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Post by Simon B Kelly on Mar 28, 2012 19:40:07 GMT
This is a show that I used to listen to growing up and the current TV series has renewed my interest in it. It's great to see Nicholas looking so well - I can't believe he's going to be 89 this year!
Looking around online I've managed to find home recordings of around 780 of the 792 episodes being shared between fans, although admittedly the sound quality of some of them leaves a lot to be desired (why people compress shows down to 32Kbps @ 22Hz I'll never understand)
But how well has this show fared in the official BBC archives?
We know they have the very first episode as that has been released on CD, along with a few other sixties and seventies episodes. However, most of the compilations seem to concentrate on the eighties and nineties so I'm guessing that the fan recordings may be the only source for the first 14 series (1967-1979). Does anyone know for sure?
This is the sort of show I'd expect to hear a lot more of on Radio 4 Xtra/Radio 7 and although it can be listened to "out of sequence" it would be nice to hear repeats of the early series - in order - and in decent sound quality...
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Post by Gary Critcher on Mar 30, 2012 6:10:00 GMT
Is NP REALLY 89?? I must admit I have been enjoying this new TV version though.
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Post by Dan S on Apr 2, 2012 0:15:37 GMT
why people compress shows down to 32Kbps @ 22Hz I'll never understand) I think all the horrible little 32kbps files date back to when the world wide web was fairly new and everyone had 56k modems (or even 28k modems!), and there were no free filehosts (unless you got an angelfire/geocities type site that usually only gave you a small amount of webspace, and paid webspace was very expensive. I wonder if the people who made those files bothered to keep a good copy for themselves. Probably not, as people were quite naive about such things as quality back in those days. A shame there's still so many 32kbps, even 16kbps, and I've even seen an 8kbps file! I'd consider 48kbps mono the absolute bare minimum for speech, 64kbps mono for music.
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Post by Simon B Kelly on Apr 11, 2012 17:56:43 GMT
After joining the JAM Yahoo Group and browsing their message archive I've managed to identify the missing episodes from this long-running radio comedy/game show.
It appears ABC Radio National (the closest the Aussies have to BBC Radio 4) have been repeating the show from episode 1, since April last year. Their broadcasts are being sourced from BBC Transcription Discs (with all the crackles left in) so it appears high quality masters of almost every episode DO still exist (in Australia, at least!)
The episodes they missed out are listed below, starting with the original BBC broadcast date, then the Series/Episode number and finally the overall programme number:
1968.01.05 s01e03 #003 1968.01.12 s01e04 #004 1968.01.19 s01e05 #005 1968.01.26 s01e06 #006 1968.02.16 s01e09 #009 1968.03.01 s01e11 #011 1968.03.08 s01e12 #012 1968.12.31 s03e01 #023 1969.03.18 s03e12 #034 1969.04.02 s03e14 #036 1969.12.22 s04e13 #049
Yesterday, ABC broadcast programme number 62, so just 720 episodes to go - which, at the current rate of one a week, will take them another 14 years to broadcast!
In fact, s04e13 is doing the rounds amongst collectors as a 32kbps/22Hz MP3 so isn't actually "missing". All other episodes, from 1970 onwards, are also being shared amongst collectors, so they definitely exist, in one form or another, apart from the following Christmas episode (archive status unknown):
1974.12.23 s09e15 #182
As mentioned in the Yahoo Group, 11 missing episodes from a show that has been on radio every year for 45 years is pretty amazing. However, it would also be nice, if some/all of these missing episodes could be located during it's current anniversary.
Possible sources would be either original BBC transcription discs (assuming they were ever pressed for the missing episodes) or home recordings on reel-to-reel/cassette tape. Let the searching commence...
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