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Post by Sue Butcher on Aug 18, 2013 12:24:02 GMT
Space Pirates was screened many times in Australia, but never more than twice in any region. Last shown here in May 1973, as far as we know.
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Post by richardwoods on Aug 18, 2013 13:42:43 GMT
Space Pirates was screened many times in Australia, but never more than twice in any region. Last shown here in May 1973, as far as we know. Hi Sue, would this make it more likely that early home videos survive of missing Who in Australia?
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Post by Nicholas Fitzpatrick on Aug 18, 2013 22:25:09 GMT
Hi Sue, would this make it more likely that early home videos survive of missing Who in Australia? I'd think so. By 1973 or 1974 even my primary school in Canada had a B&W VTR. I think it was even older than that; they had a colour VTR one by the late 1970s, before going to Betamax.
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Post by Sue Butcher on Aug 19, 2013 7:17:48 GMT
Possibly, Richard. Less people, maybe fewer video tape recorders, but repeats into the era were recorders were becoming common.
In 1973 my high school in Perth had a Sony reel-to-reel VTR, used for showing films and television programmes to English classes. You might expect the tapes to be constantly reused, but I know that some of the 70s recordings made at my school were still around in the 80s. By the mid-70s you could afford to hang on to something and buy another tape. Australia is a relatively affluent country, so I expect there were some privately-owned machines, as well as institutional machines being used for private recordings.
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Post by Steven Christopherson on Aug 19, 2013 15:59:16 GMT
I think the big boom in home VHS came to Australia in the early 1980s. I don't think during this period there was anything that would've been screened out of the norm. There was the same retread of a Pertwee package that screened a fair bit from the 70's to the 80's. There was nothing in that batch that could be considered missing material.
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Post by Michael Plowright on Aug 20, 2013 7:49:47 GMT
I would have thought that video tape recorders were very rare in Australia prior to the 1980's - in fact I would hazard a guess and say that only the more wealthy would have had one. It was about 1983 that video players tended to be out on the general market and become popular in the technology stakes. I remember in school prior to that - and I completed primary school in 1983 - that they used projectors to screen films. I did not know anyone at school who had video recorders prior to the early 80s.
Cheers, Michael
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Post by Nicholas Fitzpatrick on Aug 20, 2013 16:33:36 GMT
I would have thought that video tape recorders were very rare in Australia prior to the 1980's - in fact I would hazard a guess and say that only the more wealthy would have had one. But would they really have been that rare prior to 1980? I'm surprised my non-special, small town, Ontario government-funded primary school would have two by 1977, if they were that costly. No shortage of Bell&Howell projectors ... they were several of those in daily use back then ... and we'd see them far more frequently than the relatively rare VTR, which also required that a large portable TV be wheeled around the school. The film projectors seemed simpler back then.
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Post by Sue Butcher on Aug 21, 2013 2:24:49 GMT
Home VTRs would have been rare in the early 70s, but the point is some people had access to educational machines, and used them for private recordings. I did at my school, so did at least one of the teachers. He often took one of the school's reel-to-reel machines home to make recordings of evening programmes for viewing in his English classes. He kept some of these recordings, and I have a VHS copy of one of them. This is 1972-76 I'm talking about, I'm fifty-four, I was there!
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Post by Bobby Clark (synthpopalooza) on Aug 21, 2013 23:26:45 GMT
It'd be interesting to chat this guy up and see what he's taped ... assuming he is still alive, or that his tape collection hasn't been chucked out with the rubbish after he passed on.
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Post by Sue Butcher on Aug 22, 2013 3:05:02 GMT
I don't remember him having anything that's now missing, but who knows? He's ten years older than me, so he's probably still around.
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Post by Charles Daniels on Aug 22, 2013 6:32:22 GMT
I would have thought that video tape recorders were very rare in Australia prior to the 1980's - in fact I would hazard a guess and say that only the more wealthy would have had one. It was about 1983 that video players tended to be out on the general market and become popular in the technology stakes. I remember in school prior to that - and I completed primary school in 1983 - that they used projectors to screen films. I did not know anyone at school who had video recorders prior to the early 80s. This tallies perfectly with my memories going to school in California. The last time I remember sitting in a classroom, watching something on a projector, would have been 1989. So projectors lasted a good long while. I am certain that projectors were the primary means of playback for any material up to 1986 or so. So it would seem even in California, which I would assume would be cutting edge, that there was a lag time to going primarily to video. Oh! And one more weird memory. My high school had a division in it called VAPAC that taught media production. I took classes for 4 years in media production, and got to play with some fun equipment for the time -- the Video Toaster, which was like an off shoot from Paintbox. Anyway, when I joined up with VAPAC I was very excited by the idea of working with film, only to discover that they had abandoned film in 1988. So I used to lug around this thing we'd call a portapak, and I did all my work on VHS.
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Post by Marty Schultz on Aug 22, 2013 20:48:29 GMT
Private vs Public. Funding was very different back in the 70s. (Or was it LOL) I would hazard that a metropolitan Catholic private school in Australia would have been far more likely to have video than say a rural public school. Indeed at private (sydney) we had 16mm in lower primary. Then each upper primary classroom was given a VHS -1983/84. Indeed my family was one of the first in the school to buy a JVC VHS in 82/83.
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Post by adamjordan on Aug 22, 2013 22:07:21 GMT
It's as much about the expensive tapes as the machines!
And I suspect that no one who was recording at home back then was archiving stuff, rather, watching and then re using the tape until it wore out. As we all did when VTRs became more available.
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Post by brianfretwell on Aug 22, 2013 22:16:06 GMT
Oh! And one more weird memory. My high school had a division in it called VAPAC that taught media production. I took classes for 4 years in media production, and got to play with some fun equipment for the time -- the Video Toaster, which was like an off shoot from Paintbox. Ah the Video Toaster, the "TV Studio in a box" add on to the Amiga 3000 and 4000 range allowing live mixing and overlay of graphics. Later know as the most expensive dongle that allowed the use of Lightwave the 3D rendering program that was used for early Babylon 5 SFX, though mainly earned its money back doing animated logos. I remember never being able to get it as it was native NTSC even if later versions had a separate dongle so you could use without the Toaster and I'm in the UK (not to mention the price). Rumour was that the name was a smokescreen to prevent rivals during development.
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Post by Sue Butcher on Aug 23, 2013 1:28:29 GMT
I recorded stuff to keep. A few people did that. Not many.
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