# New White Channel Logos



## pixuk (Mar 11, 2004)

I'm standing on the shoulders of others here (notably Aerialplug & MrTickle, who have done all the work which helped me figure out how channel logos work).

Given the TiVo palette for logos is so limited, I decided to create a set of logos in monochrome (ie, white) which also has the added benefit of being more consistent (well, to my eye at least).










I've created a fair chunck of the logos, but for obvious reasons concentrated on the channels I receive. I'm not a big sports fan, so none of the premium sports channels are included (although I dare say I could create them if there was a demand). My set up is in the Meridien telly region, so my BBC1 callsign is BBC1STH and ITV is ITV1MER + ITV1LON. Changing the file names to your local region should make it work with Stuart's upload script if you don't want to do a manual add.

The collection can be downloaded as a zip file from here.


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Nice  They do seem to "fit" better, don't they


----------



## ...coolstream (Dec 10, 2005)

That has a certain appeal :up: 

It's got me thinking though. Did you ever experiment with retaining the original colours before converting them to monochrome? I think that using transparancies on the original logos might be interesting.

If you have already done some work on this, there is no point in me 're-inventing the wheel'.


----------



## pixuk (Mar 11, 2004)

Hi Coolstream,

The starting point was either finding, or creating-from-scratch a vector version of the logo. I then turned all the logos I found into a true type font, which made it much easier to work with in Photoshop. The font representation is transparent and monochrome in its nature. Given the problems of TiVo's highly restrictive colour palette, it was a deliberate choice to 'go white'.

Pix.


----------



## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

...coolstream said:


> It's got me thinking though. Did you ever experiment with retaining the original colours before converting them to monochrome? I think that using transparancies on the original logos might be interesting.


Using transparancies would be really nice (in the way the TiVo text uses them) however very difficult to get a modern graphics editor to use the same transparencies as TiVo as the transparency levels aren't reflected accurately in the palette (TiVo uses its own rather than the colours seen on the displayed Palette which is why a mask palette has to be used). I get around this problem with my logo set by antialiasing to a blue background and then applying the transparency to where no logo or antialias pixels are in use. This allows a much smoother look and feel on TiVo, but logos can exhibit a blue halo on TiVoWeb.

The "keeping it all white" trick can cause expected undesirable side effects. I've done some proffesional work with regard to rendering graphics for onscreen display and an unexpected problem that one comes up with if working with fine graphics limited to a very sharp contrast is that interlace causes the graphics to "twitter" or flicker.

This is exactly what happens on the flickering menu bar on TiVo's main screen. The problem isn't as noticeable in NTSC as the 60Hz flicker doesn't jar on the eye as much - but I don't think TiVo had much experience designing graphics for 50 Hz display...

My aim for my logo set was to keep the corporate look and feel as much as possible giving a vibrant look to the screen. This set also has apeal if you like the TiVo graphics to look nice and simple.


----------



## ...coolstream (Dec 10, 2005)

Thanks for the prompt replies guys. Your informative replies have given me a lot of insight into the laborious work you must have put into creating your logos, and for that alone, the community must thank you!



arialplug said:


> Using transparancies would be really nice (in the way the TiVo text uses them) however very difficult to get a modern graphics editor to use the same transparencies as TiVo as the transparency levels aren't reflected accurately in the palette (TiVo uses its own rather than the colours seen on the displayed Palette which is why a mask palette has to be used). I get around this problem with my logo set by antialiasing to a blue background and then applying the transparency to where no logo or antialias pixels are in use. This allows a much smoother look and feel on TiVo, but logos can exhibit a blue halo on TiVoWeb.


Makes me wonder which s/w Tivo use...


----------



## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

...coolstream said:


> Makes me wonder which s/w Tivo use...


Actually, I wasn't dissing TiVo. They obviously have bespoke software that allows them to maximise the 256 colour palette to their advantage or at least have better software than I'm using. I may be wrong but I don't think they originally intended to provide channel logos (not in the first release of the software at any rate) so they didn't really go out of their way in providing a diverse colour palette that would be needed to render all the channel logos that are in use.

Especially purple ones...


----------



## pixuk (Mar 11, 2004)

I think you're bang on the money AP. The colour palette available would suggest it's optimised only for the yellow blobs / suggestions in the Now Playing list rather than was designed for channel logos display.

I suspect they used a standard graphic package, then saved an optimised 8-bit palette. I don't think they have a bespoke piece of software to create channel logos (evidence would suggest their attempts at creating logos are no better than anyone else's).

Pix


----------



## CarlWalters (Oct 17, 2001)

pixuk said:


> I'm standing on the shoulders of others here (notably Aerialplug & MrTickle, who have done all the work which helped me figure out how channel logos work).


These look fantastic! Excellent job - I shall be installing these tonight. Gives TiVo a sort of iPoddy look doesn't it? By the way was it difficult to create these white logos? I might have a go myself


----------



## pixuk (Mar 11, 2004)

Strange how there seems to be a concentration of TiVo users around Reading & North Hants... Curry's must have had a particularly good salesman half a decade ago. ;-)

Anyways, to answer your question, was it difficult to create the logos; Yes & No. Aerialplug has described some of the technical difficulties on his site, and once you've got your head around those and armed with a bitmap image editor that supports an custom indexed palette (like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro), you can dive in.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, my approach was to start with a vectored hi-res version of the logo (and in the case of ITV, SKY, Paramount Comedy and many others, that meant creating them from scratch in Illustrator) which I converted to a font. Whilst this may seem overkill for a logo which is displayed so small, it just made it that bit easier when sizing and positioning.

