All Aboard! New Zealand by Rail, Sea & Land

[melmerby]

Hi all.

There is another of these "Slow TV" programmes on BBC 4 (UK), on Sunday 19 Jan starting at 2000.

 

It is two & half hours featuring mainly rail travel but also some ferry and road.

The train rides includes Auckland to Wellington before a ferry to South Island.

There is another train ride on the Coastal Pacific from Picton to Christchurch.

There is also a heritage boat ride in the Tasman Sea

Edited January 18, 2020 by melmerby

[figworthy]

On 18/01/2020 at 14:34, melmerby said:

Hi all.

There is another of these "Slow TV" programmes on BBC 4 (UK), on Sunday 19 Jan starting at 2000.

 

It is two & half hours featuring mainly rail travel but also some ferry and road.

The train rides includes Auckland to Wellington before a ferry to South Island.

There is another train ride on the Coastal Pacific from Picton to Christchurch.

There is also a heritage boat ride in the Tasman Sea

 

An enjoyable 150 minutes, but a pity that some of the titles that they put up on the screen were difficult to read.

 

Adrian

[Trainshed Terry]

I caught the last half hour of the program, but it is on BBC catch up channel.  And I am looking forward to watching it.

 

Terry.

 

[eastwestdivide]

1 hour ago, figworthy said:

 

An enjoyable 150 minutes, but a pity that some of the titles that they put up on the screen were difficult to read.

 

Adrian

Difficult? Some titles were impossible. Tiny white text over a really busy moving background, meaning not enough contrast, not big enough, and not on screen long enough either. If you'd been sitting with your nose to one of those giant TVs that cover the entire wall, you might have had a chance.

Not a bad prog otherwise - referring to my international timetable, the North Island train (Auckland-Wellington) takes all day, the boat to the South Island a good few hours, the next train south (Picton-Christchurch) takes half a day, and it's the following morning for the train through the mountains.

And did some of the coaches resemble the Glacier Express/Bernina Express coaches?

[RFS]

2 minutes ago, eastwestdivide said:

Difficult? Some titles were impossible.

 

Totally agree. Do the producers of these programs not actually watch the finished result themselves before signing it off? Last year's 3-hour program in similar vein on the Australian Ghan had good, readable captions which made such a difference. 

[noiseboy72]

The problem is that they edit and quality control the programs on calibrated monitors viewing at close range in a darkened viewing area.

 

Translate that to a typical TV, probably not calibrated, with all the processing switched on and viewed at a more typical distance and things get trickier. It's the same with sound tracks. They sound fine on a decent system, but squeezed through the speakers you get on current TVs and the vocal clarity goes out the window.