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Post by Jaspal Cheema on May 12, 2018 21:12:52 GMT
I was coincidentally corresponding with `Roger' at the time on a completely separate issue when the story broke - around 1993?. I was still in contact when his name was revealed although I chose not to quiz him on the matter. In his next letter he unexpectedly mentioned he was behind the hoax - which I obviously knew. I think I am correct in saying he was quite happy to face the cameras during his TV appearance but the production crew thought it would be better if his identity was disguised. I have to say that in my dealings with him he seemed a pretty decent chap. I remember reading about it DWM when it was first reported,together with a colourised picture of an original Cybermen if I remember correctly. Don't remember it causing a huge furore at the time though. It was just more stuff about a situation I'd comes to term with a few years earlier-that part of Dr Who's televised history was gone forever. The recovery of individual episodes and complete stories is certainly wonderful but over-egging the pudding by producing hoaxes about missing episodes is truly pointless.
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Post by brianfretwell on May 13, 2018 7:09:42 GMT
Of course it would have been easy to check if there was any signal on the tape with an optical magnetic device that was used to aid physical editing of 2" quad. I'm sure they were used in the computer industry too to check 1/2" data tapes. Magnetic particles suspended in fluid in a plastic flat pouch that would align and cisibly show magnetic signal on the tape.
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Post by Matthew Kurth on May 15, 2018 2:35:45 GMT
Of course it would have been easy to check if there was any signal on the tape with an optical magnetic device that was used to aid physical editing of 2" quad. I'm sure they were used in the computer industry too to check 1/2" data tapes. Magnetic particles suspended in fluid in a plastic flat pouch that would align and visibly show magnetic signal on the tape. Oh, that's a clever idea! And I knew that about editing quad tape, too. I'm still curious if anyone knows whether playing back a CV-2100 tape in an AV-3600 (or vice versa) would make it obvious that there was something there (eg, not blank) even if it wouldn't display an actual picture. I'm even more curious whether the audio tracks may have been in the same location and therefore be readable by either machine. I may have to track down a skip field machine and do some experimenting...
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Post by markboulton on Jun 4, 2018 23:55:49 GMT
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Post by keithmchugh on Jun 8, 2018 0:44:51 GMT
2. How do we know the tapes were truly blank, as opposed to having been played back on the wrong type of machine? Let's say a recording was made on a Sony skip-field machine and played back on a Shibaden EIAJ machine. Would the tape appear blank (eg, "snow"), or would it pick up the existence of an incompatible signal and try to decode it (showing traces of picture or other evidence of black burst being present)? Or might that depend on the specific format and machine? I actually did this some 10-15 years ago. Playing a Sony CV2000 (skip-field) recording on an EIAJ-1 format machine didn't produce any pictures but it did playback the audio track although at the wrong speed. It probably wasn't helped by the fact it appeared to be one of those reels made up of cheap 1/2 inch computer tape rather than proper videotape. So they may have heard the soundtrack playing back on the wrong type of machine even if they couldn't see any pictures. There's always the chance that the Shibaden format may record audio on the other edge of the tape.
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Post by George D on Jun 8, 2018 16:32:12 GMT
Did those cheap computer tapes actually play? It seems,bizarre That some one would buy so much in something that didn't work
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Post by Richard Bignell on Jun 8, 2018 16:36:10 GMT
They did work. That's why he used them.
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Post by George D on Jun 8, 2018 16:38:57 GMT
Them how come we couldn't play them?
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Post by richardwoods on Jun 8, 2018 17:00:24 GMT
Because they were lower quality to start with the initial results would have been poorer than high quality oxide tape, (just compare a high end VHS to a cheap tape from a garage). Also cheap tape decays faster, loses oxide more quickly and so you have a double whammy of starting off at lower quality and decaying more & faster.
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Post by Richard Bignell on Jun 8, 2018 20:03:04 GMT
Them how come we couldn't play them? If you're taking about "computer tape" being used to record video, then you're referring to the gentleman that Steve Roberts, Paul Vanezis and Mark Ayres visited in 1998 (as he's the only person known to have done this) who had taped and kept a number of Doctor Who episodes, including the Space Pirates #2. The simple answer is that they could play the tape on the gentleman's machine while they were there and get get both image and audio. The playback was poor for the quick viewing, but it was thought that the image quality could have been improved had they actually found anyhting that was missing. What makes you think they couldn't play the tapes?
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Post by George D on Jun 8, 2018 20:33:26 GMT
"Since this article was written attempts to recover the moonlanding recording from the tapes has had to be abandoned with only the sound retrived - Mark"
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Post by Richard Bignell on Jun 8, 2018 21:42:09 GMT
Ah you're talking about the moonlanding recording, not the Doctor Who one.
I would guess that was simply down to the recording being later played back on a machine different to the one that it was originally recorded on. As was often the case with these machines (and indeed, you would sometimes see it with much later VCRs as well), if the head alignment wasn't in exactly the same position as the way it was recorded, you wouldn't get the playback. If you played it back on the machine it was originally recorded on, you would.
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Post by timmunton on Jun 8, 2018 23:36:33 GMT
Maybe at some point some sort of computer scan of such tapes will be possible, which can then be computer processed to generate the images.
Although I seem to recall this possibility was discussed a while ago on this forum & those who understand the technicalities seemed to think it wouldn't be possible that soon, if at all.
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Post by timmunton on Jun 8, 2018 23:44:14 GMT
But given that the seemingly impossible sometimes becomes possible - eg the recently retrieved Morecambe & Wise footage - who knows!
And I imagine that given the historical significance of the Moon landing tape ( if it is still being stored ), that in that instance at least, if such salvage/restoration becomes possible there will be skilled & resourceful people prepared to do the relevant work. And many people, myself included, will be very grateful for such helpful, generous endeavours.
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Post by Matthew Kurth on Jun 9, 2018 2:18:03 GMT
How do we know the tapes were truly blank, as opposed to having been played back on the wrong type of machine? I actually did this some 10-15 years ago. Playing a Sony CV2000 (skip-field) recording on an EIAJ-1 format machine didn't produce any pictures but it did playback the audio track although at the wrong speed. So they may have heard the soundtrack playing back on the wrong type of machine even if they couldn't see any pictures. There's always the chance that the Shibaden format may record audio on the other edge of the tape. Thanks for sharing your first-hand experience, Keith! I was hoping someone here might have tried this already. Those are great examples, thanks for linking to them!
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