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Old 6th Oct 2020, 5:15 pm   #1
RobustReviews
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Default Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

Hello all,

Bit of an odd one, was there ever a technical name for the black/white spinning (or flashing) symbol that used to appear in the top left of the screen on commercial broadcasters a minute or so prior to a commercial break?

I believe it was to alert regions to standby to play ads out? Just for some research I'm doing for something, just wondered if it ever had an 'official' name or purpose?

Kind Regards,
Andy
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Old 6th Oct 2020, 5:25 pm   #2
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

I thought of it simply as "cue dot"- though those here from the TV broadcast industry may know of a more formal title. A sort of half-heard apocryphal story I'd encountered was that it had been devised originally by the BBC, not for adverts obviously but to cue regional opt-outs, local news/weather, that sort of thing and the patent had something about "locked pattern" in it- so the independents simply adopted it with an unlocked pattern, hence the spinning/flashing aspect to it. The tale did have an element of "too good to be true" about it, though.
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Old 6th Oct 2020, 8:29 pm   #3
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

Yes, it was the "ad sync" the "strobe" was used to see how far out the other station was in regards to lock, not too far out and nobody noticed.
 
Old 6th Oct 2020, 8:40 pm   #4
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

I remember it came up 15 seconds before the adverts started. I think I've seen it fairly recently on Talking Pictures TV.
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Old 6th Oct 2020, 9:18 pm   #5
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

Having spent my entire working career in commercial telly I can confirm it was simply called a ‘cue dot’. It came on a minute before the commercial break was due ( though this could vary on unpredictable programmes like sports for example) and would disappear precisely 5 seconds before the start of the break. In the early days of commercial telly the ads were played out on high quality telecine machines which took 5 seconds to run up and be stable hence the 5 seconds and it stayed like that even after the commercial playout technology changed over the decades. The spec for the positioning of the dot was not very precise nor was the frequency of the moving stripe within the dot. Generally the stripe was unlocked to the line frequency but I never saw a spec for it, it was just a matter of it being easily seen against any background video that might occur. Some of the ITV companies did not use a moving/strobing dot and their cue dot was completely stationary and in fact not even striped at all - Anglia TV was one such company. For commercial breaks the cue dot appeared in the top RH corner, you could also put a cue dot up in the top LH corner but that was used to signify the start and end of pre-recorded inserts into a programme. The BBC used a similar system for signalling start and end of junctions etc. Cue dots can still be seen on occasion, but in ITV the system has been replaced by ‘inviscue’ whereby the cue dot is encoded within the digital stream rather than within the actual video. Hope this helps.

Edited to add, in all my years working with cue dot generators I never saw one go faulty or require any sort of maintenance - quite some achievement I think.
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Old 6th Oct 2020, 10:23 pm   #6
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

It's the same principle that is/was used on reels of 35mm cine film for projection in cinemas. A dot appears exactly 10 seconds before the end of each 10 minute reel. The projectionist would have the second projector ready with the START frame of the Academy leader of the next reel positioned in the gate and would start up the second projector when the dot was seen on the screen so that the first reel ended at the same time as the new reel started. You can sometimes see these dots when old films are shown on TV, although sometimes processing seems to have been used to make the dots less noticeable.

Last edited by emeritus; 6th Oct 2020 at 10:35 pm. Reason: Typos
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Old 6th Oct 2020, 11:19 pm   #7
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

The last time I remember seeing a cue dot was when a football match went into extra time and penalties about ten years ago.

I've probably got some Granada ones on video. I remember a long freeze frame at the end of an advert meant the end of a break & the programme restarting.

The BBC one looked liked two white lines in the top right corner.

I can remember some old cartoons used to have a circle in the top right corner when a scene was coming to an end, I presume was an edit mark.
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 12:43 am   #8
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

"Cue Dot", see (halfway down the page after the film cue info) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_mark
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 12:52 am   #9
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

There's a couple of rare cue-dot pairs on my Youtube channel.
I was told the first one cues the sponsor announcement, and the second one the ad break. (Perhaps the sponsor is different by region?)

https://youtu.be/UkjVGt4YKsc

Same idea but different placement.
https://youtu.be/sJTBayPG80o

You would think cues could be hidden in a data stream rather than being burnt in to the vision.

Apologies for the incorrect aspect ratio.
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 4:45 am   #10
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

Back when this first started, there was no such thing as a data stream or anything else - so, the if it ain't broke, don't ...... ethos took effect.

They did try sub-audible tones, but that didn't last overly long, although I believe some radio stations still use that system.

And those of us who used to work in television/film, find them mighty annoying, if only because you spent a large part of your work day looking for them - it never leaves you.
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 7:35 am   #11
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

Quote:
Originally Posted by red16v View Post
It came on a minute before the commercial break was due ( though this could vary on unpredictable programmes like sports for example) and would disappear precisely 5 seconds before the start of the break.
How did they know when to go back to the program, was it simply timed or was there another cuedot?

