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Post by markperry on Apr 10, 2021 3:51:42 GMT
Was any work on restoring the off-air tapes done as the DVD film episodes used the opticals and only the color demo of Episode 1 with the off-air was used.
Judging by the episode 3 join (from the original off-air tape change over) on the VHS release that tiny spec of off-air sounded passable.
I know Mark Ayres said ages ago they were good but needed heaps more work compared to the other Pertwee off-airs.
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Apr 22, 2021 12:02:32 GMT
I'm guessing no one's replied to this because they don't understand it - at least, I'm a bit confused by it! Why would they use the off-air audio? I would have thought the audio on the B/W film copies would be higher quality, wouldn't it? No, not really. Good off air audio (line-out) can beat poor optical soundtracks. |
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Post by PAUL WOOD on Apr 23, 2021 13:10:55 GMT
I'm guessing no one's replied to this because they don't understand it - at least, I'm a bit confused by it! Why would they use the off-air audio? I would have thought the audio on the B/W film copies would be higher quality, wouldn't it? No, not really. Good off air audio (line-out) can beat poor optical soundtracks. Graham Strong's off-air audios of 'The Tenth Planet' were much better that the optical soundtracks of the surviving prints and we used in the re-mastering of this story for commercial release. Indeed, Graham's legendary efforts make astonishing listening today. I never cease to be astonished at how good some ancient off-air tapes can be. Not every fan was making rough microphone recordings. Some people were very ingenious in their methods and obtained very professional results. Ed Doolan's audio of the missing Dad's Army second season episode 'A Stripe For Frazer' is just one excellent example. Superb quality. |
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Post by brianfretwell on Apr 24, 2021 7:15:08 GMT
Also if recorded off a 625 line transmission the sound would have been FM and better than the 405 AM sound of earlier recording sources.
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Post by markperry on May 1, 2021 2:17:00 GMT
Interesting The Tenth Planet.
* I don't know the precise holdings so forgive my lack of knowledge.
If episodes 1-3 are original prints how on earth did they sound so poor, was is it the way those ones were created, a result of ageing or handling, or are just copies and they do sound poor.
I kinda feeling they might not chose the off-airs even if their better, a lot of previous releases says so where the existing material might be considered superior without investigating other possible better sources on hand.
I often wonder if any other stories with existing films that do have better or recovered prints or off-airs aren't they worth investigating for restoration and release but i suppose it comes down to budget, time & effort to perform fix-ups and ultimately customer satisfaction regardless if their buying just a program or a restored product.
I'm not criticising the efforts I live in the real world, just offering an opinion however it may be veiwed and responded to.
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Post by Richard Marple on May 1, 2021 11:05:52 GMT
I presume the prints originally had separate sound reels, which have been junked along the way, leaving the sound stripes on the prints.
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Post by Paul Hayes on May 3, 2021 9:20:19 GMT
Is it correct that the negatives of the 16mm film copies for overseas sale would have had a separate magnetic soundtrack, but the prints had an optical soundtrack?
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Post by PAUL WOOD on May 3, 2021 12:48:50 GMT
If episodes 1-3 are original prints how on earth did they sound so poor, was is it the way those ones were created, a result of ageing or handling, or are just copies and they do sound poor. Yes, I have often wondered this myself, likewise with 16mm film recordings of other archive TV shows of varying technical quality. Perhaps these prints were not struck from negatives by the BBC themselves but rather dupes done cheaply & quickly by TV stations abroad as part of the supply chain? |
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Post by markperry on May 3, 2021 21:49:44 GMT
And were these the same prints used on the worser extracts in The Cybermen Years vhs
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Post by Richard Bignell on May 4, 2021 12:55:02 GMT
Is it correct that the negatives of the 16mm film copies for overseas sale would have had a separate magnetic soundtrack, but the prints had an optical soundtrack? Yes. The original 16mm film recording negatives were made with a sepmag. The prints they created from the negatives had an optical soundtrack (as can be seen in Paul V's avatar from Enemy #1), which were considered okay for sales prints, but didn't always have the best audio range.  |
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Post by markperry on May 5, 2021 12:37:55 GMT
Best example The Ambassadors Of Death and the non existent tambourine in the music until the off-airs proved otherwise.
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Post by Paul Hayes on May 5, 2021 13:23:29 GMT
Is it correct that the negatives of the 16mm film copies for overseas sale would have had a separate magnetic soundtrack, but the prints had an optical soundtrack? Yes. The original 16mm film recording negatives were made with a sepmag. The prints they created from the negatives had an optical soundtrack (as can be seen in Paul V's avatar from Enemy #1), which were considered okay for sales prints, but didn't always have the best audio range. Thanks Richard. I was pretty sure this was the case but it's far from being an area of expertise of mine and I didn't want to sound stupid or mislead anybody! |
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Post by Ed Brown on Oct 21, 2021 23:04:21 GMT
However - a big 'but' is coming! - unless the master negative survived, the accompanying seperate magnetic sound reel would usually not survive. So in practical terms this is not really a help.
In those cases where there is a surviving master negative, the sep mag often survives with it; but those are the cases in which it doesn't matter whether a print also survives, because it's redundant if the negative exists.
Where only a film print survives, it has an optical soundtrack printed on it, so it isn't accompanied by the sep mag reel.
Typically, the negative and the sep mag were junked together. I'm not sure that there are any cases on 'Dr Who' of an "orphaned" sep mag surviving, which is why Graham Strong's off air recordings are so important.
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Oct 22, 2021 11:52:38 GMT
Out of interest, I once had an interesting experience when at home, I tried to replace optical sound (non-who) with off-air. To check if it was timed properly, I combined the two tracks. The result actually sounded better than either track on its own. I guess the frequencies from both recordings compensated each other's weaknesses.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2023 14:00:04 GMT
Sometimes, off-air recordings have been used to restore Pertwee episodes, especially if the audio on the prints is bad or damaged.
Sometimes, the audio on the color NTSC Betamax tapes are better sounding than the ones on the 16mm prints. That's partly thanks to Tom Lundie, who used a high quality Betamax recorder. At times where audio on both the 16mm and Betamax takes are bad or damaged, or if there is no Betamax tapes for an 16mm Pertwee episode, then they'll use David Holman's off-air audio recordings.
I know David Holman, who recorded many 60s Doctor Who episodes, recorded all the way up to the Three Doctors, so he has Seasons 7 and 8 covered.
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