A zillion years ago when nobody had cable and every channel (all 3 of them ) came via a big antenna on the roof or rabbit ears on the set, it was a rather common occurrence for programming to freeze and a test pattern or a screen with a picture of a dumbass scratching his head to appear. A droaning voice would say “We’re sorry. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by.” This could go on for 60 seconds or 10 minutes, or anything in-between.
I don’t recall this happening with any cable channels. I don’t recall seeing this for over 20 years now, to tell you the truth.
So what exactly were those technical difficulties? News anchoreman drunk again?
In the 60’s & 70’s if you watched enough TV you saw this at least every few days.
WTF was happening?
I can imagine digital equipment being more reliable and they probably have more redundancy. Add to that that the signal comes delayed and there are less live programs and more canned stuff so there is just less surprises for the techincal crew.
Back in the old days before solid-state electronics, vacuum tubes would up and die now and then.
A TV studio would have thousands and thousands of tubes in the cameras, amplifiers, switching equipment, transmitter and so forth, so failure was not exactly uncommon. Even if the equipment designers “derated” the tubes so they had a relatively easy life and would last longer, tubes did have a certain lifespan that’s much shorter than modern electronics that are more likely to become obsolete before they fail.
It could have been any number of things. These are the typical program sources for your average broadcast TV station:
[ul]
[li]Live local studio program[/li][li]Live remote broadcast from the field (e.g. news truck)[/li][li]Recorded program on videotape[/li][li]Recorded program or movie on film[/li][li]Feed from network (live or recorded)[/ul][/li]A problem with any of these–defective hardware, broken or defective tape or film, lost signal, bad audio, whatever–could suddenly leave a station with no program and send the techs scrambling to fix the problem or find an alternate source.
Sapo is right that digital technology has made the process of getting a broadcast signal to the transmitter much more reliable. In the old days (before, say, the 1980s) telecine machines (that convert film to video) and VTRs were entirely analog and mechanical, and as such were much more prone than modern hardware to breaking or putting out substandard signals.
For many years the networks would typically run two copies of outgoing programs simultaneously on two separate VTRs so that if the one sending feed out to hundreds of affiliates had a problem, they could instantly switch to the other.
One of the big advances in broadcast technology was the introduction, in the late 1970s, of the digital time base corrector (TBC), an electronic device that processes an analog video signal, stabilizing and cleaning up the signal to remove all traces of the flaws that could be introduced by mechanical or electronic irregularities. Digital technology spread rapidly throughout the industry, and now is essentially ubiquitous, as it is in the audio recording world, and everywhere else.
The cable companies in this area sucked for years and the patrons of a certain town had that happen or die completely for days. I’ve seen the sign appear on stuff because the digital signal at the uplink has been lost due to a storm or similar reason and the receiving distributer has to put up the sign.
I work in television as well as film production. Rare as it is, sometimes the live feed incoming to the network goes down for some reason. The network is black for a few seconds and then we go live and “fill”, which is a charitible word for open-ended bullshitting.
I was on a remote once, one of the Triple Crown races for ABC Sports and our Uplink Truck caught fire. That was…bad. Only a few hours before air, too. We lost all two-way with NY. Production found a truck locally that was not in use that day and arranged to rent it.
I kind of miss those placards telling us things were going kerflooey, and please stand by.
I guess now, if an edited piece is “rolling” ( which is a misnomer because many are stored on Hard Drives now ), the only thing that might happen is for the hard drive to fail. Unlikely, that.
Part of the charm of growing up as a kid with analog broadcasting and three (3) channels was staying up till midnite when, get this - stations would shut down, preceded by generally the national anthem, or maybe the classic indian test signal.
Zackley! This was the time for those who did their own TV repairs but lacked a signal generator to get busy and adjust pincushion phase, linearity, and such.
Up until not too long ago I remember KTLA signing off with the station logo and a technical identification of their station: transmitter location, broadcasting frequency, etc. it was really neat.
Just earlier tonight, around 8 or so, the Food Network feed on our cable (Comcast in Howard County, MD) cut out and was replaced by a dead-feed signal. Gray background (solid and blurry is the best way I can describe it) with white text in a very “system” font reading something to the effect of “This channel is unavailable due to technical difficulties”.
) came via a big antenna on the roof or rabbit ears on the set, it was a rather common occurrence for programming to freeze and a test pattern or a screen with a picture of a dumbass scratching his head to appear. A droaning voice would say “We’re sorry. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by.” This could go on for 60 seconds or 10 minutes, or anything in-between.