to like the subtitled oddities 
(from "I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay" to "Battle Royale" (not the 
sequel) to "Princess Mononoke"), I wonder how well such a service would 
suit? I'm not really 'in' to blockbusters.
   http://www.heyrick.co.uk/ricksworld/digibox/film4review.html
Oh, and for what it's worth:
   http://www.heyrick.co.uk/ricksworld/digibox/thcreview.html
:-)

 > Though at least F4 are nice enough to turn the wretched on-screen 
graphics
 > off when showing a film -- seems ITV's DOG doesn't have an "off" switch,

What's the reasoning behind a DOG these days? People who are so inclined 
can download MPEG4 movies in an acceptable quality, so I don't think 
plastering a branding on stuff is going to help much. They can't use the 
logic of letting people know what channel they are watching - the 
constant adverts do that, and if you really need to know right this 
instant, the 'i' / 'info' / 'prog' (etc etc) button will tell you the 
channel and the programme.


 > Green splat in the corner, thanks ITV.

When Zone Horror is letterboxing a film, most of the dog can be cut out 
by clipping off the black bars. For the small part that remains, I did 
once knock up some code to remove it by interpolating nearby pixels, but 
I suspect writing it as a VirtualDub plug-in would require x86 code. Yuck.


Best wishes,

Rick.

-- 
Rick Murray, irregular internet access at local library.
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...