Dad's Army - Room at the Bottom - in colour

[Dave Wood]

This is a hugely exciting development and I'm so looking forward to the transmission and to the talk at Missing Believed Wiped. This process sounded so far out that I thought it was a hoax when it was first mooted all those months ago.

I'm fascinated to know how the end results compare with previous shows that were restored using off-line NTSC colour signals matched against B/W telerecordings?

Presumably the colour data extracted via this process will have the same geometric distortions inherant within the original film image, so I'd hope that there will be less noticeable colour bleed and fringing than on previous restorations, but is the colour as vibrant and would this new process prove more or less expensive/time consuming than those previous techniques?

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

Nov 29, 2008 19:02:17 GMT Peter Elliott said:

especially since in the early 80's the BBC only had b+w copies of quite a few colour episodes.

Which episodes were recovered from overseas, either at all or in colour?

[Dave Homewood]

I'm not aware of any episodes that the BBC retained only black and white versions of, but I know that around six episodes which were considered as lost by the BBC were discovered by David Croft in Australia when he was working there. They included Mum's Army, The Big Parade, possibly Something Nasty in the Vault but that one is unconfirmed, and black and white copies of Sgt Wilson's Little Secret and Room at the Bottom. When they returned to the BBC the coloured ones went back into circulation and the b&w's seemed to vanish into the vault, apparently mislaid or something because it was still considered those two were lost for a number of years till they were rediscovered in the archive and released.

This is based on talking with David Croft and several other people over time, but it has always been difficult to get the full story on how they disappeared in the first place, and why the BBC mislaid/mislabelled the two recovered episodes. I appears like there was a general lack of care to ensure everything was returned and to ensure it was labelled right for a period before the BBC realised just how imoportant the masters for Dad's Army were. Especially considering David Croft had a firm policy of never allowing his shows to be wiped, some fell through the cracks behind his back.

I'd like to know more about the apparent existence of black and white copies of lost coloured episodes if it's true.

[Peter Stirling]

This gives you an idea how the process works

www.techmind.org/colrec/

the article was written in April and its come along way since then

[Andy Howells]

Just to mention I've added the Press Release to my website with regards Saturday evenings broadcast of Dad's Army in Colour - Room At The Bottom
heres the link:
dadsarmy.retrospace.co.uk/news_archive/2008_12_dadsarmynightnews.htm

Also there is a possibility that items on the colourisation could be featured on Midlands Today (think this has already been mentioned) and BBC2's Newsnight programme. Keep a look out!

[Peter Stirling]

Following Dad's Army
In the next week you will be able to compare 'colour recovery' to

'coloriization'

Saturday 20th December, BBC 4 is screening a Dean Martin, Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra special from the early 1960s.

This AFAIK was originally a B/W show telerecording that has been colorised. That is to say each frame has had colour added to it on the judgement of the operator rather than using real colour information.



..

[Peter Elliott]

Dec 13, 2008 13:20:08 GMT Peter Stirling said:

Following Dad's Army
In the next week you will be able to compare 'colour recovery' to

'coloriization'

Saturday 20th December, BBC 4 is screening a Dean Martin, Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra special from the early 1960s.

This AFAIK was originally a B/W show telerecording that has been colorised. That is to say each frame has had colour added to it on the judgement of the operator rather than using real colour information.

No doubt Channel 5 or somebody will screen the colorised version of Alistair Sim's "Scrooge" at some time over the season. They did last year to my dismay. Now THAT is a truly horrid example of colorisation. Mind you they even tried to "remix" the sound into stereo on that one and it sounds like those awful fake stereo concoctions released during the late 60s and 70s!

[Rich Cornock]

Just watched this, an excellent job done at recolouring. I wonder what will get this treatment next?

[Andy Howells]

I agree, infact I thought it looked better than some of the video releases from a few years back (before they were cleaned up for DVD release). Nice to know there are a full set of colour DA episodes now! (Did you notice the on screen coming up graphics at the end of the episode - denying us a full clean version - i bet a DVD release will be imminent!).

I'm suspecting that some Pertwee Doctor Who's could be next - Planet Of The Daleks?

[David Barron]

What a surprise in that it will be coming out on DVD. The only question is when, and what other material will be discovered. What was really strange is that they advertised the Dad's Army boxset which would have Room At The Bottom in Black & White.

[Adrian Gregg]

And we do know this kind of technology can't be applied to all TeleRecordings. most were "properly" Transfered to film, with the colour turned off. its only the odd print or two were the film operator is to lazy to turn of the Chroma signal's that this happens.

so no full set of pertwee's in colour. in fact has it been ascertained which pertwee's this "problem" happened in?
The other epp ive seen this information on is "Caught in the Act" a Rare Goodies Episode that Ive transferred from a good VHS dub. when i was making the DV, LARGE portions of the TR looked colour, I saw distinct colour on Mollie Sugden costume. and bits of the set. It was quite disturbing.

[Ian Thompson]

I understand that the audio track was dubbed from a better quality reel to reel recording, so does this account for the slightly out of synch audio on last nights broadcast?
I thought it could have been my setup,but on the preceeding part with Ian Lavendar in the B.B.C. film library the sound was perfect,only when DA started did I notice this.I can't check up on i-player as it is not available.
Anyone else see this

[Peter Elliott]

Dec 14, 2008 12:55:50 GMT Ian Thompson said:

I understand that the audio track was dubbed from a better quality reel to reel recording, so does this account for the slightly out of synch audio on last nights broadcast?

Sadly it appears there was a sync issue on the digital channels. Some saw it out of sync and some saw it in sync. Nothing to do with the team who restored it who I know would had worked painstakingly to ensure it was all in sync.

What a shame then the sync problem AND the squeezing of the credits at the end cheapened the hard work that went into this restoration... and original production... can't be nice for David Croft and Jimmy Perry to see the titles get squashed and useless blabber over the music.

That gripe apart, I thought the end result looked extraordinary and I take my hat off to all involved. A stunning achievement. I thought VidFire was and is amazing and now we have the colour recovery... all this made possible just over the last 8 or 9 years!

[Andy Smith]

I must admit that i thought when watching that it was out of sync and this was due to the soundtrack coming from another source,it did spoil my enjoyment to a certain extent.I thought to myself they spent all the time and trouble getting the colour back but haven't bothered so much with the soundtrack,i should've known better !

[Peter Elliott]

Dec 14, 2008 16:24:16 GMT Andy Smith said:

I must admit that i thought when watching that it was out of sync and this was due to the soundtrack coming from another source,it did spoil my enjoyment to a certain extent.I thought to myself they spent all the time and trouble getting the colour back but haven't bothered so much with the soundtrack,i should've known better !

Yeah... know the feeling. They certainly worked hard on getting it as perfect as possible only for the BBC digital transmitter to screw it up and give the wrong impression. It's happening a bit too often on digital, seeing the sound go out of sync. Apparently the start of The X Factor last night was also so badly out of sync it looked like the singers were miming... which coming after Britney's lame mime on the show a few weeks back would not had been surprising!