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Post by Andy Henderson on Feb 25, 2006 14:18:57 GMT
Sorry, I got caught up by the very interesting details about the Moon Landing. There are two different categories of surviving material from UK television pre-war. On one hand there are quite a small number of very good off-screen images which do record all the distortions you might expect.
The picture shows both shading and linear distortions. I have a set of test off screen photos taken from an afternoon play. Then there are the attempts left to film footage, including Movietone footage taken at RadiOlympia (38 I think), the amateur footage taken of the coronation off screen and the best quality of all being the EMI tests. I spoke to a retired engineer who was involved with film recording tests and he told me that EMI had made a series of tests.
Unfortunately, the surviving film held by EMI, is an internal test. The picture quality is very good, easily on a par with any pre stored field BBC recording. It isn't anything important from a historic point of view being footage of a technician fooling about with a tin of 'Fluxite'. Though it seems trivial, the test proved that a high definition interlaced image could be recorded of a human being. The technical set up was different from the BBC's later Mechau channels in that EMI had used (and this is from memory going back a few years, so I may have got this wrong) projection. So in effect, the image was projected via an early high voltage projection tube. This is different from the BBC version, which used a high quality picture tube.
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Post by Andy Henderson on Feb 25, 2006 15:09:43 GMT
I didn't write that earlier post very well, but the point about the EMI tests featuring an employee was that they could achieve acceptable results that reproduced a human face accurately. The BBC could be very strict in those days regarding use of the television images, a regular slide was broadcast reminding set owners that there must be no public viewing of the images. This appears to have been ignored as pub trade flourished as sets appeared in London. The broadcasts starting at 9 and finishing before 11 were a boon to landlords, who encouraged Television parties. All of that is an important anf forgotten part of early tv culture.
The popular image of pre-war owners being extremely well to do, liking ballet and opera and so on, is a well repeated myth. The audience surveys reveal a wealth of middle class professionals and self employed tradesmen keen to impress. They didn't like the opera or ballet, but liked O/Bs and magazine programmes and oddly their tastes were more populist than those of the programme staff at AP.
Anyone above the middle class bracket regarded the television as vulgar.
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Post by Dwight on Feb 25, 2006 16:37:47 GMT
Paul V, I have some information that I think you will definitely want to know regarding the HSK feeds. Please email me directly at Dstevenb'at'aol.com (replace the 'at' with the @ symbol - robot spam precaution.)
For the record...Goldstone images were telecast first. These were upsidedown and the black levels were set incorrectly. HSK takes over approximately 10 seconds to the "small step" moment. This is incorrectly depicted on "The Dish" as switching to offset. The obvious increase in picture clarity is when Parkes took the feed. The Australian telecast used HSK for the early stuff. There is no dark picture as armstrong comes down the ladder. However the ABC did switch from local feed to NASA feed a few times, and the resulting propagation delay is noticeable.
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Post by Clive Shaw on Feb 26, 2006 18:54:27 GMT
Thanks Andy ! Great info I guess it is still conjecture if the 1939 version of 'Gas Light' still exists as some seem to claim.
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Post by Andy Henderson on Feb 26, 2006 19:38:04 GMT
Thanks, Clive. I saw that Gaslight review a while back. Most of the visual descriptions given in that review and in others were gained by looking at photos (particularly the twice printed BFI book covering UK TV 1936 on wards). Basically, the guy makes a large number of reviews specifically for lost (or very rare) films and Television. Like an urban myth, they often read well and an uninformed person might be impressed. His knowledge of Gaslight was limited to the photos he had seen. Since I had seen others, I challenged him to describe other scenes from the production. Of course, he couldn't, but did a fairly good job of avoiding the issue.
He has been cornered before concerning lost American silent films. Unfortunately, his misinformation might be of 'Henry Root' proportions and many people will read his prose as fact.
This as we all know is a common problem on the Internet. To get an article published, it is generally checked, but anyone can type on the Internet. A good example are the people who write reviews on IMDB.
In many cases, the good reviews on IMDB are missing from the top or front pages and thus obscured by some ignorant hick writing 'saw this movie wasn't too bad considering how old it is, but they overacted in those days and the film is now in b/w as the color has faded so be warned folks'. Plenty of that on there, which reminds me of the guy who reviewed a film by that famous silent priest, Charlie Chaplain!
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Post by lfbarfe on Feb 28, 2006 13:01:01 GMT
Just watching it now - an hour in, so I've seen a surviving Burke link (was that VT or a vidfired TR?) and something that appears to be from a Shibaden tape. Very nice work, Paul.
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Post by Gary C on Feb 28, 2006 14:02:37 GMT
Been looking forward to this for weeks. I set my Sky+ to record it last week so that I didn't forget. Guess what happened at 10.30 last night? A power cut!!! Unbelievable! Went to bed VERY depressed. I'm pleased to say that the power must have been restored before the prog went to air so I got it after all! Will watch it over the next few nights. Sincerely, 'Relieved' from Shepperton.
