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Post by Ed Brown on Mar 30, 2023 1:55:36 GMT
Possibly none of you will ever have seen one of these, the Sony CV-2100ACE videotape recorder which went on sale to the public in 1968: www.michaelmauricerepairs.co.uk/mms-blog.shtmlBut here's one still in working order. I'd like to offer a few thoughts on this item. Most important, the date: 1968. People often talk loosely of the chance that Joe Public might be sitting on one of these, together with a tape of a missing episode of Dr Who. But the reality is that the 1960s were almost over before these machines went on sale to the public, and Season 6 - where there are very few missing episodes - is the only season which might have benefited from one of them. I'd like to offer in evidence the fact that, recently, such a machine did turn up, and its owner did indeed have a taped episode of Dr Who. But lo and behold! It turned out to be (sadly) the one surviving episode of The Space Pirates. But nonetheless it was an episode from - predictably - Season 6. The odds having diddled us once already, the sad truth is that the odds are very much against any tape found in the future being one of the small number of Season 6 episodes that currently don't exist. Unfortunate that these machines were not on the market in 1966, when they might have done us some good. No one was selling these in the third world in 1968. They didn't even have Christianity, let alone electricity! At the time, this machine was just about the most expensive piece of consumer electronics ever. Almost no man in the street could afford one, even in Britain. Sony were only selling them in Europe and North America due to the huge price tag. |
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Mar 30, 2023 7:49:38 GMT
Technically that's not entirely true, several recordings exist from 1967 from other programs - this topic, of course, isn't exclusively DW at all. The same astronomically small odds apply to season 5 which was shown late 1967. In fact I believe there is a Dick Emery episode from June 1967 and Life with Cooper from March 30 (assuming that these are not repeats); so even season 4 is just as possible as winning the lottery twice in a row (without buying a ticket).
Similarly, whenever there's an unknown 16mm film lying around, it's always something like a West-German documentary on the latest combine harvesters of 1971.
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Post by Richard Bignell on Mar 30, 2023 9:29:38 GMT
I'd like to offer in evidence the fact that, recently, such a machine did turn up, and its owner did indeed have a taped episode of Dr Who. But lo and behold! It turned out to be (sadly) the one surviving episode of The Space Pirates. But nonetheless it was an episode from - predictably - Season 6. You've got a strange notion of "recently", Ed. That was 25 years ago!  |
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Post by Peter Stirling on Mar 30, 2023 12:21:32 GMT
You also have to factor in the mindset of the public of the time -which very few people were interested in recording TV programmes - they watched something like a newspaper so it was here today gone tomorrow.They wanted to watch instant playback home movies with their expensive machines. So connecting it to the TV signal often involved an expensive optional extra.
One company did have a TV signal recording machine which used standard quarter inch audio tape and was offered as a prize by the TV Times in 1965 but it generated very little further public interest, probably due to technical foibles and the fact that a large reel of tape lasted only about 15 minutes.But obviously the seed was sown for the future.
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Post by Ed Brown on Mar 30, 2023 22:28:23 GMT
Technically that's not entirely true, several recordings exist from 1967 from other programs - this topic, of course, isn't exclusively DW at all. The same astronomically small odds apply to season 5 which was shown late 1967. In fact I believe there is a Dick Emery episode from June 1967 and Life with Cooper from March 30 (assuming that these are not repeats); so even season 4 is just as possible as winning the lottery twice in a row (without buying a ticket). Wish I understood how a 1967 broadcast could be recorded with a product that only went on sale in 1968? |
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Post by Ed Brown on Mar 30, 2023 22:30:50 GMT
I'd like to offer in evidence the fact that, recently, such a machine did turn up, and its owner did indeed have a taped episode of Dr Who. But lo and behold! It turned out to be (sadly) the one surviving episode of The Space Pirates. But nonetheless it was an episode from - predictably - Season 6. You've got a strange notion of "recently", Ed. That was 25 years ago! Well, Richard, bless you for pointing this out. Undeniably true. Cripes, I blinked, and suddenly it's 25 years later! How the hell did that happen??!? |
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Post by John Wall on Mar 31, 2023 0:21:52 GMT
Technically that's not entirely true, several recordings exist from 1967 from other programs - this topic, of course, isn't exclusively DW at all. The same astronomically small odds apply to season 5 which was shown late 1967. In fact I believe there is a Dick Emery episode from June 1967 and Life with Cooper from March 30 (assuming that these are not repeats); so even season 4 is just as possible as winning the lottery twice in a row (without buying a ticket). Wish I understood how a 1967 broadcast could be recorded with a product that only went on sale in 1968? With a convenient Police Box…. |
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Mar 31, 2023 9:26:06 GMT
Technically that's not entirely true, several recordings exist from 1967 from other programs - this topic, of course, isn't exclusively DW at all. The same astronomically small odds apply to season 5 which was shown late 1967. In fact I believe there is a Dick Emery episode from June 1967 and Life with Cooper from March 30 (assuming that these are not repeats); so even season 4 is just as possible as winning the lottery twice in a row (without buying a ticket). Wish I understood how a 1967 broadcast could be recorded with a product that only went on sale in 1968? The following programs are known to exist and with a bit of googling, you can see them: Benny Hill, Tommy Cooper, The Very Merry Widow, Dick Emery, tiny bit of Hancock. Some programs MIGHT be repeats, like this one from June that was shown again in May 1968: genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/5ebccfec087d47168e172fdf218f4223But another recording included an incomplete news bulletin from 27 December 1967, dated by the road accident of one of the Beverley Sisters. That certainly can't be a repeat. |
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Post by Leighton Haberfield on Apr 2, 2023 14:13:13 GMT
What was the machine that Maurice Gibb had?