One tip that has been mentioned on these forums in the past; let the TiVo do the anti-aliasing for you. TV screens make edges softer, so whilst your creation may look a bit jagged on the computer monitor, on the TV it will look smother. I did experiement with anti-aliasing in Photoshop, but just ended up with a magenta fringe around the logos.

Pix


----------



## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

pixuk said:


> Strange how there seems to be a concentration of TiVo users around Reading & North Hants... Curry's must have had a particularly good salesman half a decade ago.


It is the UK's Silicon Valley and, at the time that the TiVo was launched, there was a lot of money around here.

And no, it wasn't the quality of the local sales staff. Each one had to be painfully extracted from the stock room, against the wishes of the sales staff, who didn't realise that it was a sellable object. "And would you like to buy some tapes to go with it ?"


----------



## pixuk (Mar 11, 2004)

Yes, that seems vaguely familiar. I'm in Reading too, and that story seems to ring true. Especially the bit about the tapes.


----------



## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

pixuk said:


> One tip that has been mentioned on these forums in the past; let the TiVo do the anti-aliasing for you. TV screens make edges softer, so whilst your creation may look a bit jagged on the computer monitor, on the TV it will look smother. I did experiement with anti-aliasing in Photoshop, but just ended up with a magenta fringe around the logos.


What you need to do to get rid of the magenta fringe is to use a blue background about the same colour as TiVo's background instead of magenta. Then, last minute just before applying the TiVo palette, flood fill anything that's a perfect blue with magenta so that the transparency is applied. This way you'll get antialiasing to blue causing a blue fringe which is invisible on TiVo as the background is always blue. If you do it carefully, there'll be minimal fringing on TiVoweb (see my Scifi channel logo or Bravo which were designed under your white only rule - there's antialiasing in those - antialiased towards the blue rather than magenta and they look perfect on screen).

One thing you also need to be aware of is the opposite. When using stark colours where you could end up with single horizontal lines. As I've mentioned previously, this causes twitter, where the logo flickers horribly. Having designed for onscreen display my eye is tuned to this kind of thing but the untrained eye can create something that looks excellent on the computer screen but screams out at you on TV as it draws attention to itself by twittering.

For an example of an really badly designed logo, which breaks all the rules with regard to working with interlace screens, load the attached logo onto your TiVo and see it shimmer!


----------



## tonywalk (Sep 10, 2002)

Hi Pixuk,

Where did you get the vector logos for BBC, etc. from?

I had to create a vector version of a printed logo recently - I cheated and scanned the bitmap then "traced" it using Inkscape (the free Vector graphics proggie - a vector version of The Gimp if-you-will).

Cheers,
Tony.


----------



## pixuk (Mar 11, 2004)

You still need EPS versions? I can zip copies up for you if you need 'em.

Pix


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Don't know if these are of any use for Tivo logo creation. They're TTFs of most of the channel logos. Can't remember where I got them from or I would credit the relevant site


----------



## pixuk (Mar 11, 2004)

Some of those would have been very useful when I was doing mine.  Thanks Carl.


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Had them for ages  Sorry, I don't know why I only just thought about them


----------



## mjk (Mar 13, 2002)

Maybe I'm just weird, but I've never been able to get excited about downloading channel logos into my TiVos. Clearly it exercises some folk considerably (and more power to them), but I can't really see why anyone would care.

Am I weird or is just that I am much more word than image oriented?


----------



## pixuk (Mar 11, 2004)

Nope, you're not weird. People all have different ways of seeing the world. Me, I see things as colours and images and consider the design the most important aspect of a product. For others, it's the specification and performance; but that's perfectly ok. It's the differences that make life interesting.


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

You have to remember that, originally, Tivo only had logos for (if I remember correctly) the BBC channels, some Sky channels (but not all) and - maybe - C4.

As "no logos" wasn't an option, I simply prefer the uniformity of all recordings having logos


----------



## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

Strictly, tivo originally had no logos - they arrived along with the ability to display them with the upgrade to version 2.5.5 (or slightly earlier if you were party to some tests).


----------



## ericd121 (Dec 12, 2002)

mjk said:


> Maybe I'm just weird, but I've never been able to get excited about downloading channel logos ... I can't really see why anyone would care.


I find channel logos make Now Playing much easier to use.

I record a fair bit of Radio 4, which are easy to spot with the logo;
I'm so used to this, I'm sure my eye just looks for the colour of the logo. :up:


----------



## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

ericd121 said:


> I record a fair bit of Radio 4, which are easy to spot with the logo;
> I'm so used to this, I'm sure my eye just looks for the colour of the logo. :up:


Same here. I have two context modes using TiVo. "Sit down and watch", which I mainly use the TV programmes and "listen while doing something else" which I tend to use Radio 4. It makes it so much easier to find the radio programmes when I'm in the second mode - I just look for the distinctive Radio 4 logo.


----------

