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Post by John Andersen on Oct 17, 2008 5:41:46 GMT
Thought everyone would also be interested to know that I have received a response message back from the Betamax seller. As had asked previously about Ambassadors Of Death being there or not, and if these were colour recordings or Black and White recordings. He has stated that after looking through a good many of the tapes found Ambassadors Of Death labeled on a tape. Stated that all of these recordings are in colour !! Am still attempting to get the payment sent for the tapes, as my bank has been working on a system refit, have to wait till I have access to my account, rather aggravating really. Just thought I would let you all know about this latest development on the Betamax Collection. Cheers, Lance. If all of these are in color, does he have all the Pertwee stories?
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Post by Stuart Huggett on Oct 17, 2008 7:44:00 GMT
Best of luck with getting all this sorted, Lance.
I still think it's much more likely that the seller is mis-remembering the status of the recordings, and you're going to end up with a mix of b&w and colour from the 80's broadcasts. Hopefully not!
But, as you said originally, you should end up with some interesting continuities and other bits of TV spread across the tapes, at the very least. I certainly agree it was worth bidding for them on the strength of that alone.
Fingers crossed anyway, stu
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Post by Doug Wulf on Oct 17, 2008 15:33:14 GMT
Agreed, sometimes clutching at straws, and shots in the dark, can more than not lead to nothing, but then every now an then you get lucky. Rather the gambling scene for the enthusiasts, so to speak. Thought everyone would also be interested to know that I have received a response message back from the Betamax seller. As had asked previously about Ambassadors Of Death being there or not, and if these were colour recordings or Black and White recordings. He has stated that after looking through a good many of the tapes found Ambassadors Of Death labeled on a tape. Stated that all of these recordings are in colour !! Am still attempting to get the payment sent for the tapes, as my bank has been working on a system refit, have to wait till I have access to my account, rather aggravating really. Just thought I would let you all know about this latest development on the Betamax Collection. Cheers, Lance. As noted, although unlikely, it would at least be *possible* for the key Pertwee stories to be in color. If the sought-after color copies were to be found anywhere, they would be found amid a similar sort of collection of homemade recordings recorded in the USA in the late 1970s. Here's hoping!
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Post by Rob Hutchinson on Oct 17, 2008 16:11:41 GMT
in connection with this story i've just had a letter printed in issue #144 Video Watchdog to ask off air video collectors stateside to check their collections for colour copies of b&w Pertwee episodes.
here's hoping that Lance now has possession of them and my letter was a waste of time!
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Post by Doug Wulf on Oct 19, 2008 1:41:11 GMT
in connection with this story i've just had a letter printed in issue #144 Video Watchdog to ask off air video collectors stateside to check their collections for colour copies of b&w Pertwee episodes. here's hoping that Lance now has possession of them and my letter was a waste of time! Even if Lance were to recover such videotapes, your letter would not have been a waste of time, since if it happened to turn up, against all odds, an additional off-air color recording, I'm sure the BBC could make good use of both. Working from two jittery old off-air Betacam recordings would no doubt be better than working from just one jittery old off-air Betacam recording!
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Post by John Andersen on Oct 19, 2008 5:44:33 GMT
Even if Lance were to recover such videotapes, your letter would not have been a waste of time, since if it happened to turn up, against all odds, an additional off-air color recording, I'm sure the BBC could make good use of both. If Lance does find color episodes for all the Pertwee stories, I hope the BBC manages to hang onto them this time. ;D
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Post by Doug Wulf on Nov 4, 2008 19:54:25 GMT
Agreed, sometimes clutching at straws, and shots in the dark, can more than not lead to nothing, but then every now an then you get lucky. Rather the gambling scene for the enthusiasts, so to speak. Thought everyone would also be interested to know that I have received a response message back from the Betamax seller. As had asked previously about Ambassadors Of Death being there or not, and if these were colour recordings or Black and White recordings. He has stated that after looking through a good many of the tapes found Ambassadors Of Death labeled on a tape. Stated that all of these recordings are in colour !! Am still attempting to get the payment sent for the tapes, as my bank has been working on a system refit, have to wait till I have access to my account, rather aggravating really. Just thought I would let you all know about this latest development on the Betamax Collection. Cheers, Lance. Hi Lance: Were you able to pay for those tapes successfully and are you expecting them to arrive soon in the mail? Just wondered about the status of those Betamax tapes now. Doug
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Post by LanceM on Nov 5, 2008 1:56:44 GMT
Hello Again Doug,
On the subject of the tapes, I was able finally this last week to get the full payment out, and just today received the first box of tapes, as they were posted in two parts. For one, the tapes inside the boxes do not match the covers for brand names, some look much older than the boxes. In this first batch of tapes there were episodes ranging from most all the classic doctors. There were also interestingly a few tapes with episodes of The Prisoner listed on them, which were not mentioned in the original listing. One of the tapes lists an Alternate version of The Chimes of Big Ben, which I read was among a batch of Prisoner episodes sent accidentally to the CBC, and broadcast, leaving the possibility open now that this collection of tapes may be from Canada ? Not sure of course,just a thought there. Most interestingly found one tape labeled " Doctor Who Archives" and another " Doctor Who Archives and Parodies". Here are the full labels from both tapes ( of course, as yet am awaiting the Betamax player for playback):
The Reign Of Terror: 1-3,6 The Crusade: 3 Celestial Toymaker: 4 The MLG Videozine The Lenny Henry Show The Underwater Menace: 2 Doctor Who Is Gonna Fix it Dalek Masterplan: "Counter Plot" & "Escape Switch" Power Of The Daleks: 2 Faceless Ones: 3 Invasion of the Dinosaur(s): 1 Evil Of The Daleks: 2 The Enemy Of The World: 3 The Space Pirates: 2
Also the Mind Of Evil tape is here, with Terror Of The Autons listed before Mind on the tape.Another reads Invasion Of The Dinosaurs followed by Death To The Daleks. Guessing The Ambassadors Of Death tape is in the other batch of tapes.
