This Life - masters missing?

[Peter Roberts]

I've been watching the repeats of This Life series 2 on BBC Two. Something is seriously amiss. They are showing it with a widescreen aspect ratio, but shrunk to fit inside the 4:3 area - i.e. there are huge black bands both above and to the sides of the picture. And despite this the picture quality is poor - a bit like VHS.

The same poor picture quality apparently appears on the DVD - see one of the reviews on Amazon.

Were the masters for series 2 destroyed? I cannot think of another explanation. This would also explain why there was a 4 year delay before series 2 was released on DVD.

[Dirk Winchester]

This maybe a possibility?I dont know the programme

This dates from a time when programmes like this were shot on film but transfered to 1 inch tape for editing and mastering.
I inch analog tape suffers generational loss more than all the other broadcast tape formats.Which means it collects more artefacts and noise when somebody copies it.

The BBC are presumably transmitting from a digital dub of this, which has been converted to widescreen which makes matters worse?. its far better to keep it 4:3 and let your own TV set give you pseudo widescreen if you want it, this can look very good.

If this is the case the master will probably be unedited 16mm film?,which would be deemed too time consuming and costly to warrant an edit and dub when they would regard they have a 'satisfactory' copy already for late night viewing.

[Andrew Martin]

"This Life" was originally transmitted from D3, it was sourced from filmised videotape (probably Beta SP) - no actual film was involved (and the BBC wasn't using 1" for new programmes by 1997). That technology was less advanced in those days so the picture quality is consequently not what it would be nowadays. The original tx tapes are being used for transmission.

[Steve Roberts]

Peter said:

I've been watching the repeats of This Life series 2 on BBC Two. Something is seriously amiss. They are showing it with a widescreen aspect ratio, but shrunk to fit inside the 4:3 area - i.e. there are huge black bands both above and to the sides of the picture. And despite this the picture quality is poor - a bit like VHS.

I've only seen the first few episodes od series one so far, but it's actually letterboxed to 14:9 within the 4:3 frame - a very common technique back then. The odd bit is that the titles are full-frame 4:3 for some reason, not letterboxed to match the show.

I didn't think the picture quality was bad actually, but I'm watching the DVDs rather than the BBC Two transmission.

What has struck me (having never seen it before) is how badly I imagine it has aged. I remember it being touted as being really cutting edge when it started - fast editing, edgy characters and plots, sex and swearing etc. But ten years on it all looks pretty staid and we're actually finding it quite slow!

Steve