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Post by Dwight on Feb 28, 2006 14:49:24 GMT
Paul. Well done!! Thank you so much for helping to preserve this material.
Dwight
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Post by Dwight on Feb 28, 2006 20:11:51 GMT
BTW. The LEVA segemnt without motion blur noise reduction is the Nixon link, correct?
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Post by Andy Henderson on Feb 28, 2006 21:28:27 GMT
BBC-4 logo apart, this was a wonderful compilation of footage. Certainly miles better than the usual versions made over the years. It does prove that the pictures tell the story better than obtrusive presentations (such as the 'day in history' attempt shown earlier. It did raise questions as I was watching. Here are some of these: Re: the image change on the scanner camera. Aside from the different feeds, I now think the main picture alteration was made by Aldrin who is told to adjust the 'shadow' image and reset the camera to what sounds like F2 and 1/60 sec. Assuming that is his iris adjustment, the image does improve. Re: the missing studio footage. img524.imageshack.us/img524/933/ndvd0007ee.jpgimg524.imageshack.us/img524/20/ndvd0073xm.jpgimg524.imageshack.us/img524/3742/ndvd0088jm.jpgI find these fascinating. The appear to show that BBC viewers saw (in the few moments before pictures came through) an artists impression of the lunar module, which then changed to the control room. Even then, an inlay caption had been used to show who was speaking. I found these on an earlier doc from 1994 and this also had two other mystery sequences. One was a good quality film recording 'taken too far back from a monitor' of Ray Bradbury plus some M Charlton footage. However, the other interesting though I had was hearing the old Panorama music and realising that this appears to have been a Moon special. Given that many Panorama exist, does that edition? If it does - I wonder if any Studio footage exists. It is rather eerie to see Moore and Burke in the Apollo 8 studio with Bernard Lovell. This does give an impression of the presentation. Interesting that Moore does not say much during the moonwalk. I did think we heard him or someone gasp as the module is seen on the camera (for the first time). I thoroughly enjoyed watching the documentary and I hope we see more like this. The Burke weightless sequence I had seen before (on Connections?) - not sure where though. These film inserts were fascinating and did enhance the whole effect. The Charton links were also very interesting and he, like mostly everyone else seems impossibly reserved and calm. All in all a very good show!
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Post by Curious Richard on Feb 28, 2006 23:24:20 GMT
Congratulations, Paul.
An excellent piece of work. Have just watched it back on video this evening.
By the way, I was told a very strong rumour from an ex-BBC staffer that a storeman inadvertently managed to stick the wrong label on the 'moon landing' tapes - which claimed instead that they were cookery programmes - and that's why they got wiped. Sounds banal enough to be true.
Tragically, apparently the mis-labelled cookery programmes (as Apollo 11) survived, and still remain in the Windmill Road archive.
Only one testimony, and very much of the 'Ere, some bloke down the pub told me that...', but still sounds crushingly believable to me. Does anyone else know of this rumour?
Yours Curiously,
Curious Richard.
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Post by Fluff Not Alf on Feb 28, 2006 23:43:28 GMT
I think the most likely situation is that the BBC studio output was never actually recorded in the first place. The BBC was acting as the sole receiver of satellite feeds from the US, and was the hub for all European broadcasters via the Eurovision network. As well as making sure that all the incoming NASA material was recorded, there was a lot of unique material which had to be recorded for passing on to other countries. For example, the BBC still has recordings of an Italian reporter preparing and then giving his report. I think a clip of this was used in the film "The Dish".
With all the activity recording the satellite feed and playing out material to the rest of Europe (and not forgetting it was the middle of the night here and potentially an open-ended event) it wouldn't be surprising if the actual UK broadcast wasn't recorded at the time. They probably just didn't have the resources to do it.
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Post by Steven F on Mar 1, 2006 0:10:47 GMT
A fascinating programme.
I think the combination of the original commentary sequences over the existing footage gave a real 'live' flavour to the event. I loved the Burke film sequences and the videotaped sections added that anything could happen sensation.
I really enjoyed this programme. Thanks for all the hard work Paul, it really is appreciated.
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Post by Jason Jones on Mar 1, 2006 1:00:14 GMT
I'd also like to thank Paul for his hard work on the programme. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hopefully it can get a repeat at some time as I didn't think of recording it until about 15 minutes in.
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Post by Gary on Mar 1, 2006 15:12:42 GMT
I think the most likely situation is that the BBC studio output was never actually recorded in the first place. I thought it was said already that the programme was recorded.Other moon missions around then have film or video of the studio chat in the archives so this one wouldnt of been any different I dont think.
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