Didnt he record eps of Lulu in 68?
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Post by Leighton Haberfield on Apr 2, 2023 14:26:40 GMT
I clicked on the link and read that the 1968 machine was needed to help transfer some recordings of Les Dawson from 1970, presumably, these were lost episodes from ITV??
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Post by Jaspal Cheema on Apr 2, 2023 21:15:48 GMT
I've always thought that the late 60s was the beginning of the 70s and the digital era although the technology was still only analogue. Unfortunately the recording of the visual images of Dr Who at this time was beyond the finances of the average fan.Only Ian Levine earned the copious wages required to buy copies of original Dr Who and that was several years later.Fans during the B/W era just didn't have the financial resources to buy a video recorder or ask the BBC for copies.
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Post by PAUL COTTON on Apr 4, 2023 13:40:21 GMT
The Sony CV-2000 went on sale to the public in 1965. It could record From TV up to an hour on video tape reels. Price was about £500 for a standard model(there were more expensive variants with nice cabinets, Video Camera, combined TV). The 1968 CV-2100 was a replacement model. There is a lot of technical information on the CV-2000 series on line. The man who recorded Episode 2 of The Space Pirates owned a CV-2000(bought in the Summer of 1967) and a CV-2100 plus a Colour Shibaden machine. He probably recorded The Evil of the Daleks 1968 repeat(based on the dates on a Doctor Who reel) The Evil of the Daleks was taped over with a repeat of The Forsyte Saga(unfortunately). He later recorded Jon Pertwee stories.
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Post by andyparting on Apr 5, 2023 8:03:51 GMT
The Sony CV-2000 went on sale to the public in 1965. It could record From TV up to an hour on video tape reels. Price was about £500 for a standard model(there were more expensive variants with nice cabinets, Video Camera, combined TV). The 1968 CV-2100 was a replacement model. There is a lot of technical information on the CV-2000 series on line. The man who recorded Episode 2 of The Space Pirates owned a CV-2000(bought in the Summer of 1967) and a CV-2100 plus a Colour Shibaden machine. He probably recorded The Evil of the Daleks 1968 repeat(based on the dates on a Doctor Who reel) The Evil of the Daleks was taped over with a repeat of The Forsyte Saga(unfortunately). He later recorded Jon Pertwee stories. Was the reel of the Forsyte Saga viewable? If so - so near, yet so far! Had he kept the previous recording, it's fair to say the man would've been forsyted. |
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Post by pennygarlick on Apr 8, 2023 21:22:39 GMT
I clicked on the link and read that the 1968 machine was needed to help transfer some recordings of Les Dawson from 1970, presumably, these were lost episodes from ITV?? I don't know what video player Maurice Gibb owned , but he taped the 6/3/69 Top of the Pops and possibly one of Lulu 's 1969 shows as well . |
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Post by Ed Brown on Apr 9, 2023 5:05:13 GMT
The man who recorded Episode 2 of The Space Pirates owned a CV-2000 (bought in the Summer of 1967), and a CV-2100, plus a Colour Shibaden machine. He probably recorded The Evil of the Daleks 1968 repeat (based on the dates on a Doctor Who reel). The Evil of the Daleks was taped over with a repeat of The Forsyte Saga (unfortunately). He later recorded Jon Pertwee stories. You could buy an NTSC Sony b/w model videocorder tcv-2020 in America in 1965. The unit sold for $1,400 including the CVC-2000 camera. It was, essentially, what we would call a camcorder, and it was intended to replace the super 8 cine camera. But that gives some idea of the price of this type of technology in the 1960s. It also emphasises that this technology was developed in Japan, and used the NTSC tv system, and was sold in Japan and North America, where the broadcasters all used NTSC, so could not be bought by anyone for use in England. |
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