Comment by rwmj
3 days ago
Reminds me a bit of the BBC 1 ident from the 1960s-1980s, which was a physical model that was broadcast live (not even recorded!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noddy_(camera)
It was replaced with a custom-built electronic system which was itself pretty crazy. One of the COWs came up for sale a few years back:
Wow! There's a look of the Noddy at the end of this video: https://youtu.be/agKiATDgdBs (as well as what the broadcasted video looks like before it).
Funny how there are other frames like "Temporary Fault", that the camera can point to to inform the audience if there's a problem.
The Wikipedia page also mentions how they added "Colour" to promote the fact that colour service is available, and how people were choosing to remain in B&W because the licence fee for colour TV is higher. Meanwhile in 2025 I'm still using 1080p instead of 4K monitors because theye're good enough.
I had to get a new TV and did upgrade to 4K because it seemed to make sense. But hadn't had an urge to do so previously.
I do think a lot of people get obsessed with incremental resolution/sound/network improvements that, in practice, don't really affect the experience.
I went from a 32" 720p TV to a 43" 4K TV. I don't really notice the difference for TV watching. I don't watch a lot of TV anyway.
Now a 1080p monitor up to a 4K monitor? That was a huge improvement to my experience. It's like having 4 1080p monitors without a seam if you get one big enough.
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Think about the logistics of suddenly having to put up a fault slide during an emergency, especially when the best you can ask for is a camera and possibly a chroma-keyer! A camera on a swivel must've been a luxury.
Thank you for posting that video. The wikipedia description doesn't quite capture the visual interestingness of the globe with concave mirror.
How does this article not include a video or photo of what the logo actually looked like?
It does, third picture on the right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BBC_One_colour_1969.jpg