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Post by John Wall on Nov 1, 2012 21:20:26 GMT
I've wondered about a (wealthy) enthusiast video recording late 60s stuff. On the basis that audio recordings of all the missing episodes have been recovered from enthusiasts it can't be ruled out. However, the audios came to light quite a long time ago so it would seem likely that a comparable video collection would also have been found. A "hoarder" can't be ruled out but as almost everything found so far has been readily returned this is not that likely. There may be some more (besides Space Pirates 2) around but they are likely to be "orphans".
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Post by D. Frame on Nov 1, 2012 22:11:24 GMT
You know I have a hell of a lot of videos I've taped right back to the late 80's they don't get taped over very often and I'm really bad at labelling them. I have shelves of tapes that I really have no idea what's on them. Very easy to do. You just need a few people like me who get fed up after putting tape after tape in the VCR, fast forwarding and rewinding to see what's there. Maybe there are a few people out there from the 60's with tapes full of half hour shows they haven't looked through in years.
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Post by Greg H on Nov 1, 2012 22:23:46 GMT
I take back my previous comment, having been told by another source that this copy was wiped. Obviously not the case. Assuming there wasn't a second copy handed in! Furthermore, I think the guy who taped Space pirates 2 off air had taped an earlier episode but recorded over it.
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Post by Greg H on Nov 1, 2012 22:27:38 GMT
You know I have a hell of a lot of videos I've taped right back to the late 80's they don't get taped over very often and I'm really bad at labelling them. I have shelves of tapes that I really have no idea what's on them. Very easy to do. You just need a few people like me who get fed up after putting tape after tape in the VCR, fast forwarding and rewinding to see what's there. Maybe there are a few people out there from the 60's with tapes full of half hour shows they haven't looked through in years. The argument against that I hear is that tape was very, very expensive back then, so unless you had unlimited funds you would probably select stuff for keeping on tape quite carefully. This does not rule out someone opting to preserve their off airs of doctor who rather than something else, although it is just as likely someone off air recording in the 60s might have just been taping hollywood films. It would be very nice if your scenario came to pass though
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Post by D. Frame on Nov 1, 2012 22:41:01 GMT
Just had a look around and found out that 60's VCR's weren't the handy put a tape in record machines I have but reel to reel machines.
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Post by John Harwood (bjblackpool) on Nov 1, 2012 22:52:01 GMT
I take back my previous comment, having been told by another source that this copy was wiped. Obviously not the case. Assuming there wasn't a second copy handed in! The phrase used was "no picture could be recovered" (assuming you're pianist27 on GB - if not there's just been a humongous coincidence!). A recording of the BBC coverage of the Apollo 11 moonlanding was in the same haul, and in the same condition sadly. You know I have a hell of a lot of videos I've taped right back to the late 80's they don't get taped over very often and I'm really bad at labelling them. I have shelves of tapes that I really have no idea what's on them. Very easy to do. You just need a few people like me who get fed up after putting tape after tape in the VCR, fast forwarding and rewinding to see what's there. Maybe there are a few people out there from the 60's with tapes full of half hour shows they haven't looked through in years. By the late eighties, tapes were cheap and archiving routine: in 1969 neither was true. The guy who recorded The Space Pirates was pretty unusual (aside from the two items mentioned above, he'd also recorded and kept episodes of The Forsyte Saga, probably from the 1968-69 BBC1 repeat given the vintage of the other items) and managed to build up his archive through rather ingenious methods: he couldn't afford to buy the half-inch tape used by his CV2100, so rigged up a machine that split 1" or 2" tape into a useable size.
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Nov 1, 2012 23:24:21 GMT
I take back my previous comment, having been told by another source that this copy was wiped. Obviously not the case. Assuming there wasn't a second copy handed in! I still have the tape, and the episode is there. I also have recordings of 'Triton' from the same source, but very unstable recordings... Paul
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Post by Glen Cowan on Nov 2, 2012 2:44:42 GMT
In amongst my collection of old black and white valve TV sets and other things I have a Sony reel to reel video recorder with about 8 or nine tapes. The machine in question is the AV3400 Portapak with a matching monochrome camera so we're talking the 1970's era. The chances of any missing DW on these tapes is extremely unlikely but one can always remain very optimistic about the chance of finding 'something'. I must attempt to get it going and see what is on those tapes... You never know as looking at the NZBC screening history from 1970-1971 there were episodes aired from the Troughton era that are currently missing. Again this all depends if someone had an interest in Dr Who and the nouse to get the composite video signal from the TV set itself and feed it directly or using camera, point it at the screen and start recording. I'm just waiting now see if Jackw28's claim to knowing the whereabouts of several missing DW episodes comes to fruition!
