Has anyone actually seen a channel anymore (broadcast or cable) that doesn't show those obnoxious bugs onscreen constantly? I only get basic cable now and every damn channel has onscreen crap. EVERY SINGLE CHANNEL! It ranges from fairly minor to downright obnoxious. TNN's butt-ugly square logo in tandem with the pointless "black bar from hell" is a particular gem. Combined with the ridiculous "we've got pop!" ad campaign, TNN is certainly an unbeatable combination of crap. Are they drinking lead-based apple juice over there or something?
It was less than ten years ago that I could flip all over the place and not see one single bug. Now it's just the opposite. I've heard that even pay channels show bugs now. My parents had HBO about 10 years ago and there was never any onscreen crap. Hell, I had Encore 3 or 4 years ago and even they didn't show bugs or compress the credits at all. I shudder to think what TV will look like in 2011...

I'm just waiting for X-10 to sponsor something, and watch a pop up 1/6 the size of your screen come up during a show.

It never even occured to me how prevalent this is. HBO doesn't do it but starz does and its something I ignore but it irks me especially if I am taping something.

TNN does that black bar thing and it sucks, but they dont do it for every show, If they did it WWF RAW on Monday there would be alot of pissed off wrestling fans and I bet Vince Mcmahon wouldnt like it.

The worst to me is when, in addition to their logo, they have constant pop-ups for their upcoming show. The music video based channels are the worst with this. I was trying to watch the Ren & Stimpy marathon that was on VH1 a couple of weeks aqo, and every damn 5 minutes this ANNOYING little animated man poped out of a box and proceeded to jump up and down and wave his arms around while an ad for the VH1 music awards would scroll by. I wouldn't have watched the awards after that if all the hot female popstars had appeared naked.


Well, ok, in THAT particular situation I would have watched, but I wouldn't have been at all happy about it.

I do not think so. I also hate seeing those things on the TV channels all the time. They drive me nuts! Like we do not know what network or TV channel we're watching! Or show even!

It's inbreading. They think that changing the name of the network might make them look so-fist-ik-ated, Clem.

The bugs are turning into ads, too, not just static logos.

Anything with subtitles (not CC) is screwed.

On a positive note, I noticed on Sci-Fi that they moved the bug to lower left for MST3K.

I don't mind ABC's bug. It's almost completely transparent and very small.

das

If TNN's black bar is a "bug", then USS Carl Vinson is a dingy. I mean it's way past being a bug. It actually covers the screen. And other bugs, as some have pointed out, aren't bugs any more but full fledges ads. I watched The Pretender the other day, and I couldn't read the subtitles because it was covered by an ad-bug. I don't even remember what it was advertising.

Ban the bugs! Or at least make them transparent and small.

Oh, if a premium channel ever put bugs on screen, I would cancel immediatly. Does HBO really show bugs?

I was watching Star Trek: TNG on TNN a couple Fridays ago, and I noticed a couple things: 1) in a scene or two, the person speaking (in mid-range close-up) would be cut off like at mid-forehead. Yet, their torso would show to below the belt line or so. It looked really unnatural, like why would a director block a scene so as to cut off the top of people's heads? I also saw 2) a handful of instances where the imge looked "anamorphically squeezed" to fit it onscreen. Really noticable when Capt. Picard stands up and looks like he's 4'8" and weighs 230 lbs.

So my question is obvious: Do they cut and/or squeeze the image of the show to compensate for their stupid ridiculous serves-no-purpose craptacular bar? Until I noticed these instances, I just assumed they were covering up a sliver of the bottom, but now I wonder...

I was watching Star Trek: TNG on TNN a couple Fridays ago, and I noticed a couple things: 1) in a scene or two, the person speaking (in mid-range close-up) would be cut off like at mid-forehead. Yet, their torso would show to below the belt line or so. It looked really unnatural, like why would a director block a scene so as to cut off the top of people's heads? I also saw 2) a handful of instances where the imge looked "anamorphically squeezed" to fit it onscreen. Really noticable when Capt. Picard stands up and looks like he's 4'8" and weighs 230 lbs.

So my question is obvious: Do they cut and/or squeeze the image of the show to compensate for their stupid ridiculous serves-no-purpose craptacular bar? Until I noticed these instances, I just assumed they were covering up a sliver of the bottom, but now I wonder...

UPN is particularly nasty about this... Their bug has evolved this season into a series of full-fledged promotional ads for upcoming shows...

It's really annoying to watch Enterprise or Buffy with these crapola ads fluttering near the bottom of the screen after every break...

I just noticed that some cable network called Oxygen also uses that same stupid "black bar of doom" just like TNN does. This one is even larger than TNN's. I'm not sure which network copied which...or if they're just two horribly stupid ideas thought up independently. I'm sure this wonderful programming aid will spread even more in the coming months and years...

Yeah, Oxygen has been doing this for a long time. I especially like when I try to watch Xena, and in that black bar it will say something like "Lucy Lawless likes chocolate" or "This scene was filmed in the woods." Insanely annoying.

das

I thought that kind of crap was a tradmark for VH1 or MTV?

It's things like this that cause me to watch less and less broadcast/cable TV.

I have about 5-6 network shows that I watch... and I sometimes flick it on the Sci-Fi channel to catch reruns of my favorites like Babylon 5. The rest of the time, I'm watching laserdiscs or DVD.

None of the channels that I watch have very annoying bugs and those that do quickly find themselves not being watched. Star Trek: The Next Generation is probably my favorite TV show of all time. But, I've only watched 1/2 of an episode since TNN started showing them a few months ago. Why? That freakin' black bar.

If you want to put your station logo in the lower corner, fine. I don't like it, but I've learned to deal with it. However, I see absolutely no reason to cover up a significant portion of the picture just to tell me what show I'm watching. I know what show I'm watching -- get that crap out of my way so I can watch it. And you know the next step is to turn that bar into a "stock ticker" type of information system...

Anyway, I just had to vent in case a TNN executive is lurking... I'd love to watch reruns of Miami Vice and ST:TNG. But I won't watch your station -- ever -- until you lose that bug.