Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Strange theory about Cap Code

This is topic Strange theory about Cap Code in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Miguel Angel Martorell (Member # 1110) on 03-14-2004, 08:07 PM:

In a spanish forum I´ve read that the real use of the Cap code is for televsion. This man (he´s a college teacher) says that these noisy dots on the screen are some kind of signal for inserting the commercials in an automatic way.
Sorry for my poor english but these man uses a lot of technichal words and maybe you should go to the text if you understand spanish. Here is the link

cinesonido

Un saludo and no more wars, no more terrorism and no more victims.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-14-2004, 08:13 PM:

Ummm. No.[av=c]

Are you sure this guy even knows what CAP code is?

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-14-2004, 08:26 PM:

that signal is mixed in the sound not the picture. If you have ever watched a sat transmision that did not mask the sound you can hear these loud tones come across the sound. They are actually there to tell the local stations or cable company equipment to activate local advertisments for broadcast.

quote:
these man uses a lot of technichal words

Just because you can use a lot of technical words does not mean you know what your talking about.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 03-14-2004, 09:15 PM:

Hmmmm... I thought they'd stopped using audio cues for the most part... except maybe on some of the sports or shopping channels.

Good point though. I figured they'd gone to some kind of cue scheme up in the blanking lines somewhere.

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 03-14-2004, 09:18 PM:

Miguel,
Damodar is off the mark regarding confusing the CAP code for TV address signals which are usually used for logging purposes to prove transmission....these are usually out of the picture area or in an area of the image not noticeable to the average viewer.

Posted by Joshua Tefay (Member # 1722) on 03-14-2004, 10:14 PM:

I always wondered how TV stations cued advertisements!
Does anyone have any links on this subject?

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 03-14-2004, 10:25 PM:

My understanding is that it's a lot more seat-of-the-pants than you might think, at least for live network television. Affiliates are told in advance after which national commercials their local commercial time will fit in, and the controller (a human) has to watch for the end of that commercial and start the local commercial programming.

For taped events, though, the networks give the affiliates schedules of commercials and programming down to the second.

--jhawk

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-15-2004, 12:47 AM:

Lots of technical words? Like what, codec?

Well at least we now know that CAP was developed in Paris and that 35mm film takes advantage of the enormous quality of native DV.

quote:
Cap´s Codec (ó Codecs de Captura) fue un “invento” desarrollado en Paris ... a formato 35 m/m para pantalla grande (aprovechando la enorme calidad del DV nativo)

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 03-15-2004, 07:10 AM:

College professors....now there's a reliable source of technical information.

Me to a film professor and his students while they were touring the projection booth. "This is an anamorphic lens." Professor: "What's an anamorphic lens?"

In a film class on Fellini, after showing us a pan-&-scan 16mm print of LA DULCE VITA, the professor went on for about ten minutes explaining to us how Fellini, master of symbolism, had imbued the film with subtle statements about how dispensable people and relationships are by composing many of the shots so as to have the characters cut off by the film frame, literally severing them with his camera. He said Fellini used the film frame to "make a key statement about life." Yeah, more like the P&S transfer operator was making a statement about what he could fit into the 16mm 1.33 frame down from a 2.35 scope image.

Rather than embarrass this guy in front of the entire class, I quietly went up to him after class and point out the error of his theory, that this symbolism was not the famed director's doing, but a simple result of a very poor conversion system from the original scope to a frame of a totally different aspect ratio, half the original width. And what's more, showing this bastardized version instead of the original was a great disservice to the class.

By our conversation I realized he had never even seen this great film in a theatre or on 35 mm film and because I was "just a technician" he wasn't buying my explanation for why characters were cut off by the 16 mm frame. By his dismissive attitude, I realize I was talking to a horse's ass.

