Ancient advert break

[Stirling Silliphant]

A lot of people today are curious how complete advert breaks use to happen years ago. A nice example here from good old youtube

www.youtube.com/watch?v=93Qkx6FP9wk

includes the famous Rediffusion Star inserts so probably older than the 1969 date suggests?

Looks like it has been sourced from a 405 line VTR as it has been filmed off the screen?

[lpmoderator]

This is an early example of off-air home video recording that has been circulating for quite a while. It's from summer 1967 and continues with some Rediffusion continuity by Redvers Kyle for Wimbledon '67 and then about five minutes of an edition of This Week. The transfer to modern format was made, I think, by optical means (i.e. pointing a camera at the screen). If the original tape is still playable though, i'd imagine it would be still possible to make a better transfer via direct means.

[Stephen Doran]

Home Videos in the 60s?Didnt think till 1974 they were on the market?

[hartley967]

stephendoran said:

Home Videos in the 60s?Didn't think till 1974 they were on the market?

The Sony CVH domestic system is often quoted for this era but actually the European Philips/Peto Scott system appeared before the Sony one - you can see it in action in The Baron (1965) as part of The Baron's security system in the episode Diplomatic Immunity.

The Sony Cassette Umatic appeared in Japan/USA around 1969 but did not appear in the UK till about 1972 .By that time they had left it too late for Europe as the Philips 1500 was on the scene in commercial areas , this was the revolution because you could time shift programmes (with its cooker timer) or watch another while recording, with similar picture quality to Umatic from a half inch tape (Umatic is three quarter inch).

Some young whippersnapers seem to think that pre digital television presentation must have been a shambles and clunky , this advert break confirms how I remember it, that it was a throughly slick and professional operation with of course the available technology.



.

[Koen Br]

I think that's the break that was inserted in the torrent of the first episode of The Complete and Utter History of Britain. I was wondering where that came from!

Interesting clip, and the Rediffusion star inbetween ads is a nice touch.

[lpmoderator]

stephendoran said:

Home Videos in the 60s?Didnt think till 1974 they were on the market?

They were around in one format or another (Sony CV reel to reel usually) since at least around 1965 or thereabouts and there are recordings around to prove this. The more well known ones came in during the early to mid '70s in the UK (e.g. Philips 1500 and U-Matic).

[lpmoderator]

koen said:

I

Interesting clip, and the Rediffusion star inbetween ads is a nice touch.

That was the way Rediffusion ad breaks always were (I know as I remember them too well!) with the star between ads. At weekends, ATV London took over and their ident was a fatter, four-point star inserted in the same way. Incidentally, at the end of a Rediffusion ad break, if the last item was a public information film, the star would run backwards (starting big and moving away from the viewer). Little bit of trivia there! No reason why the ad breaks wouldn't have been slick though, given they were edited together on film in the main (there were some VT ads though, even in the '60s). I was always amazed though that they went to the trouble of placing the Rediffusion star behind every ad in every ad break! I believe other ITV companies had their own between-ad idents too, although my own experience from the '60s is purely of the London area. Perhaps others can remind us what the other regions used?

[RWels]

Of course if you really want to know, you could try to send a message to the youtube member who uploaded this. Sometimes you get a response.

[Greg H]

stephendoran said:

Home Videos in the 60s?Didnt think till 1974 they were on the market?

common misconception. The tapes are still often playable as well.

[RWels]

I think that greatly depends what system it was. There were several open reel systems; but what was the quality, and are there still machines around for playback? I think i read the "Out of the trees" recovery was only possible after a machine had been especially reconstructed to read the tape.

The youtube video shows the off screen capture, but that could mean two things: either it was recorded on film and later transferred to computer / dvd; or it was still on a tape and someone recorded it by pointing a digital camera on the TV. I really couldn't say which one but I'm not the expert.

[lpmoderator]

spinynorman said:

The youtube video shows the off screen capture, but that could mean two things: either it was recorded on film and later transferred to computer / dvd; or it was still on a tape and someone recorded it by pointing a digital camera on the TV. I really couldn't say which one but I'm not the expert.

I know for a fact that the Rediffusion ad break / continuity was originally recorded direct off-air 405 line. The transfer to a modern format was done by optical means though (although, as I say, it was a straight off-air video recording in 1967) which is why you can see the screen characteristics on the online clip.

[RWels]

So home video in 1967 after all? Wow. I didn't even know there was 405 line home video.

[William Martin]

try these, they have a lot of good info

www.labguysworld.com/

www.totalrewind.org/

[Greg H]

spinynorman said:

I think that greatly depends what system it was. There were several open reel systems; but what was the quality, and are there still machines around for playback? I think i read the "Out of the trees" recovery was only possible after a machine had been especially reconstructed to read the tape.

The youtube video shows the off screen capture, but that could mean two things: either it was recorded on film and later transferred to computer / dvd; or it was still on a tape and someone recorded it by pointing a digital camera on the TV. I really couldn't say which one but I'm not the expert.

There are lots of machines in private collections that are in working order and many of the recordings that have surfaced have either been in perfectly good order or have been salvageable.

[RWels]

Pity labguy hasn't updated anything since early 2006.
There's www.videoinfo.nl/ but most of it is not in English...

It makes you wonder... do those vcr collectors know they might find missing eps? Most seem to be in it just for the machinery.