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Post by Paul Vanezis on Mar 13, 2017 9:38:07 GMT
So it was a single film camera recording the video output similar to the Kinescope method. The only similarity is the fact that there is a film lens pointing at a screen. Kinescopes are generally very poor. US video is 30fps. Kinescopes capture at 24fps. By contrast, a film recorder at the BBC by the time Z Cars started was a very sophisticated piece of machinery, the film mechanism integrated into the electronics of the monitor, with careful line-up and crystal locked to the incoming video source. To maximise optical resolution, the shutter mechanism took advantage of a stored field system with the film plane capturing the full resolution of the image, the only drop-off capturing to 16mm for sales prints. But 35mm recordings are quite stunning. Kinescopes are in the main quite poor by comparison. Paul
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Post by Richard Marple on Mar 13, 2017 13:51:49 GMT
I've heard a lot of early surviving editions of The Tonight Show, & other live American programming survive as kinescopes, even when originally shot in colour.
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RWels
Member
Posts: 2,862
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Post by RWels on Mar 13, 2017 15:00:51 GMT
I've heard a lot of early surviving editions of The Tonight Show, & other live American programming survive as kinescopes, even when originally shot in colour. The earliest James Bond story ever to be adapted was Casino Royale in 1954 as an episode of "Climax!". Survives in b&w, but was originally in colour (and it survives right until the end even though the copy usually shown cuts off 3 minutes before that).
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Post by Simon B Kelly on Mar 13, 2017 17:17:07 GMT
The stored field system wasn't introduced until a few years after Z Cars began, so presumably the early film recordings of the show would all be suppressed field, capturing just 188 lines per frame, unless stored field prints were struck later for overseas sales...
It was interesting to read that Z Cars remained live for the whole of the first five series (1962-1965). It then span off into Softly Softly, also produced by David Rose, which was also performed mostly live for the first couple of years! Only when Z Cars returned in 1967 as a twice-weekly 25 minute show, with a new producer, did it convert to being entirely pre-recorded. [Source: "Beyond Dixon of Dock Green: Early British Police Series" by Susan Sydney-Smith]
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Mar 13, 2017 18:17:14 GMT
The stored field system wasn't introduced until a few years after Z Cars began, so presumably the early film recordings of the show would all be suppressed field, capturing just 188 lines per frame, unless stored field prints were struck later for overseas sales... I think that the early Z Cars episodes are indeed suppressed field. However, stored field recordings could have been made for the start of broadcasts. There is a myth that stored field recorders arrived later. The truth is that suppressed field recorders took time to be decommissioned. Paul
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Post by steveb on Mar 13, 2017 22:45:53 GMT
I'd always thought the only way to capture a live programme as broadcast would have been by pointing a camera at a monitor. If a programme was being film recorded simultaneously then presumably there must have been separate film cameramen adjacent to each TV camera in the studio? It also means that even without re-performing any of the scenes, the overseas film would always be different to what we saw in the UK as it was being filmed by a different cameraman. Even following the same camera script I can imagine zooms and pans would never match up exactly. The only elements that would be the same would be the pre-recorded outside broadcast inserts that would be played in live during the performance. No Simon, and I'm sure that you know exactly what I meant, but to be clear, the BBC had a Film Recording department. The film recorders were indeed special film cameras with built in monitors from which video sources could be recorded to film. There were various film recording channels, denoted by the prefix FR. FR25 was often used to film record Doctor Who for example. We know this because the recording channel had an ident caption on the grey scale captured on the negative. I'm guessing that it was used to make a lot of the 1967 run or recordings from the older tapes. The recording status of these recordings was also denoted in the recording number. VT/4T/67284 would have been a videotape recording in 405. 16/4T/67284 would have been a 16mm film recording from a 405 line source. It's how we know that 'Power of the Daleks' #6 was originally recorded from a 625 line studio. Paul Can you you tell from looking at a film recording which FR it was made on, for instance: that's zoomed in 5% and with chroma dots, so it's FR25? Does knowing which FR a film recordingcomes from potentially help you know its history?
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Mar 13, 2017 23:58:40 GMT
Can you you tell from looking at a film recording which FR it was made on, for instance: that's zoomed in 5% and with chroma dots, so it's FR25? Does knowing which FR a film recordingcomes from potentially help you know its history? Not really possible. We can tell what is stored and what is suppressed just by looking at the image. In theory, we would be able to narrow down which FR channel it was recorded on IF we had a known example with an ident against which we could measure it. But in terms of specifics, such as how far it is zoomed in etc... we would only be able to make such a comparison if the recording was done on the same day by a lazy operator. The amount of 'zoomage' would be dictated by the operator and, indeed the focus. Chroma dots where they would be on 625 colour recordings can be and have been used to remove distortion in the image caused by the curvature of the film recording monitor. We could also tell if and how far the image is zoomed in by measuring the number of dots. But a little more care appears to have been taken with colour film recordings compared to black and white recordings, particularly 405 recordings. Paul
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Post by steveb on Mar 14, 2017 12:36:53 GMT
Can you you tell from looking at a film recording which FR it was made on, for instance: that's zoomed in 5% and with chroma dots, so it's FR25? Does knowing which FR a film recordingcomes from potentially help you know its history? Not really possible. We can tell what is stored and what is suppressed just by looking at the image. In theory, we would be able to narrow down which FR channel it was recorded on IF we had a known example with an ident against which we could measure it. But in terms of specifics, such as how far it is zoomed in etc... we would only be able to make such a comparison if the recording was done on the same day by a lazy operator. The amount of 'zoomage' would be dictated by the operator and, indeed the focus. Chroma dots where they would be on 625 colour recordings can be and have been used to remove distortion in the image caused by the curvature of the film recording monitor. We could also tell if and how far the image is zoomed in by measuring the number of dots. But a little more care appears to have been taken with colour film recordings compared to black and white recordings, particularly 405 recordings. Paul Cheers Paul - I had thought maybe it was like a one-off calibration on each machine and then left to run as a conveyor belt operation, as it were. This is all interesting info.
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Post by John Green on Mar 14, 2017 12:57:35 GMT
How was it found? Could you please supply a link to the announcement? At a guess I'm assuming it is the same copy that was on eBay recently - hereSince ebay listings vanish eventually, here's the text: 16mm sound black and white film lost episode long running series featuring the life and work of policeman stationed at newtown here is a lost episode titles truth or dare ex mint print 1200 ft advertised elsewere may remove spooled up and ready to show
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