The jerk indicated that he was going to continue to preach his erronious therory (which very contradictory to how lovingly Fellini treats all his flawed characters). I felt I needed to take this thing in hand and let my fellow film students know the falacy of his theory. For the next two class day's I raised my hand trying to be recognized so I could debate him in front of the class, but the spinless weazel refused to call on me. So att he next class I simply came in before he arrived and explained to the other students what pan & scan was and the real reason characters were sliced by the edge of the film frame.

Stupidity is many times rewarded with tenure and the letters PhD.

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 03-15-2004, 08:01 AM:

Some cable "networks" used the cue tones, and now the vertical interval data, to allow the local cable system to do automatic commercial insertion.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 03-15-2004, 12:16 PM:

There's an old joke -- told to me by a PhD. -- that says the letters stand for "permanent head damage." [Big Grin]

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-15-2004, 01:57 PM:

No, no-no no-no, no! [Wink]

B.S. = Bull Shit.
M.S. = More Shit.
PhD. = Piled Higher and Deeper!

[Big Grin]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-15-2004, 04:03 PM:

In broadcast television you are given a slate of when the commercial breaks happen. There's no tones involved (at least there wasn't at the TV station where I worked). You just have to be prepared to hit the break on time. That even means cutting off some newscaster rambling on and on about some bullcrap no one cares about.

The general manager of the TV station told me, before my first time in the hot seat of the director's chair, "you can screw up in all kinds of ways, go to black, mistime sound bites in news package tapes or whatever...just don't deviate a spot."

One would think items like tones would be used for cable companies, but they all use automated machines to play back commercials. It's funny as hell (but not at the time) if the big computerized tape jukebox breaks down and everyone in the engineering room is running around like chickens with their heads cut off looking for racks and carts! Deviate a spot and you'll have to air a make good free of charge. That costs you dearly pretty quick.

Posted by Chris Trainor (Member # 9) on 03-15-2004, 04:07 PM:

There are a couple of different ways of handling que tones for automatic commercial insertion. Usually they are sub-audiable.

Also, sometimes things are inserted into the VBI, and you can sometimes see that as a mess of stuff on the extreme top of the screen if your TV has some issues or the broadcaster is letting it thru for some reason.. tho generally things like closed captioning and teletext are kept in the VBI.

--Chris

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 03-15-2004, 04:48 PM:

Frank said:

>>Stupidity is many times rewarded with tenure and the letters PhD. <<

Love it. [thumbsup]

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 03-15-2004, 08:21 PM:

Cable networks were definitely using Touch Tone sequences to roll local commercials from their inception until not that many years ago. I can't remember where I used to see published the sequences used by the ad-supported networks. If the local system had no spots to run they just stayed with the satellite while the network ran some promos. I remember when our local sytem had the programming wrong on CNN and for the longest time their spots would roll on the cue to go back to CNN so we'd miss a couple minutes at the top of each hour (it dumped back to the network when the spots ended) which was really annoying. I have vague recollections to trying to call them and explain it and then calling CNN's affiliate relations or whatever it's called. I do know it finally ended though I don't know anymore if I had a hand in fixing it.

In those days the spots were probably edited together onto one 3/4" tape and ran completely unattended.

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 03-15-2004, 11:51 PM:

I knwo I do not have the technical knowledge of some people on here, but I fail to see what cap code on film has to do with television.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 03-16-2004, 07:11 AM:

Chris,

The way Cap Codes relate to television is simple....they are put on films shown on tv so that when a thief steals a television set, the FBI can trace it back to the (copy)rightful owner. [Razz]

[ 03-16-2004, 08:33 AM: Message edited by: Frank Angel ]

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-16-2004, 12:48 PM:

CAP code is used to queue the preshow advertisements Chirs, just like it's used to do in television.

Posted by Edward Jurich (Member # 1787) on 03-17-2004, 11:23 AM:

The opening for the TV show "Darma and Greg" (spelling is probably way off), there are dots that look just like CAP code. It's the only TV show I've ever seen this on, could be just an inside industry joke.