Peter
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 10:27 am   #12
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronpusher0 View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by red16v View Post
It came on a minute before the commercial break was due ( though this could vary on unpredictable programmes like sports for example) and would disappear precisely 5 seconds before the start of the break.
How did they know when to go back to the program, was it simply timed or was there another cuedot?

Peter
Everything was very tightly timed on ITV - down to the second. Every regional ITV station had a daily running order that detailed where every break would occur and the duration of each break so nothing was a surprise as it were. The time slot for each break was always slightly longer than the sum of the commercials. 7 commercials each 30 seconds in length would come to 3’30”. A station optical at the start of each break would last another half a second, then half a second of black between each commercial added another 3 seconds. So, the total time of material, if you like, for the break would be 3’ 33.5”. Taking into account this was a manual process and not every local ITV company rolled their telecine machines precisely at -5 seconds ‘to go’ then the total break would be rounded up to 3’ 40’. If there was any slack at the end of the last commercial in the break the company would stay on the freeze frame of that last commercial in the break. Every commercial was supplied by the Ad agency with a 10 second freeze on the end of it. A break with two 30 second comms would be scheduled as 1’ 05” etc etc.

I wish I had a pound for every commercial I played out! But too off topic.

Last edited by red16v; 7th Oct 2020 at 10:48 am.
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 10:35 am   #13
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

To add to the cinema comment, most reels in cinemas were about 20 minutes.
To let the projectionist know that a change over was coming many projectors had a bell that would sound when the top spool reached a certain speed (the bell hammer being actuated by the reel turning) he would then go to the projector with the next reel on and strike up the arc lamp (which took a short time) On the first cue dot the motor would be started and the arc lamp dowser (shutter) opened. On the second cue dot he would operate a switch which opened the gate on the projector and closed the gate on the other projector It would also switch over the sound heads. After assuring that the "new" projector was running OK he would go to the other projector and shut it down ready to put in the next reel etc.
Generally 7 was put in the gate and not picture start.
I did it hundreds of times in the early 1960s at Odeon and Gaumont cinemas.

I miss the cue dots both the TV advert ones and cinema ones, often old films digitally remastered have the cue dots removed. They still pop up occasionally on Talking Pictures TV though.

Many people never notice them.

John
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 11:24 am   #14
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

I think I spotted one on an old TV show on Talking Pictures recently, it was probably an episode of Budgie, but possibly added for the repeats on Channel 4 as it looked a bit advanced for the early 1970s.
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 12:29 pm   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard_FM View Post
I think I spotted one on an old TV show on Talking Pictures recently, it was probably an episode of Budgie, but possibly added for the repeats on Channel 4 as it looked a bit advanced for the early 1970s.
Budgie was produced by LWT and was edited at their premises in Wembley. I was in contact with the editor of it only the other day - what are the chances of that happening! I will ask him if the cue dot was added during post production editing. But it might take a few days to ask and get a reply.

Cue dots were used from the very early days of ITV in the mid 50’s so they weren’t at all unusual from then on let alone the 70’s.

Generally programmes that were recorded and subsequently edited in a fully fitted out edit suite had the cue dots added in the edit suite, but I will ask about Budgie as at the time LWT only had what we call ‘machine side’ editing facilities with limited capabilities until the mid 70’s. It will take a few days.
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 2:24 pm   #16
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

The Budgie episodes may have been recovered from transmission recordings, or even recorded off-air.
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 2:51 pm   #17
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

I can't remember if it was Blue Peter, Tomorrow's World, 'HOW' or Magpie but one article in the late 70's explained the cue dots. They also said that if your TV was adjusted properly, they shouldn't be visible at all, as they were only normally visible at the top of a professional monitor.
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 3:21 pm   #18
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

It's true that most domestic TVs were set up to overscan, but once FST tubes arrived the cue dots were very obvious.
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 3:41 pm   #19
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Default Re: Television Advert 'Warning' Symbol

Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
It's true that most domestic TVs were set up to overscan, but once FST tubes arrived the cue dots were very obvious.
Yes - and on many old TVs you could also see the 'crawling dots' along the top of the frame once Ceefax/ORACLE started being transmitted. A TV-servicing friend had quite a few callouts to tweak the scan so the crawling-dots were no longer visible.
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Old 7th Oct 2020, 4:35 pm   #20
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Originally Posted by raditechman View Post
Many people never notice them.
I certainly did, when it came to reel-changeover dots on films broadcast over TV, I used to smile inwardly and think "In the next few seconds, there's a good chance of a rather brutal TARIF crash...."- surely one of the most painfully contrived acronyms ever.
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