Match Game observation (technical)

[catnap1972]

Anyone else notice there's either some vertical lines or a green halo along the left edge of the screen during MG 7x recently?  Seems to be there on both the morning's PM shows as well as MG78 at noon.  Not appearing during any other shows, nor during the commercials so it's either GSN's equipment or the tapes themselves.  What's doing that?

[Chief-O]

The vertical lines---I've seen this before with MG. Not positive how this happened, but I'd suppose this was an anomaly when the shows were recorded.

Green halo---taking a blind swing at the ball here [no GSN in this house], but I'd bet it's some edge aberation with the camera lenses of the time. I've seen footage from that time where the edge of the picture has a strange color cast. Sometimes, the corners seem to be "vignetted" [the word us photographers use].

[SFQuizKid]

[quote name=\'Chief-O\' post=\'238520\' date=\'Mar 29 2010, 08:49 PM\']... Sometimes, the corners seem to be "vignetted" [the word us photographers use].[/quote]
I put an example on my blog: http://quizproducer.blogspot.com/2010/03/c...erscanning.html.  Is this what you're referring to?

I'll let the real old-timers correct me on this one, but it looks as if the round camera tubes (look up "image orthicon," "vidicon," or "plumbicon") were being over-scanned--the image you see actually extended beyond the round edges of the camera tubes.  

Remember that when these shows were originally broadcast that perfectly rectangular picture tubes were years in the future (and no, I don't just mean color roundies).  In addition, most sets were over-scanned so that the edges of the picture didn't show up on the home set.

It's not a video tape issue, it's a camera issue because you'll see other shots (taken with other cameras) in the same show will not have the same edge fringes and rounded edges.

[Chief-O]

[quote name=\'SFQuizKid\' post=\'238598\' date=\'Mar 30 2010, 08:20 PM\'][quote name=\'Chief-O\' post=\'238520\' date=\'Mar 29 2010, 08:49 PM\']... Sometimes, the corners seem to be "vignetted" [the word us photographers use].[/quote]
I put an example on my blog: http://quizproducer.blogspot.com/2010/03/c...erscanning.html.  Is this what you're referring to?
[/quote]

Yes it is. You can even see the vertical lines on the left that were referred to in the OP. It may be the tubes, it may be the lenses of the time [which were nowhere close in quality to today's lenses]---I couldn't tell you, offhand.