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Post by Mark Dragicevic on Feb 13, 2006 6:40:17 GMT
Hi all,
Just wondered if anyone has seen any programmes that were still shown despite obviously being badly damaged. I can recall a couple: I think sometime in the mid 80's Channel 4 repeated the music show Revolver. Don't know if they used the original masters, but they apologised for the quality beforehand, and said something about the tapes being damaged. The picture was awful and the sound wasn't much better. The other one I recall was a showing of a pilot episode of the Flintstones, which had big black tramlines up and down the picture throughout. Any one else remember these, or of any other 'less that perfect' transmissions.?
All the best
Mark
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Post by Phil Chappell on Feb 13, 2006 10:11:54 GMT
Are you sure it was 'Revolver' and not 'So It Goes' - there was a programme showing old clips from that which were very badly damaged - I think it was taken from an early home video - the clip of this programme I still have on tape is Elvis Costello's first ever TV performance singing 'Alison' - only a small portion exists in broadcast quality which is featured on 'The Right Spectcacle' Elvis DVD.
There are also those early colour Steptoes which have been re-broadcast in bad quality black and white (again taken from a home video format) and of course some of those old 'Dr Who's too.
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Post by B Thomas on Feb 13, 2006 11:10:21 GMT
Yes - I seem to recall some bad quality Dr Who episodes being transmitted ("Terror of the Autons", "The Mind of Evil" and "The Claws of Axos" all seemed to have been broadcast using nth generation VHS back in the early nineties).
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Post by Mark Dragicevic on Feb 13, 2006 11:39:54 GMT
I thought it was Revolver, the most vivid memory was an awful looking and sounding performance from Blondie, but then again I could have been mistaken.
Cheers
Mark
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Post by Eric on Feb 13, 2006 12:00:03 GMT
In the late eighties, Channel 4 broadcast a series of Armchair Theatre episodes. They apologised about the quality of one of them beforehand, but said that the excellent script justified it. Those were the days!
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Post by Laurence Piper on Feb 13, 2006 12:11:08 GMT
The programme was called "The Way They Were" and transmitted in 1986. I have it here and it recalled ten years from the start of punk, showing mainly clips from So It Goes but also other music shows ("What's On" seemed to be the show that had all the poor quality clips used from it - anyone know this show's archive status?). There were several clips shown which were captioned as damaged (Blondie and Costello particularly), although i'm not sure if that was the case or if they were just very poor off-air recordings. All episodes of Revolver seem to survive on 2" in fine quality, fortunately, and were repeated - albeit in a slightly edited form - on VH-1 in the '90s. Don't think Ch.4 has shown them.
On an associated topic, does anyone know if all of "So It Goes" survives intact? I know some of the episodes do but don't know about both series as a whole (a lot of the clips used in the retrospective seemed to be film clips, leading me to wonder whether only inserts survive for some editions). Also, the Sex Pistols clip used in "The Way They Were" seemed to be subjected to a rather odd edit near the end; Johnny Rotten's voice carried on while vision cut to a shot of him with his mouth closed! Was this a doctored edit for that retrospective or was it re-cut that way for the original transmission as well? I've always wondered about that.
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Post by B Thomas on Feb 13, 2006 12:12:54 GMT
In the late eighties, Channel 4 broadcast a series of Armchair Theatre episodes. They apologised about the quality of one of them beforehand, but said that the excellent script justified it. Those were the days! Hmmm... such a shame now that more emphasis seems to be on FX/eye-candy rather than strong/well-crafted scripts. Still, with today's general audiences with their appetite for instant gratification and shorter attention spans than most goldfish - what are TV/film-makers to do? |
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Post by Laurence Piper on Feb 13, 2006 12:17:22 GMT
In the late eighties, Channel 4 broadcast a series of Armchair Theatre episodes. They apologised about the quality of one of them beforehand, but said that the excellent script justified it. Those were the days! These days they need to apologise for the poor content of a programme beforehand while justifying screening it on the grounds of high production values! |
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Post by Mark Dragicevic on Feb 13, 2006 13:19:51 GMT
Many thanks for setting me straight on that Lawrence, Good detective work.
Cheers
Mark
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Post by Gary Robinson on Feb 13, 2006 19:30:51 GMT
Mr Axelfords Angel was transmitted damaged to celebrate Yorkshire TV 25 years,it was a play made by YTV in the 70s.
It was then transmitted again a few years later undamaged.
