Silly post from Roger...

[garffreak]

They aren't redoing sets and game props just for S & G, it's a necessity since the show is now in HD, and many old parts running the props are either hard to come by or are horribly inefficient by today's standards.

100% this.  A generic flat screen monitor costs, what?  $500 these days?  What are the costs to keep repairing an old eggcrate or Sportstype display?  With the Union guys fixing them, probably a heckuvalot more than a Wal-Mart TV.  And then you have the game out of commission while it is repaired.  Look at Season 37--Dice Game was not played for the whole second half of the season.  I bet they had to cannibalize the prop to fix broken Contestant's Row displays.  The next season they have the new LCD display screens and Dice Game is back with the old displays again.  No wonder there were more costs in the late Barker years - they were paying top dollar to keep 70 aging pricing game props in working order.

[Season36Fan]

100% this.  A generic flat screen monitor costs, what?  $500 these days?  What are the costs to keep repairing an old eggcrate or Sportstype display?  With the Union guys fixing them, probably a heckuvalot more than a Wal-Mart TV.

I would very much doubt they’re using TVs from wal mart on that set.   I run an A/V company.  We are dealers for several types and brands of commercial display solutions.    To give you an idea of what production quality displays cost, a 24” 4K Sony IPS production quality monitor retails for about $4,000.  A 47” 1080p high brightness display  from NEC is almost $5000.    If they’re using addressable seamless LED panels rather than displays (which is likely necessary to get the brightness they need) those usually come in squares about 9x9 inches to 14x14 inches and are priced at $5-10k per panel (or more) and require proprietary controllers.   They also tend to have a relatively high pixel failure rate which means having an inventory of spares.    That might not be so bad if they just put panels where needed and centralize the display controllers (they’d really only need one or two which can be shuffled from game to game with instant recall presets).   It’s still a lot of money.    When you look at a prop that has, say, 10 screens on it, and you’re thinking that might have cost $5000 to do... add a zero and maybe double it from there.    Pro level tech is NOT cheap.

[SteveGavazzi]

Look at Season 37--Dice Game was not played for the whole second half of the season.  I bet they had to cannibalize the prop to fix broken Contestant's Row displays.  The next season they have the new LCD display screens and Dice Game is back with the old displays again.

I completely disagree with this assessment.  If I remember correctly, the budget was spiraling out of control during Season 37 because no one who wasn't Roger had really figured out how to manage it yet.  When you need to give away less stuff, one of the easiest ways to do it is to not play Dice Game.

[Axl]

...and I seriously doubt they would ever have to "cannibalize" anything to maintain the 7-segment displays.  We're not talking about complicated machinery here.  99% of your maintenance is replacing light bulbs, and maybe occasionally resoldering a wire that has come loose.

[Season36Fan]

...and I seriously doubt they would ever have to "cannibalize" anything to maintain the 7-segment displays.  We're not talking about complicated machinery here.  99% of your maintenance is replacing light bulbs, and maybe occasionally resoldering a wire that has come loose.

Vane displays (like the ones on check out, the big wheel, etc) are actually mechanical rather than electronic in nature.   Moving parts wear out and these would require very specific pars to repair which at this point would likely be custom made.   


That said, many of the vane displays seem to remain while the presumably easy to maintain electronic incandescent displays (contestants row and the old showcase displays for instance) have largely been replaced.     That may have something to do with the lighting requirements for HD production.   Vane displays are reflective, just like the set pieces that house them.    As long as the white bits inside are clean and brightly lit  they will look nice and crisp where fixtures lit with older incandescent lamps would seem quite dim by comparison especially in the brighter ambient environment requires for HD.   This was certainly true of the original contestants row in the early HD broadcasts before they were replaced.   

[Casey]

Vane displays (like the ones on check out, the big wheel, etc) are actually mechanical rather than electronic in nature.

You aren’t wrong about vane displays being mechanical, but the big wheel uses a sports type display with lights for its scoreboard (like dice game, and the old one bid displays).

