Late 80s Credits

This is a bit of a random post but it's something that has bugged me in the past.

If you look at the credits for these programmes...





...they all share a common characteristic. As the text reaches the top of the screen, it disappears before it reaches the top.

I've noticed this on loads of programmes made in the late 80s, and I was wondering if there was a technical reason for this? The obvious answer is that they've all been generated on the same kit, but why wouldn't the credits pass through the top of the screen? There isn't a similar gap at the bottom.

Presumably the overscan of TV sets at the time meant it wouldn't be visible to the casual viewer.

Was it an attempt to match the style of old chroma-keyed bus destination blind style credits? Or maybe the top part of the screen was left blank so as not to confuse equipment looking for the cue dot? These are both guesses but I'd be interested to know too.

This is the likely explanation - I have a few old videotaped programmes with this characteristic, and it's only visible if you digitise the tape and play it on a computer.

Well, I'm not saying it's the actual reason why - as Interceptor says I imagine there was some sort of technical limitation at the time, but it didn't matter because it wouldn't show up on normal sets.

This wasn't unique to UK shows, which makes me question to 'cue dot' suggestion. On this example, there's a small gap at the top of the screen as the credits roll, and a much larger gap at the bottom. I suspect it's either a deliberate styling issue, or down to the kit used.

As it's on so many shows I just presume it's down to the caption generators of the time. As it would have been outside the overscan area, it's not as it was really an issue at the time.

I've considered this, but I have VHS tapes whereby the gap is still visible. I used to notice it on shows on UK Gold (when UK Gold used to show classic shows)

An example from BBC's Red Dwarf in 1987

Glad it's not just me, as this used to be a bugbear of mine too!

The only equipment that was looking for cue dots were human beings !

It seemed to be a characteristic of cap gens at the time.

What annoys me today, (now we are firmly in a non overscan environment) is that many DVE foregrounds are one pixel row/line smaller than the backgrounds, and you see the background leaking through before the foreground is animated away

It was the kit.

If you look at some very early Chyron caption generator-originated credit crawls from the US in the 1970s, there was a very large area top and bottom of the screen that was not filled.

This will have been a function of the addressable matrix area of the equipment of the time -- in order to achieve broadcast quality the area will have been reduced down.