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Author Topic: TV "Change-Over Cues" Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 01-08-2008 11:55 PM                        Someone brought this up to me the other day....asked about the little gray squares in the upper right hand corner of network TV broadcast programs, very similar to change-over cues. A first set would blink three or four times at what I would guess would be 1 second intervals, and then about 30 seconds later, a second gray block would come on and remain solid as the local station broke away for a commercial. His retelling this reminded me that indeed I do remember seeing them, mostly on NBC's Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Of course being conditioned to be very aware of any kind of mark in the upper right hand corner of any picture, I certainly was aware of them. He wanted to know what they were for. At the time, I just assumed they were a visual cue to let the control room at the local stations know they were going to a network commercial and if they were breaking in to run their own commercial, that square was their warning. But that was a complete assumption on my part. Any of you guys know in fact if this is what they were for?  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 01-09-2008 12:17 AM                     I've got a few off-air recordings of NBC from the 70s that have a small white line at the very top of the screen (not visible on any consumer TV, but you can see them when played on the computer) right before the commercial breaks. There's several on YouTube where you can see this. Commercials run off 16mm film from the local stations usually had movie-like changeover cues too, though WOR in New York seems to have preferred punching out squares in the upper left, and KTLA in Los Angeles punched out circles in the lower right. It's a lot easier with today's network programming, where they just stick crap on the screen during the ENTIRE show and fade it out when it's time to go to commercial  |  IP: Logged Michael Coate Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1904 From: Los Angeles, California Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-09-2008 02:42 AM                     quote: Jesse Skeen KTLA in Los Angeles punched out circles in the lower right. Hmmm. I recall the KTLA cues being in the lower left corner.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 01-10-2008 02:52 AM                        Nah, not what I am talking about you guys....these were electronic. It was a small square superimposed on the image and it was definately visible on consumer sets. And it was rock steady and deliberate, like someone turning it ON and OFF for maybe 4 times, at 1/2 a second intervals. Then maybe 10, 20 seconds later, a steady ON into blackout. This was definately visual cue of some kind. But it's a real puzzlement because as Jesse points out, any cues they needed to put in could have been done in the top lines of the raster or in the blanking interval and no one but the technicians in the control rooms need see them. So what these were for and why they were necessary to be place where they could be seen by the public (although much more subtle than film cues), remains a mystery. I am also looking to find anyone who has actually seen these things. There were happening not all that long ago....well, maybe 20-25 yrs. And it could be that maybe they were something that was local for WNBC here in NYC, although I distinctly remember them being on the Tonite show, which of course was NBC network.  |  IP: Logged Ray Faultless Film Handler Posts: 96 From: Amington, Tamworth, England Registered: Jun 2001 posted 01-10-2008 04:15 AM                     I remember those Frank. I always thought they were for what you said. When I came back to the UK I saw the same thing on the major commercial station.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 01-11-2008 08:50 PM                        Ah HA!...so I am not crazy. Thanks Ray; I've been trying to find just one other person who remembers them, but so far it was for naught. I was beginning to feel like one of these people who see UFOs and then spend the rest of their lives trying to find someone else who's seen it as well. I think our assumption is on the money. I was trying to think of some high-tech explanation other than it was just a visual cue to wake up the techs who normally only had timings that came down the line during the day as to when the commercial breaks were inserted in the network prime time shows. Maybe they just needed something simple in case they miss read the seconds or maybe the timings weren't all that accurate in the first place. Imagine having to make change-overs based on minutes:seconds printed on a card. In my youth, the big radio station in NYC was WABC -- it was a clear channel and the highest rated top 40 in the country most of the time. EVERYONE who aspired to be involved with any aspect of radio aspired to the quality of WABC-AM. The jocks were nationally known and I assumed the tech guys were about as state-of-the-human-art as you could get. You know....if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Recently I saw pictures of the control rooms in the WABC studios around that time. I was really quite taken aback to see that this super station pumped out its winning formula, its hot sound and its dominance of the airwaves from audio gear that look almost primitive. They used oddly small little mixers sittin on a desk with just a few controls....talk about quaint. It took me by surprised because in my mind I saw it ike, I don't know....BIGGER or something...certainly more high-tech -- Cape Canaveral-ish, I guess. I mean, they were making history with stuff that looked like they got it from Radio Shack. So maybe there is no high-tech answer to what those electronic cues were for. Maybe they were nothing more that what they looked like -- simple cue marks to get the tech's attention....and to keep me wondering and annoyed for 25 years!  |  IP: Logged Bernard Tonks Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 619 From: Cranleigh, Surrey, England Registered: Apr 2001 posted 01-19-2008 09:20 AM                     Having worked in telecine, I was well aware of those cues which used to drive me nuts when watching television at home. You can still see them occasionally as shown from "Dancing On Ice" on ITV 1 channel. Improved picture quality made. [ 01-28-2008, 06:53 AM: Message edited by: Bernard Tonks ]  |  IP: Logged Robert W. Jones Film Handler Posts: 74 From: San Antonio, TX Registered: Mar 2007 posted 01-19-2008 02:33 PM                     Frank, I'm not positive, but think you may be right. I alway's thought they signaled control change to local programming (commercials, PSA's etc.). Probably used a subcarrier in the network feed for control purposes. Now I'm really curious.  |  IP: Logged Kenneth Wuepper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1026 From: Saginaw, MI, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 01-19-2008 02:54 PM                     After switching for the local CBS outlet for a few nights it became evident that these were "roll Qs" for the film chain or for the VTR if you could afford one. All of the daytime soaps had them and they were very tight to the upper right corner of the image. A later form of these signals were incorporated in the Vertical Interval near the VIT (Vertical Interval Test) signals when color came in. You could see phase, Gamma and Chroma data as well as get your cutaways without the viewer being any the wiser. KEN (Boy do I feel Old!)  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 01-20-2008 01:50 AM                       Frank, I do not remember ever seeing these. By the time I was a fan of Johnny Carson in the early 70s, I certainly knew about cue marks because I was using them at the theatres, and I noticed 16mm TV cues all the time. Maybe I saw them, but I certainly don't remember them. Or, maybe they started using them later, when I wasn't watching TV as much. FWIW, when I worked in television master control and ran daily network talk shows, 15 or 20 seconds before air time, they'd feed a screen of text showing the "hit times" for that day's local breaks. The op would then write them down, so he'd know when to pre-roll. If you missed them, you'd have to call L.A. and get their master control operator on the phone and get him to repeat it for you. quote: Frank Angel In my youth, the big radio station in NYC was WABC It still is - sort of. WABC is consistently #1 in the nation... in its format. What I learned early on in broadcasting was, it's not what you have for equipment, it's how you use it. I got a very big sound out of a little AM station I worked for that only had a small Gates 80 board, two ancient Russco turntables underneath the board, and an ITC 3-deck cart machine that had to be fired manually. The kid jocks there used to complain and whine about not having a 16-channel board with sliding pots, or carts with secondary tones... while I found it challenging to do a good show, and make it sound fantastic, with what they had. It was all in how tight I ran the board, constantly watching my levels, my mic technique, and keeping tabs on the cart sequencing -- all the while doing manual breaks on the satellite format FM sister station (which, incidentally, was being fed over the audition channel of the Gates 80!). Most other people who worked in that control room sounded flat and distorted on the mic, always had carts burping -- or even missing stop cues entirely and replaying over the air -- and playing the FM breaks over the AM channel, or vice-versa. I did afternoon drive there and consistently pulled big numbers, often #1 in my daypart for the county, even against the primary station in that ADI (Lexington, KY). It was one of the most fun jobs I've ever had, that station.  |  IP: Logged Bernard Tonks Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 619 From: Cranleigh, Surrey, England Registered: Apr 2001 posted 01-28-2008 06:58 AM                     Improved picture quality made of a TV transmission cue.  |  IP: Logged Evans A Criswell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1579 From: Huntsville, AL, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 01-28-2008 09:44 AM                        I posted this back around September 2004 (but can't find it on Film-Yak, where it probably would have been posted then). So here it is. Thames TV used these kinds of cues before commercial breaks, and the diagonal line pattern in the rectangle moved and changed speed over time.  |  IP: Logged Michael Coate Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1904 From: Los Angeles, California Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-28-2008 10:23 AM                     quote: Frank Angel Nah, not what I am talking about you guys....these were electronic. I know. I posted just to point out that my recollection differed from Jesse's since I grew up with a steady diet of KTLA. Not to drift further, but...some of my most favorite TV memories were of KTLA's annual "Twilight Zone" marathon or their all-day send-off marathon in 1982 for "Star Trek." (Can you imagine the country's second largest TV market without "Star Trek" re-runs for 2 1/2 years?) [ 01-28-2008, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: Michael Coate ]  |  IP: Logged

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