I've noticed three horizontal transparent yellow lines while watching Three's Company. one goes right through the middle, one above the middle, and one below the middle. Has anyone else noticed these or is it just me?

Yea I've noticed them too. The Terri years don't have them at all, at least not on N@N. But N@N and TNN both showed "Good Old Reliable Janet" with yellow lines in it recently. You can really see the yellow lines clearly when it's a close up of Chrissy, because of her snow blonde hair. I don't see three yellow lines though..only one near the top. Hmm. I also noticed TNN's showing of "Good Old Reliable Janet" today used weird audio. I don't know if that was just my TV or my cable system or if it was TNN

Here's a picture of them off N@N's broadcast of "The Bakeoff". They were only in certain scenes in the broadcast.

Originally posted by Burke Snow Winters
Here's a picture of them off N@N's broadcast of "The Bakeoff". They were only in certain scenes in the broadcast.

I must be going blind because I don't see any lines. :(

I was expecting something like this.

I'm talking about 3, faint, transparent lines which are thicker than those that was just posted by Chris. :)

OK LOL I just realized the picture I posted was perfect...the orange lines were actually SUPPOSED to be on the curtain *Hits Head* Stupid me, LOL.

Originally posted by Burke Snow Winters
OK LOL I just realized the picture I posted was perfect...the orange lines were actually SUPPOSED to be on the curtain *Hits Head* Stupid me, LOL.
LOL! Sorry Sean, but that's really funny! They DID look like lines though.........

Nope, not what I was talking about, but LOL. :)

The visible lines are a result of 'banding' with the quad format videotape. Up through the early 80s, one of the most poular videotape formats used was the 'quad' format (short for quadruplex). The tape is 2" wide (vs. 1/2" for VHS). In newer tape formats, video head switching occurs outside of the visible part of the picture. In the quad format, however, there are four heads that rotate at 14,400 rpm, so each frame of video contains several instances of head switching within the picture. If the heads aren't properly aligned, you can see the different heads flip flop throughout the picture. The picture from Three's Company above shows a phase error between the heads. I remember seeing this quite a bit on MTV/VH1 in the mid-late 80s.

Will they ever go away...?

Haha I thought I was the only one to see those!