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Post by Steve Roberts on Feb 14, 2006 10:13:18 GMT
Yes - I seem to recall some bad quality Dr Who episodes being transmitted ("Terror of the Autons", "The Mind of Evil" and "The Claws of Axos" all seemed to have been broadcast using nth generation VHS back in the early nineties). The story was 'The Daemons', restored back to colour by combining a monochrome film recording with colour from an off-air NTSC Betamax recording. 'Doctor Who and the Silurians' and 'Terror of the Autons' were similarly processed, with the former being transmitted on BBC2 in 1999. Steve |
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Post by B Thomas on Feb 14, 2006 11:37:07 GMT
Yes - I seem to recall some bad quality Dr Who episodes being transmitted ("Terror of the Autons", "The Mind of Evil" and "The Claws of Axos" all seemed to have been broadcast using nth generation VHS back in the early nineties). The story was 'The Daemons', restored back to colour by combining a monochrome film recording with colour from an off-air NTSC Betamax recording. 'Doctor Who and the Silurians' and 'Terror of the Autons' were similarly processed, with the former being transmitted on BBC2 in 1999. Steve Sorry Steve - that was in 2000 (I know because I was preparing to emigrate to Sweden at the time). In fact what was on offer then (Mar - Apr '00) was "Spearhead from Space" & "...The Silurians" followed by "Genesis of the Daleks". However that is neither the broadcast nor the episodes I refer to... In 1991 TVNZ began a mammoth repeat/premiere run of "Dr Who" starting with "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", "The Seeds of Death", "The Mind Robber" and "The Krotons". They then followed this with a complete run of the Pertwee episodes (broken only by a screening of "The Time Meddler"). This is the broadcast I was referring to. It seemed apparent that TVNZ were broadcasting some of the Pertwee episodes from the broadcast tapes they had used back in 1985-86 which may well have deteriorated during the gap (among these were the titles I listed in my earlier posting). I remember this well as I was serving with the NZ Army at the time and saw these on TV on Saturday mornings whilst on piquet duty (guard duty at the gate). I commented to my mates (who thought it was crap quality) that I had seen better versions on TV a few years earlier. |
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Post by James Phillips on Feb 14, 2006 15:38:18 GMT
Yes - I seem to recall some bad quality Dr Who episodes being transmitted ("Terror of the Autons", "The Mind of Evil" and "The Claws of Axos" all seemed to have been broadcast using nth generation VHS back in the early nineties). One could politely suggest that UK Gold have been doing this for years! ;D |
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Post by StevePhillips on Feb 14, 2006 21:57:22 GMT
The programme was called "The Way They Were" and transmitted in 1986. I have it here and it recalled ten years from the start of punk, showing mainly clips from So It Goes but also other music shows ("What's On" seemed to be the show that had all the poor quality clips used from it - anyone know this show's archive status?). There were several clips shown which were captioned as damaged (Blondie and Costello particularly), although i'm not sure if that was the case or if they were just very poor off-air recordings. All episodes of Revolver seem to survive on 2" in fine quality, fortunately, and were repeated - albeit in a slightly edited form - on VH-1 in the '90s. Don't think Ch.4 has shown them. On an associated topic, does anyone know if all of "So It Goes" survives intact? I know some of the episodes do but don't know about both series as a whole (a lot of the clips used in the retrospective seemed to be film clips, leading me to wonder whether only inserts survive for some editions). Also, the Sex Pistols clip used in "The Way They Were" seemed to be subjected to a rather odd edit near the end; Johnny Rotten's voice carried on while vision cut to a shot of him with his mouth closed! Was this a doctored edit for that retrospective or was it re-cut that way for the original transmission as well? I've always wondered about that. The third "dodgy" clip from "What's On" was Wreckless Eric and "A Whole Wide World" with Ian Dury on drums. Odd edit in "Anarchy" as per tx. All version are like that. All "So It Goes" survives. Steve |
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Post by Dan on Feb 16, 2006 20:01:48 GMT
About 10 years ago BBC 1 showed a documentary about Pan's People and some of the colour TOTP clips flicked into b&w occasionally similar to the effect you get with nth generation copies.
Moving into radio, the final episode of series 1 (or was it series 2, I forget) of The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy was broadcast *very slightly* damaged. It was still being edited up until shortly before it was due to be broadcast and then the tape snagged around the heads. The broadcast was due to start soon and one plan was to cut the tape, rush the half-episode to where it was needed for broadcast, then unsnag the other half and rush it over and start it broadcasting at the appropriate time. Luckily they managed to unsnag it with 15 min to go and if you listened closely in the right place you might have heard the damage.
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