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Post by Jon Preddle on Sept 14, 2018 21:47:08 GMT
To clarify: not all the US stations were equipped to broadcast from 2-inch quads, so would get U-Matics. But even if a station did get 2" tapes, they'd likely dub them onto U-Matic for broadcast, as they couldn't insert commercial breaks, idents, station breaks onto the master, so needed to first make a copy. And for the few stations that screened the stories as "omnibuses" (such as KCET and WTTW), they'd be making their own copies to create the omnibus version.
A set of 2" tapes copied down was likely circulated around the stations, going back and forth to T-L's HQ in New York. T-L NY would have retained the #1 master set of tapes.
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Post by Robert Lia on Sept 14, 2018 22:01:07 GMT
I know KCET 28 in Los Angeles was as big a budget PBS station as there could be back then broadcast from 2 inch quads. KCET broadcast the series episodic until very late in the run when they repeated "The Daemons", "Curse of Peladon", "The Mutants" and "The Claws of Axos" as Saturday afternoon omnibus but this was in late 1977. They did eventually air Omnibus episode's regularly starting Dec 3, 1983 with "The Five Doctors" though
When I took a broadcasting course in 1982 I did my project on U-Matic and had a dream of it being actually broadcast. The instructors sadly told me at the time was the U-Matic was "not broadcast quality" and no TV English language station in the Los Angeles Market ever transmitted from U-Matic. We did have one Spanish station KMEX 34 that broadcast Spanish soap operas where the video quality was "questionable" though
Now they did say some stations did use U-Matic for internal editing and other off line reasons but never for actual transmission
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Post by Jon Preddle on Sept 14, 2018 22:21:05 GMT
Sure. There would have been both formats (2" and U-Matic) being circulated. Stations would either broadcast off the supplied tapes or they'd make presentation copies first.
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Post by Robert Lia on Sept 14, 2018 22:28:45 GMT
They might have received presentation copies on U Matic. Now we had one more station back then KHOF 30 that broadcast a lot of Chinese, Japanese and Korean programing and I did notice at the time the video quality (color) was much lower than the English language stations. Id be interested to know if you ever discover any US stations that actually broadcast Dr. Who from U-Matic in the early 70's  I'm always interested in learning something new |
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Post by Ralph Rose on Sept 15, 2018 9:07:27 GMT
T-L had a set of masters, and the US stations would have got U-Matic copies. When T-L closed down their distribution operation in 1981, the masters were probably disposed of, or possibly sent to BBC's office in Toronto. Some of the NTSC tapes that were found and returned to the BBC in the early 1980s may have been the T-L masters. Some of the Time-Life copies must have made their way to Lionheart (later known as BBC worldwide Americas). KVIE in Sacramento California, broadcasted an omnibus format of Underworld circa 1984-86 with a single line of a Howard Da Silva intro intact. The Da Silva intros were a product of Time-Life etc... |
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Post by richardwoods on Sept 15, 2018 9:07:52 GMT
Don't shoot me down in flames for bringing this up again but I suppose that there is a tiny possibility that, however unlikely, something Who related may lurk in the huge mountain of uncatalogued stuff at the BFI, perhaps in the wrong tins. I suppose an episode of the Space Pirates turning up there is as likely a candidate as any.
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Post by Richard Molesworth on Sept 15, 2018 16:07:16 GMT
From Hong Kong -> Singapore, or from Gibraltar - which is geographically 'closer' to Zambia. The Australian prints were sent back to the BBC specifically for the purposes of being junked, but it's possible that the sale to Zambia was completed at the same time as the arrival of the films from down under, and they were redirected ... Okay that's an extreme scenario, but can't be totally ruled out. But on balance, my money is on Zambia getting Gibraltar's prints. The HK/Singapore ones also went back to the BBC, they were the ones that Enterprises had in 1976. For what it's worth, I think that the Gibralter prints made it back to the BBC. There is evidence for that, at least. Which is why I favour HK/Singapore as being the supplier of the Zambian prints. Regards, Richard |
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Post by Jon Preddle on Sept 15, 2018 20:24:29 GMT
Indeed. Seeds, Pirates and Games aired in Singapore in 1971, and in Gibraltar in 1972; whichever of the two supplied the films to Zambia had held onto them for four or five years. There is the possibility that they'd sent the films back to the BBC shortly after transmission, and it was the BBC that sent them to Zambia in 76!
