Ancient advert break

[Stephen Doran]

I thought only 625 lines colour tv had VCR compatible etc

spinynorman said:

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

[William Martin]

spinynorman said:

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.

very true, most video machine collectors just have a technical interest. and any interest in lost material is normaly restricted to a few areas.

[Greg H]

There are however people out there with loads of old recordings that havent been checked yet.

[RWels]

The youtube owner confirmed he found it in a torrent, like Koen said.

I can understand that some people just go for the mechanics. It's, well, it's a different hobby altogether. I just wonder if there is a way to really attract the attention from the vintage mechanics enthusiasts.

[Greg H]

Probably the best bet is for right minded missing television enthusiasts to just try and get in contact with them and chat about both our interests, make freinds with that community, i.e. not insanely ranting about doctor who, lol

Its a really nice bit of footage to turn up though, I had heard a few bits and pieces like this were doing the rounds for a while.

[Peter Bradford]

lpmoderator said:

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?

It was an ITA (then latterly IBA) requirement that the commercials were 'seen and heard' to be completely separate from the actual programmes. Many ITV companies settled on this sort of technique - a silent optical at the start of the break and a short period of black and silence (or optical and silence) inbetween each ad. Of course this 'technical' requirement seems to have disappeared along with the ITA/IBA.

Southern TV used a variation of its rolling ident as its optical at the start of the break and a closing southern star inbetween - although eventually the 'inbetween' optical eventually gave way to black and silence.

PS. There is a 'natural' silence at the start of any film commercial because the picture is optically printed ahead of the optical sound track - that's why all those commercial have no sound at the very beginning - it all helped with the concept of isolating the comms from the programmes. I'm sure if you searched on youtube you'd find a few examples. Regards, yt.

[RWels]

I checked and this break does appear in "complete and utter history of brittain" part 2, at least in the copy that circulates among collectors. Much better quality then I'd expected. Perhaps this too will one day make it to DVD.

But the commercials are visibly recorded with a camera pointing at the TV and the rest of the recording isn't. So someone must have put it there as a sort of joke, or to recreate the viewing experience.

[lpmoderator]

True but for those of us who were there, it isn't strictly the authentic experience. The Rediffusion star was not being used between ads by 1969 (when Complete & Utter was screened). It's little details like this that spoil the illusion.

[RWels]

And, if I understand correctly, this 'CUHB' episode is the director's private recording, and slightly different from how it actually aired.
I don't know why the ads were inserted, but it must have been someone who knew what he was doing. I wonder how this one got out anyway, it's never been released.

[Peter Bradford]

lpmoderator said:

True but for those of us who were there, it isn't strictly the authentic experience. The Rediffusion star was not being used between ads by 1969 (when Complete & Utter was screened). It's little details like this that spoil the illusion.

Rediffusion weren't broadcasting in 1969, having 'lost' it's franchise to Thames Television in 1967 - and Thames consequently starting broadcasting in 1968.

[A.Doe]

A collector found this footage, gave it to somebody important, somebody made a sneaky optical conversion to VHS and it's been doing the rounds on the swaps circuit for years.

Nobody knows who originally recorded it. The VHS tape is 4 hours long...

Dick Emery (incomplete), The ITN News (clip), The Very Merry Widow (incomplete), Testcard D, Life With Cooper, Clips from The Rolf Harris Show, The Benny Hill Show, Shut That Door, Titles Daft As a Brush, Titles Mary Griffith, Adverts, ABC Programme Ratings and Previews (these three items were found in an attic at Teddington in the 1990's), Thames Ident Tests, ABC Sales "All inculsive Spots", End of Tony Handcock (30/06/67), Rediffusion Continuity, Thames Continuity (David Hamilton - Moonlanding 69), BBC 1 Continuity, Till Death Us Do Part Election Speical "Up The polls" 18/6/70, Titles to Election 70 18/6/70

At the end of that VHS tape is some early to mid 70s colour footage, which includes the start of a missing Southerland's Law, the whole reason I started reading this forum today in fact, as I was told it was missing and wondered if the whole thing had survived.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM093OrW-Eg

There's the continuity for the Sutherland's Law programme.

[Stephen Doran]

What Music was on Test Card D?

[A.Doe]

stephendoran said:

What Music was on Test Card D?

I'll try and pop the (pretty short) segment up on YouTube a bit later on today if I can

[A.Doe]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lh1DXRLilE

[Stephen Doran]

Thanks a lot that was nice.