Or - how on earth is it possible to so easily detect if something is a film?
The reason I ask (apart from the fact that I have always been curious about this) is that I just turned over to find that ‘Are you being Served?’ is on. Only it is instantly obvious that it is a film (Are you being served is a UK comedy show, not a film)
As it turns out it is a film of the show. So how on earth is it so easy to tell the difference?
I suspect the answer will be ‘different type of camera used’. So what differences does the camera make that make it easy to spot films?
Films are shot on film, TV shows are shot on video. Although some TV shows are shot on film - I remember one series of Red Dwarf suddenly looked really different - turned out they had a bigger budget and shot on film.
To make it more confusing, the earliest extant Dr. Who episodes exist as telerecordings (termed ‘kinoscopes’ in the US) which are filmed copies of a programme made on video by pointing a film camera at a special TV screen and filming the playback. In other words, it’s like pointing a camcorder at a television set and recording what’s on the TV. Sort of.
The whole point of telerecording was that film was cheaper that video and also easier to broadcast from, so the telerecordings were made for overseas sales, then the original videotapes were wiped and reused. Then many of the telerecordings were returned and thrown out. This is why many British TV series from the 60s and early 70s are missing episodes.
Details on missing episodes can be found here. Please check your attics.
R_K is correct. Video tends to look more “crisp” and defined (edges are really sharp so it can sometimes look a little “flat” – like it would be hard to tell if the wall behind an actor is 6 feet behind him or 12), and highlights can sometimes look a little bleached (noticeable on shows that are overlit). Film tends to have better colour saturation and have more delicate lights and shadows (so you can still see details in the really light areas and the really dark areas.) Edges are softer.
Really good quality video is starting to look a helluva lot better these days! The shadows and highlights aren’t losing as much as 10-20 years ago. If you want a good example of the difference of film and video, compare sitcoms from the 80s with bigger budget shows of today.
At it’s worst, cheap video will actually get grainy in the really dark (pitch black areas) and in the highlight areas will be pure white to the point of distraction (you might notice this on old re-runs of SCTV or SNL).
But again, video is much better today than it used to be.