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Post by Robert Lia on Sept 15, 2018 21:02:15 GMT
IF the BBC did send there film print's to Zambia in 1976 this would mean the BBC apparently sent out there "Master Copy" of the episode or the only copy still in existence. Granted it was black and white and at the very end of its sales life I simply have trouble believing the BBC would send out there only copy of a story with nothing on the shelf as a back up if it were needed?
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Post by Richard Molesworth on Sept 15, 2018 23:09:12 GMT
IF the BBC did send there film print's to Zambia in 1976 this would mean the BBC apparently sent out there "Master Copy" of the episode or the only copy still in existence. Granted it was black and white and at the very end of its sales life I simply have trouble believing the BBC would send out there only copy of a story with nothing on the shelf as a back up if it were needed? I find the idea of the BBC sending their one and only surviving copy of a story out far more plausible than the idea of them being able to realise that it was their one and only surviving copy. Remember that there are several BBC's in play here. There's the BBC Engineering Department, who cleared the original 2" tapes for wiping. Then there's BBC Enterprises, who had made their 16mm prints and negs before the 2" tapes were junked. As far as they knew, the tapes might still be around - but it was none of their business either way. And if the sales rights for the story were about to expire - which they were - then why would they bother retaining a copy of something they could no longer sell? Especially as they'd skipped the negatives a few years earlier. And it was no-one else's business what they did with their redundant stock of unsaleable programmes. Regards, Richard |
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Post by Robert Lia on Sept 16, 2018 2:05:05 GMT
So then at the time of this final black and white sale we were still a year away from the left hand of the BBC (Engineering Department) and the right hand of the BBC (Enterprises) talking to each other. What a difference a year would make in this regard.
Enterprises not knowing they were wiping the only copies in existence and Engineering thinking Enterprise was retaining its copies making there redundant
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Post by Sue Butcher on Sept 16, 2018 4:00:26 GMT
They might have received presentation copies on U Matic. Now we had one more station back then KHOF 30 that broadcast a lot of Chinese, Japanese and Korean programing and I did notice at the time the video quality (color) was much lower than the English language stations. Id be interested to know if you ever discover any US stations that actually broadcast Dr. Who from U-Matic in the early 70's I'm always interested in learning something new There were two types of U-Matic recordings, lowband and highband. Only the highband format was broadcast quality, and even then the material might need transferring to open reel for actual broadcast. |
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Post by Ralph Rose on Sept 16, 2018 5:33:46 GMT
IF the BBC did send there film print's to Zambia in 1976 this would mean the BBC apparently sent out there "Master Copy" of the episode or the only copy still in existence. Granted it was black and white and at the very end of its sales life I simply have trouble believing the BBC would send out there only copy of a story with nothing on the shelf as a back up if it were needed? I find the idea of the BBC sending their one and only surviving copy of a story out far more plausible than the idea of them being able to realise that it was their one and only surviving copy. Remember that there are several BBC's in play here. There's the BBC Engineering Department, who cleared the original 2" tapes for wiping. Then there's BBC Enterprises, who had made their 16mm prints and negs before the 2" tapes were junked. As far as they knew, the tapes might still be around - but it was none of their business either way. And if the sales rights for the story were about to expire - which they were - then why would they bother retaining a copy of something they could no longer sell? Especially as they'd skipped the negatives a few years earlier. And it was no-one else's business what they did with their redundant stock of unsaleable programmes. Regards, Richard I think this could be highly likely, and as a theory. explains some things. |
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Post by richardwoods on Sept 16, 2018 15:08:03 GMT
I find the idea of the BBC sending their one and only surviving copy of a story out far more plausible than the idea of them being able to realise that it was their one and only surviving copy. Remember that there are several BBC's in play here. There's the BBC Engineering Department, who cleared the original 2" tapes for wiping. Then there's BBC Enterprises, who had made their 16mm prints and negs before the 2" tapes were junked. As far as they knew, the tapes might still be around - but it was none of their business either way. And if the sales rights for the story were about to expire - which they were - then why would they bother retaining a copy of something they could no longer sell? Especially as they'd skipped the negatives a few years earlier. And it was no-one else's business what they did with their redundant stock of unsaleable programmes. Regards, Richard I think this could be highly likely, and as a theory. explains some things. Remind me, where did the surviving episode in the archive come from? |
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Post by Qasim Yusuf on Sept 16, 2018 16:55:06 GMT
I think this could be highly likely, and as a theory. explains some things. Remind me, where did the surviving episode in the archive come from? The surviving episode was BBCs original copy. It wasn't junked as it was a 35mm print. |
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I'm always interested in learning something new
