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May 18, 2013, 5:08pm

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Topic: Earliest extant home video recording (Read 3,702 times)

davidstead
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Re: Earliest extant home video recording
« Reply #30 on May 4, 2012, 2:37pm »

The Galton & Simpson 'My Old Man's A Tory', is a dub off the original 405line 2" VT, complete with countdown clock. The transfer the BBC have of it, was I believe done by the NFA and is a camera copy as opposed to a conversion.
That Demonstration of the B/W VT from the Eamonn Andrews Show, can be seen in TV Heaven 1966, which I assume Ian is where your pics come from.
Hope that helps,
David

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Neil Megson
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Re: Earliest extant home video recording
« Reply #31 on May 4, 2012, 3:49pm »

May 4, 2012, 2:37pm, davidstead wrote:

The Galton & Simpson 'My Old Man's A Tory', is a dub off the original 405line 2" VT, complete with countdown clock.

Thanks David,
By chance, I've just started another thread about these semi-official dubs onto home formats...

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Greg H
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Re: Earliest extant home video recording
« Reply #32 on May 4, 2012, 5:52pm »

May 4, 2012, 7:26am, Simon Vaughan - Archivist APTS wrote:

We have a document in he APTS Archive, written by the late Ray Herbert, which states that he deposited two foot-long lengths of Baird IFT with the BFI in the mid 1990s. This is the only known surviving IFT footage to exist. There are several stories why this is the case. It has been suggested that the Baird Company were in such financial difficulties that the silver was reclaimed from the developed film, which is why none survive. Secondly, it has been claimed that the Baird Company were advised that the film could be wound onto a spool, while still wet, and stored for future transmission. Apparently, the wet film was not unwound to dry and so stuck together in one clump and was unusable. Thirdly, it has been suggested that all the Baird IFT material was lost in the Crystal Palace fire in December 1936.

Although Baird's research lab and company studios were based at Crystal Palace, their daily operational base was at AP, once the BBC Television Service started. The Baird system being such that it still required Baird engineers to operate it, rather than handing the daily use of the equipment over to BBC personnel. Baird IFT recordings were stored at AP and indeed one was used on the evening 2nd November 1936 to replay a brief extract of the official opening ceremony.

The film is very easy to spot due to its odd size - 17.5mm (split down 35mm). This was also done to save costs, as Baird's could get twice as much film from the same stock.

I had actually wondered what became of the Baird IFT material before now. Several times in fact, so thanks for answering a long standing question.

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George D
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Re: Earliest extant home video recording
« Reply #33 on May 5, 2012, 8:38pm »

I wonder why they would split 35mm to 17.5mm instead of simply using 16mm.

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richardmarple
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Re: Earliest extant home video recording
« Reply #34 on May 6, 2012, 9:14pm »

It crossed my mind if any of the IFT film survived.

It's interesting that 17.5mm was used rather than the more off-the shelf 16mm.

http://www.saunalahti.fi/animato/filmhist/filmhist.html

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Robert Belford
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Re: Earliest extant home video recording
« Reply #35 on May 7, 2012, 1:33pm »

Isn't it a similar idea to standard 8mm which was actually 16mm in the camera, turned round halfway, and then split down the middle and joined at the lab?

17.5mm was a film gauge in its own right and particularly popular in France apparently.

16mm was considered to be amateur film stock. Perhaps the thought was that 17.5mm would be better as it was pro 35mm stock split (if it was)?

« Last Edit: May 7, 2012, 1:37pm by Robert Belford »

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Ian Wegg
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Re: Earliest extant home video recording
« Reply #36 on May 7, 2012, 4:57pm »

May 4, 2012, 2:37pm, davidstead wrote:

That Demonstration of the B/W VT from the Eamonn Andrews Show, can be seen in TV Heaven 1966, which I assume Ian is where your pics come from.

You are correct David, the pictures are from the excellent TV Heaven which itself has itself just become 20 years old.

May 5, 2012, 8:38pm, George D wrote:

I wonder why they would split 35mm to 17.5mm instead of simply using 16mm.

The answer is in Simon Vaughan's original post:

"The film is very easy to spot due to its odd size - 17.5mm (split down 35mm). This was also done to save costs, as Baird's could get twice as much film from the same stock."

From which I conclude that 35mm was less than twice the price of 16mm.

~iw

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richardmarple
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Re: Earliest extant home video recording
« Reply #37 on May 7, 2012, 7:50pm »

For a long time 9.5mm was a standard home cinema format in France, which used 35mm stock split into 3 with the sprocket holes cut off.

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Laurence Piper
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Re: Earliest extant home video recording
« Reply #38 on May 7, 2012, 7:54pm »

Ian's mention of T.V. Heaven got me wondering (off topic) about something: does anyone know if the linking material with Frank Muir still exists in broadcast quality? Presumably it would reside with production company Illuminations (or C4) if anywhere.

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