Of course was very interested indeed when I saw Underwater Menace 2 and Power Of The Daleks 2 listed. Could be possible these were generational duplicate copies, of the listed episodes from another source ? Very interesting, am now very anxious for the other batch of tapes to arrive.
Apologies to all for taking so long to get the payment, and all sorted out.
Cheers, Lance.
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Post by Doug Wulf on Nov 5, 2008 5:46:01 GMT
Hi Lance:
"For one, the tapes inside the boxes do not match the covers for brand names, some look much older than the boxes." Well, I mentioned that this was a possibility, and it's a good sign certainly.
Underwater Menace 2? Power of the Daleks 2? Plus... maybe Mind of Evil in color? Plus... maybe Invasion (of the Dinosaurs) 1 in color? Plus... perhaps another domestic color source for Terror of the Autons? Plus... Ambassadors of Death on the way, perhaps in color? Plus... maybe others?
Well, all I can say is "Get that Betamax machine!"
While your at it, try to get a reliable one that doesn't eat tapes. :-) Also, try some worthless Beta tape in the machine first before feeding it one with possibly valuable content.
The explanation for Power of the Daleks and such is either that someone has just been fooling around with tape labels and has put a few fake titles on them just for fun, or maybe someone mixed up a couple of titles by accident. I think the latter explanation is perhaps more likely. It's probably episode 3 of Underwater Menace, not episode 2, and an additional copy of episode 2 of EVIL of the Daleks, not POWER of the Daleks.
Still, like those tapes with 'Macra Terror' written on them that were briefly up on eBay, it will certainly be interesting to see what is actually on the tapes.
Also, let's see if any titles like Abominable Snowmen 4 and Evil of the Daleks 7 appear on the next shipment!
Any way to post pics of the tape labels so we can see how they look, see the brand of tapes, etc.?
Good luck! Don't be too disappointed if the ridiculously impossible is not actually there on the tapes in your possession after all though. :-)
Doug
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Post by Doug Wulf on Nov 5, 2008 6:00:35 GMT
Lance:
Any idea what 'The MLG Videozine' is?
For one thing, MLG stands for 'Major League Gaming'. From Wikipedia...
Major League Gaming (MLG) is one of North America’s biggest professional videogame leagues. MLG operates a multi-city live pro circuit, held in major venues across North America. MLG also broadcasts various competitions on national television and on the internet. It operates an online community and hosts online gaming tournaments on its website. MLG was founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso and its headquarters are located in New York City. MLG streams and holds events at least 6 times a year. In 2006, the USA Network on TV broadcasted MLG.
If this is what 'The MLG Videozine' means, this is rather recent content to be found on an ancient Betamax tape, not that these tapes could not have a combination of old and new content on them.
If someone is fooling with you, blurry opening credits to a Troughton episode will start playing on the tape where 'Power 2' is purported to be, but just before the episode starts, some random edition of 'The MLG Videozine' will cut in, apparently recently recorded over that valuable lost episode. Oh, sorrow and woe!!!! :-)
Doug
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Post by Doug Wulf on Nov 5, 2008 6:02:32 GMT
Also as far as dating the content of some of the tapes...
The Lenny Henry Show was a comedy sketch show featuring Lenny Henry. In its first incarnation it ran for two seasons on BBC 1, in 1984 and 1985. Each season had six episodes. A 40-minute special was aired in December 1987. The show was later revived twice, in 1995 and 2003-2005.
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Post by Paul Ryan on Nov 5, 2008 6:13:33 GMT
Zowie! Good luck with this. Might be worth speaking to the Restoration Team regarding Betamax. They might have the equipment you seek?
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Post by Doug Wulf on Nov 5, 2008 6:14:56 GMT
Also, 'Doctor Who Is Gonna Fix it' is a song by an Australian group called Bullamakanka. There was a video of this song made. See this recording from 1983 where the video is shown at the end... www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGaEBBPx_l4
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Post by Richard Bignell on Nov 5, 2008 8:41:35 GMT
Any idea what 'The MLG Videozine' is? MLG is the long-running Merseyside Local Group of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society that during the 1980s produced the Megazine, MonsterCon (one of the earliest rival conventions to PanoptiCon) as well as their own videozine. In all probability, it will be a copy of the very first reconstruction done - Episode 2 of Power of the Daleks as put together by Richard Landen in the late 1980s after the tele-snaps first turned up. Very rough and, on all the copies I've seen, very fuzzy, it seemed to be in many fan's video collections of the time. Richard
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Post by LanceM on Nov 5, 2008 19:04:01 GMT
Found one tape in the mix today which reads Wimbledon 77', only one I have seen so far which has a legible date. Also found a tape labeled Monty Pythons Flying Circus, and PBS.
Cheers, Lance.
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