|
Post by Andy Howells on Jan 1, 2010 11:19:56 GMT
What about shows from the ITV Strike period from 1970-71 including Please Sir! and Doctor At Large. Could these have any hidden colour information ? Or were they recorded just using Black and White equipment?
|
|
|
Post by Andrew Doherty on Jan 1, 2010 11:47:24 GMT
I heard that the 'Year of the Sex Olympics' does not retain the chroma dot colour information on the recording available. Even so, this is where the 'colourization' process could come into its own. I believe there are some colour stills from the production. Consequently, much less guesswork would be needed to recover the original colour production. Yours, I think you're actually wrong on that one (luckily), Andrew! Steve Roberts mentioned on one of the forums not so long ago that the colour information is present on Sex Olympics (whether it's good enough to extract though is another matter, I suppose, as with all of these recordings). I think - by and large - that many BBC b/w t/rs of colour shows have the chroma dots present although not all (as Mind Of Evil 1 proves). ITV t/rs are another matter though; I could be wrong but I believe it's been stated elsewhere that they more often had the chroma signal switched off, so it's bad new there for things like Timeslip and many other ATV shows. The sky's the limit as far as BBC series are concerned though and I had a quick look at how many of their colour shows exist as b/w t/rs and got to well over 100 at a very rough total! This would include things like many Late Night Line-Up (the first regular colour programme in 1967), the last series of The Troubleshooters, single plays, quite a few early '70s sitcoms / sketch shows and such like. Edit: yes, Steve Roberts said this on Roobarb's last year when talking about the Sex Olympics BFI DVD release: "I remember we had to filter it off (the colour signal) when we did the BFI transfer, there was loads of it!" Excellent news! So, there might yet be the opportunity of restoring the colour information for 'The Year of the Sex Olympics', not to mention a considerable number of other programmes originally broadcast in colour. Good to be wrong on this topic. Happy New Year,
|
|
John Wall
Member
Posts: 4,148
Member is Online
|
Post by John Wall on Jan 1, 2010 14:15:47 GMT
I think we should all drink a New Year toast to the Restoration Team.
Colour Recovery came from James Insell seeing flashes of colour on Dr Who on (iirc) UK Gold and it's restored episodes of Dads Army and Are You Being Served - with, hopefully, more to come. Then there's the recombination of NTSC colour and Reverse Standards Conversion.
What a great bunch of guys:-)
|
|
|
Post by Stuart Huggett on Jan 1, 2010 15:50:36 GMT
Richard Russell (not an RT member, I gather) has said recently on the Digital Spy forums that he carried out the AYBS? colour recovery work at home - although I've not read the full thread on the subject yet.
|
|
John Wall
Member
Posts: 4,148
Member is Online
|
Post by John Wall on Jan 1, 2010 16:04:23 GMT
Richard Russell deserves some sort of major award - he was responsible for achieving full gamut colour recovery. Unfortunately there seems to have been some sort of falling out with James Insell in the last year.
|
|
|
Post by Andrew Doherty on Jan 1, 2010 20:10:27 GMT
I have just viewed the restored pilot of "Are You Being Served?" in colour.
Magnificently restored I would say, and far better than I was expecting. It was so good that I would not have thought it was anything other than the original video tape recording.
If this is the standard then let's have 'The Year of the Sex Olympics' and other programmes restored to their original colour.
Yours,
|
|
|
Post by Richard Moore on Jan 1, 2010 20:20:35 GMT
Yes, a step up from the Dads Army, which was good in it's self.
This process (and Vidfiring) is quite amazing.
The only thing that gave away it's t/r origins was the optical soundtrack.
Richard
|
|
|
Post by markboulton on Jan 1, 2010 21:24:38 GMT
Damn! I got so hidebound making sure Doctor Who was set to record, I forgot to set this (I thought it was on an hour later from what I *thought* I'd seen in the guide).
I saw the preview at last year's MBW so I was particularly looking forward to this.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2010 21:54:22 GMT
It looked very impressive! The process just gets better. Bring on more colour recovery: Sex Olympics, Top Of The Pops...
|
|
John Wall
Member
Posts: 4,148
Member is Online
|
Post by John Wall on Jan 1, 2010 22:57:19 GMT
I saw it too - excellent picture quality.
If AYBS? is still big in the US there's a nice little earner for Auntie.
|
|
|
Post by jontravers on Jan 2, 2010 3:08:57 GMT
Auntie Bea is missing a whole range of tricks in the US! Too much daytime crap and Gordon Effing Ramsay.
AYBS is well regarded here, and I am looking forward to seeing the colour recovery of the pilot. I've gone for too long thinking it was a BW production.
|
|
|
Post by StevePhillips on Jan 4, 2010 1:08:03 GMT
What about shows from the ITV Strike period from 1970-71 including Please Sir! and Doctor At Large. Could these have any hidden colour information ? Or were they recorded just using Black and White equipment? Well, at a guess, they were probably done with colour cameras (since studios and crews already booked and b/w cameras having been given the heave-ho) onto high-band tape (machines already booked in for that studio session). Quite where the colour was made into black and white would be debatable - camera, vision control, gallery, input into VTR? There was a (probably unsubstantiated) theory that just the colour burst was turned off on the feed to the VTR meaning, presumably, the 4.43MHz subcarrier is still in there on the picture lines only with no reference burst for decoding it. Complete speculation though. Possibly also done different ways for the different ITV companies.
|
|
|
Post by davemachin on Jan 4, 2010 14:42:12 GMT
I just got round to watching the Are You Being Served pilot as I've been away over the Christmas period. Just to concur with comments here, the team have done a bang on job of restoring the colour here! It is almost getting to the stage now where you can believe it is the original video, helped of course by VidFire. I do hope more programmes can be restored in this way. I would put in a vote for the 29th January 1970 Top of the Pops edition (as part of it exists in colour anyway so there would be less to restore) as well as Sex Olympics of course.
Laurence mentions Late Night LineUp which was colour from 1967 and it would be good to see some of these restored, particularly if they have interesting guests. Must be a lot of less well-known shows like that which would be good to have in full colour again. Well done Richard Russell, James Insell and the team!
I was wondering if those 1970 and 1971 ITV strike programmes had the colour information recorded on them too. It would be exciting if they did.
Dave
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2010 15:22:02 GMT
Last years' Missing Believed Wiped featured a section on the colour recovery process, using example clips that had been restored. They screened an extract from an early colour Late Night Line Up, Dave (August 1967, I think), including the continuity leading in and out. It blew my head off and was the highlight of the event for me! The colour recovery process has the potential to give us a whole new way of experiencing what were previously scratchy old b/w t/rs and offer them up looking as they were seen originally!
|
|
|
Post by Philip Hindley on Jan 4, 2010 16:29:43 GMT
I am all for colourisation done in whatever form so I hope they do the Quatermass serials one day.
|
|