Cheers Glen.
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Post by nicholasrferrara on Nov 2, 2012 5:57:04 GMT
Although the tape was very expensive, there was someone in the USA (roumored to be a former TV executive) who recorded the last episode of Star Trek off air and that copy with the original commercials was floating around trader circles throughout the 1980's along with an unrelated copy of the Monkees special: 33 1/3 Revolutions per Monkee with off air commercials (original origin of which I haven't heard), so someone recording some Doctor Who to keep (besides Space Pirates 2) isn't impossible.
In 1979 or 1980 (whichever it was that my parents got their first recorder) the cost of videotapes had just dropped to $25.00 for a T-120 VHS from $40+ and that was with the mass market sales of the USA, so quite right that it must have been a rich-man's toy back in the 1960's. Collector's of old equipment like Glen probably stand the best chance of coming across any such pure-luck finds in countries that aired the episodes even a few years later if there was a price drop on tape even close to that percentage back then.
And I think that some people here are confusing the (possibly/probably faked) completely irretrievable Tenth Planet episode 4 tape story with the Space Pirates episode 2 tape find.
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Post by Nigel Lamb on Nov 2, 2012 9:54:40 GMT
I take back my previous comment, having been told by another source that this copy was wiped. Obviously not the case. Assuming there wasn't a second copy handed in! I still have the tape, and the episode is there. I also have recordings of 'Triton' from the same source, but very unstable recordings... Paul Are the Triton episodes otherwise missing ones paul? There are several missing I believe. If so are they retrievable from the tapes for preservation?
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Nov 2, 2012 10:13:50 GMT
Are the Triton episodes otherwise missing ones paul? There are several missing I believe. If so are they retrievable from the tapes for preservation? Hi Nigel, Yes, I believe so although I need to compare the soundtracks. It's quite hard to visually compare because the image doesn't lock up long enough to get anything really viewable. It's such a shame, but there you go. Basically, it looks like this: Try tuning an analogue TV signal and you get the sound and a faint image of a picture hidden beneath a huge amount of white noise. Regards, Paul
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Post by stephenbray on Nov 2, 2012 10:20:01 GMT
If the episode was Space Pirates 1 as opposed to 2, do you think that - with enough money and time spent - something even remotely worthwhile could be pulled from such a recording...?
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Post by Steven Sigel on Nov 2, 2012 11:29:58 GMT
@ Nicholas. I suspect that your star trek story is apocryphal. Instead, I suspect that someone got a 16mm network print of the episode and transferred it to video at some later date. I have personally had network prints of star trek so I know the are around.
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Post by nicholasrferrara on Nov 2, 2012 18:38:23 GMT
No, it was a videotape copy. I have seen that one a few times at conventions from traders, albeit 20 some odd years ago, and I have a (poor) copy of The Monkees special, which is also very obviously from videotape and not a film print (which also has "The Fifth Dimension" in an Amaco commercial). Strong, oversaturated colors are a tip off, the edges of the screen are another as well as fluid motion. I have many filmprint copies of shows on tape with commercials and it's very easy to tell visually. For example, look at VidFire processed video and you can see the vast difference. But, as I stated, these are extreme rarities for the time. Obviously obsessive fans with access to high cost equipment and their own tape or tapes which, although expensive, was probably more affordable than in the UK at the same time (US stations buying in mass quantities). And both of those did surface during the video boom in the 1980's from trades. If any Doctor Who or other programs were done this way in the UK, I'm sure they would have surfaced back then as trading was really the only way to get a lot of the shows other traders had. The only hope now would be that a wealthy layman with a machine recorded some shows and forgot about them over the years before sending the lot off to a thrift store or such. Very slim hopes there.
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Post by Rob Moss on Nov 2, 2012 18:40:56 GMT
Nobody is disputing that it was a recording of the film print, but I think Steven is suggesting that the recording is not an off-air recording, but that it may be a later transfer of the original transmission print of the episode.
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