Tuesday, December 04, 2012

The Internet Is Made Of Answers

The Hobbit 48 fps stuff reminded me of a nagging question I've had for years. Not an important one, of course, just something which bugged me decades ago and back then it would have been very difficult to find an answer.

There was The John Larroquette show on teevee. I could never watch it because it just looked... weird. Like there was a little bit of a ghost trail following all of the actors, or that they didn't move at the right speed. Whatever it was it drove my brain crazy and I literally had to turn it off.

Now we have the internet to answer questions like this. It isn't a full answer, but it gives me a pretty good idea.

The show was videotaped, but processed by NBC to make it look like it was recorded on film. Network promos even showed "unprocessed" clips. When it was rerun on the USA Network, the processing was gone and the show had the look of a videotaped sitcom.