I created the 1979 electronic BBC 2 symbol I have been using up until now in Flash 3 on 11 March 2001. It wasn't particularly accurate because I only had a 15fps RealVideo file at 320 x 240 resolution digitised from a VHS recording as source material. It was amazing it looked like anything really - and that I used it for so long without re-doing it!
I returned to the symbol almost exactly 11 years later in Synfig Studio 0.63.05 with some wonderful YouTube clips and some full screen grabs supplied by Rory Clark as source material.
The symbol animation is 50 fields per second, hence the movement is very smooth. This is why you'll see interlacing artifacts in YouTube - it only handles 25 frames per second progressive. I created the animation in Synfig Studio at 50 frames per second.
The symbol is made up of little squares - a square animates on or is removed every field. This is why my Flash animation was inaccurate - the corners of the 2 do not animate on with diagonal lines.
You'll also notice the white bar at the bottom left of the image as the symbol forms up. If anyone knows what this is for I'd be very interested to find out.
I'd also be very interested to know who composed the Radiophonic jingle that accompanied the symbol when it formed up after a trade test.
