I was watching the first ten minutes of Channel 4 News and I noticed that the b/w cue-dot (is that what it's really called?) was in the top right corner of the screen. I remember back then it would appear during programmes telling us it's going to be over and it would flash while in a slanted position. The one I saw was b/w vertical and it would flash between the headlines. Does anyone have any more information on the cue-dots because I thought they were extinct.
Cue-Dots are still used as a backup communication device and general timekeeper as to when to roll the ads. Most often they end up in the top-right overscan area of the picture which on occasion persons watching in letterbox mode can see quite clearly as they're often just outside the graphic safe area of the 4:3 frame.
You even see them at Wimbledon, however they are used here as a guide to tell foreign broadcasters that the feed they're currently using of a court will cut to an (English-speaking) interview with somebody who's just played on that court in less than 30 seconds time so get off it if you don't want it.
Cue dots are still in use on many ITV and C4 live shows - as they are a very safe way of indicating that the show is about to go to a commercial break. They've been in use during the ITV World Cup coverage - even on the HD feed!
They are a perfectly normal and standard system for use for this purpose.
As Neil Jones has mentioned - they are also used at Wimbledon to indicate that a court feed will move from being clean to dirty, when a BBC unilateral interview is about to appear via the court scanner.
The application where they are now obsolete is the reverse of the ITV system, the old-style BBC use of them. The BBC used to use cue dots to communicate FROM presentation to studios and OBs to give them cues for their on-air junction, but they were rendered obsolete by the delays introduced by digital TV distribution and transmission.
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nodnirG kraM
noggin posted:
They've been in use during the ITV World Cup coverage - even on the HD feed!
That is one fine cue-dot. I one I saw on Channel 4 News was stretched, moved slowly and can clearly be seen on a 4:3 screen. But this takes me back to the good old days where whenever I see a cue-dot I would get prepared for the end credits then followed by the regional endcaps.
The application where they are now obsolete is the reverse of the ITV system, the old-style BBC use of them. The BBC used to use cue dots to communicate FROM presentation to studios and OBs to give them cues for their on-air junction, but they were rendered obsolete by the delays introduced by digital TV distribution and transmission.
They're also useful to presentation (at least in the nations) when lining-up with an OB to ensure the said OB is watching the correct off-air feed. If the programme before the opt is as network, it's essential to ensure the OB are watching the opt channel, not the network.
*as you always see it on repeats of old sitcoms (probably by Thames)
Yup, even episodes of Mr Bean on DVD have them tagged onto the screen, or check out whenever ITV3 shows Never The Twain, they seem to prefer to alter the break structure, so the dot is an indication of where the break was originally.
could Never the Twain have been on film and the cue dot was to indicate a reel change?
I'm pretty certain the whole thing was shot on Video, well probably the later episodes from the mid 1980's to 1991. You could also tell this as with many FremantleMedia-ised Thames programmes, they don't seem to keep their own break slides, so often these are edited badly, especially when you can hear the music to the slide in the edited scene if you get my drift.