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Author Topic: Technical question  (Read 5371 times)

Twentington

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Technical question
« on: July 01, 2011, 02:23:21 AM »
I've noticed a couple weird things about the category chyrons in early Wheel of Fortune episodes. The very first style (the really bold type, as seen on the "Kill the vampire" episode) was only shown onscreen sporadically. Also, the second style of chyron (the thin, white, monospaced letters) was MIA whenever they went to Speed-Up — you just had the split-screen, no category name in sight.

Was there a technical reason for any of this? I don't know how the technology worked, so I was just curious.
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BrandonFG

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Technical question
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2011, 10:46:40 AM »
The first version was superimposed from an art card, which would've required someone to hold a camera shot on said card. My guess is the director wasn't going to waste a primary camera on an art card the whole show.

As far as the speed round, no clue. It was very primitive technology, so maybe it wasn't advanced enough to do what they did in the 80s.

That's all speculation of course.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2011, 10:47:24 AM by fostergray82 »
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Unrealtor

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Technical question
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2011, 11:59:07 AM »
As far as the speed round, no clue. It was very primitive technology, so maybe it wasn't advanced enough to do what they did in the 80s.

Could it be that the same piece of effects equipment was used to do the split screen and add the chyron output?
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Chief-O

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Technical question
« Reply #3 on: July 01, 2011, 12:04:10 PM »
Could it be that the same piece of effects equipment was used to do the split screen and add the chyron output?

Both would have to be handled by the same piece of equipment--namely, the switcher. The split screen is a simple vertical wipe, the Chyron [or 3M Datavision in the early days] would've likely gone through a downstream key. Easy to do that simultaneously with most of the switchers of the time----can't think NBC wouldn't have had the same Grass Valley switchers as everyone else.....

My guess: The director just didn't feel like showing the category CG during the speed round.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2011, 12:15:45 PM by Chief-O »
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JasonA1

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Technical question
« Reply #4 on: July 01, 2011, 12:14:30 PM »
I'm willing to bet the original art card could have been on screen every time the board showed up if they wanted it that way  - it was just a style choice. I doubt a camera would be going back and forth to it.

Just for example: when Hit Me first debuted on Price, they weren't zooming out during the item descriptions to show the fake price underneath. It seems like such an automatic move, and a great help to the viewers, but it didn't come about until people wrote letters. It's possible, in both these cases with Wheel, that nobody thought to keep the category up for the entire round and/or speed-up. Chris talks about his suggesting they show the board when Allen called out a guess on P+ - before, they were hanging on his shot while he said "Is it potato salad?"

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gameshowcrazy

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Technical question
« Reply #5 on: July 01, 2011, 04:10:57 PM »
Just to throw this one out there:

The average TV screen size was much smaller back then, maybe the producers thought it wouldn't be seen very clearly or would take up too much room?

trainman

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Technical question
« Reply #6 on: July 01, 2011, 10:38:29 PM »
I'm willing to bet the original art card could have been on screen every time the board showed up if they wanted it that way  - it was just a style choice. I doubt a camera would be going back and forth to it.

Yes, if all you need is a simple single-color superimposed graphic, you can use an el-cheapo black-and-white camera that's fixed in place on a shot of the easel -- no need to have one of the main cameras swing over to shoot the art cards.
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bscripps

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Technical question
« Reply #7 on: July 02, 2011, 12:33:58 PM »
Allow me to add one more theory as to the lack of a bonus round category display...

Unless someone can document that they were using an actual Chyron character generator, I'd guess (based primarily on the style, size and proportion of typeface) that they were using an earlier non-Chyron/non-Dubner model of CG.  If I had to guess, it looks almost identical to the model we used in my first video production course in college, which was held in 1992 in the "old" studio where all the ancient equipment went to die; I've been sitting here for 15 minutes googling and racking my brains trying to remember what the name of that CG was, but I can't think of it.  (I do remember the shock of having to use this crappy thing when I'm used to using the student TV station's Video Toaster, with its multiple colors and four--count 'em, FOUR!--fonts.)

What I definitely do recall about it, though, was, unlike today's CG's which can store thousands upon thousands of graphics as files on a hard drive, this one only had four pages of storage in RAM.  You had room for four graphics for instant recall.  Allow me to advance the theory that NBC perhaps had the same unit, or one similarly equipped, but had five pages of CG to air during the credits sequence.  The last four pages (let's say Susan's wardrobe credit, Chuck's wardrobe, "the show has been edited" or "contestants have been provided the rules" and/or a copyright page) could be stored internally and recalled into the on-air buffer live, but the first page in sequence would have to be manually typed into the on-air buffer.  And if memory serves, the first page would likely have been the long list of companies which had provided prizes.  Perhaps given the choice between stopping production for five minutes while the CG op typed all this in, or just skipping the category name in the bonus round and letting the CG op type it all in during that time...

Like I said, just a theory.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2011, 12:34:36 PM by bscripps »
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JasonA1

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Technical question
« Reply #8 on: July 02, 2011, 03:39:26 PM »
The "317 list" of prize suppliers was on a matte board, just as the credits were in those days. But, I'll take your theory a different direction. Having the graphic show up in a new location (as its original lower-third spot could obscure the puzzle) could have required a new page of CG, like you said, which may have been too circumstantial to do in those days.

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Twentington

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Technical question
« Reply #9 on: July 02, 2011, 04:44:45 PM »
Another onscreen oddity I've noticed with the third-generation chyrons (the Helvetica ones) is that, if someone accidentally called one of the RSTLNE letters by mistake, that letter would ALWAYS be put on the chyron (perhaps a muscle memory thing on the operator's part), then "overtyped" with the next letter. It's not like they backspaced over it and typed in the "correct" letter; it just changed to one.
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