[Season36Fan]

Indeed it does.   Brain fart, was kind of distracted writing that.    It brings up an interesting point though, which is that it has no scrim cover (black background instead of color), which might have the effect of making it just bright enough to still be usable.   The incandescent displays with scrims are all gone now, IIRC.   

[SteveGavazzi]

The Big Wheel scoreboard hasn't been a sportstype display in decades.  It's been a vane display since sometime early in Season 13.

That said, the discussion was about the Contestants' Row displays, so I'm not really sure why we're even talking about this.

[garffreak]

It's just because my uninformed mind was seeking for a reason why we'd see more expensive plasma screens if the show needed to save money.  And the conspiracy theorist in my still finds it odd--budget mode or not--to see Dice Game go half of a season with zero appearances unless it was for some reason physically unable to be played.

Maybe Drew borrowed the dice to hang from his car mirror and they didn't have backups?

[Season36Fan]

The original discussion was about changes to the show.   The most recent bit was about “seven segment displays” of which there are several types. 


Regarding the wheel display, it definently has the look of a vane display but compared visually to the display on, say, check-out, some differences are visible.   For one thing, the unused segments of the display are quite invisible on camera, whereas the ones on the check-out display are quite visible.   The color is also ever so slightly yellow, where vane displays tend to be very bright white.   It also seems to  change more instantly,where with vane displays you can sometimes see the folding and unfolding action, a long with the hinge mechanism.    None of that is present on the wheel display.


If it is a vane display, though, it’s the best looking one on the set.   Either way... interesting.

[ThomHuge]

It's just because my uninformed mind was seeking for a reason why we'd see more expensive plasma screens if the show needed to save money.  And the conspiracy theorist in my still finds it odd--budget mode or not--to see Dice Game go half of a season with zero appearances unless it was for some reason physically unable to be played.

Maybe Drew borrowed the dice to hang from his car mirror and they didn't have backups?

I'd guess it's got something to do with how difficult it can be to control that particular game. Just about every other car game you can take reasonable steps to make it easier or harder, especially Lucky Seven. In Dice Game, you're every bit as much at the mercy of what the dice say as you are at what the contestant says. Even stuffing the game with a bunch of 3s and 4s (or 1s and 6s, I'm not really sure which makes the game harder) doesn't guarantee you anything, since the dice could always land on the exact numbers in the price.

Then there's the fact that the margin of error for each roll isn't constant. Roll a low or low-ish number, and there's a good chance your player will go with the odds (but not always). Same for rolling a high or high-ish number. The player also gets a bit of a hint when they roll an incorrect number; they know one number it's not before they make their guess, which is more than you get in all the other car games I can think of right off.

tl;dr. It's harder to force a loss in this game than in the other car games I can think of, so since season 37 seemed to be the year of forced losses, I'd guess they were trying to avoid the risk of giving away too many cars.

[Vgmastr]

Even stuffing the game with a bunch of 3s and 4s (or 1s and 6s, I'm not really sure which makes the game harder)

1s and 6s make the game harder.  With those two numbers you only have a 33% of getting the number for free, with any other number it's 50%.  Plus with a 1 or a 6 you can get bit if you roll a 2 or a 5 where the odds are 80/20 and the right answer is the 20%.  When the number is a 3 or 4 the right answer is always to go with the odds.

[Flerbert419]

Over the last 18 seasons, the only two car games with a higher winning percentage than Dice Game are Gridlock! (small sample size) and Hole in One.

[shell_game]

Does the US's shift away from traditional incandescent bulbs to LEDs, etc affect the show in any way?  Or does Hollywood still have access to the same types of bulbs that they've always had?

[Season36Fan]

Production fixtures and their lamps are unaffected.   There are now LED production fixtures available for certain things, but the expense is ridiculous compared to keeping standard fixtures running.   The US ban on incandescent lamps is largely targeted at the standard household sizes.