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Post by Nick Cooper on Sept 18, 2008 12:36:19 GMT
That sounds like the intermediate-film process which was used in this country by the Baird system; it was the only way they could do outdoor stuff 'live'. The German system did indeed use an intermediate film technique, but in the studio as well as on location. Looking at that YouTube links, although I have sound disabled (at work!), they seem to me to be extracts from the documentary that has been mentioned. I think it was originally a German production, but in the UK is was first shown as Television in the Third Reich in Channel 4's Secret History series on 30/08/01.
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Post by Paul Hayes on Apr 10, 2021 20:07:39 GMT
Sorry to resurrect a zombie thread, but I used the below a couple of years ago when I was making a radio documentary about the commentator Jimmy Jewell (Kenneth Wolstenholme's predecessor as the BBC's main TV football commentator), and having stumbled across this thread now I thought I'd mention it in case it was of interest.
There are a few minutes of the live coverage of the England v Italy football match at White Hart Lane from 30th November 1949 preserved in episode 200 of Television Newsreel (whenever that went out, presumably early in December). The BBC had gained permission from the FA to experimentally film record the game, with a view to cutting a 15-minute highlights package to go out the same evening (it was being played on a Wednesday afternoon, so many won't have been able to see the live broadcast).
However, the then-Head of Television Films Philip Dorte thought the process wasn't up to properly capturing a fast-moving event like a football match, and asked for the highlights not to be publicised or billed - rather, they'd see how it went first before deciding whether or not the footage was useable. In the event, while the game was still ongoing they decided the light conditions at the match were too poor, and rather than waste film they abandoned the process partway through.
But they *had* already shot 4000 feet, and sent 2000 feet for processing, so rather than waste the latter, Dorte decided that what had been shot should be cut into a short highlights piece of the first half for the next episode of Television Newsreel. A three-minute item was cut from the footage, with the narrator explaining in his cue into it that bad light had "spoiled the telefilm", so they wouldn't be seeing either of the goals which were scored in the second half!
Dorte specified that, as it had been decided that Jewell was entitled to another 75% of his fee for each broadcast of the highlights (all three minutes of them!) the item shouldn't be cut into the Saturday compilation edition for that week. However, it was kept as a separate item in the BBC archive, where it still exists to this day - as far as I am aware, the *only* surviving material from a live broadcast of a football match on British television from before the 1950s, and the earliest existing such material full stop.
It was certainly very useful for me, anyway, as it was also the only surviving example of Jewell's live commentary (although a couple of his narrations of direct-film-shot highlights for Television Newsreel do also survive).
So anyway, there you go. That exists.
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Post by Pete Morris on Apr 11, 2021 1:47:32 GMT
Out of interest, do you have any idea what around the world in 8 days was? Never heard of that one before. And just 121/2 years later you get an answer. We may be slow, but we are reliable.
A BBC television film. A record of the flight specially arranged by the BBC in conjunction with BOAC. Contributors Cameraman: Charles de Jaeger Commentator: Wynford Vaughan Thomas
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Post by Paul Hayes on Apr 11, 2021 7:02:31 GMT
Incidentally, the interesting / odd thing about the Edmundo Ros experimental film recording Andrew mentioned on his list is that - for some reason - it also has the talkback preserved on it! Surely the earliest extant example of talkback from a British TV programme?
I know talkback sometimes went out accidentally from OBs during this period, but it would seem odd for it to happen on a studio show. I can only guess it didn't go out, and was recorded deliberately for some reason as part of the experiment.
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Post by T Morgan on Apr 12, 2021 0:05:11 GMT
Well, there's the (future) queen's wedding in 1947 preserved on film recording. There's also some 30-line stuff from the Thirties which were recorded experimentally on gramophone records. So does any British TV from the 1930s survive? Or even the 1920s? The latter is most unlikely, I suppose, but I note that John Logie Baird began his experimental broadcasts in 1929. Simultaneous sound and vision was achieved the following year. The BBC began their own TV broadcasting in 1932, but it wasn't until 1936 that the BBC Television Service officially launched. It appears that yes, there is British TV surviving from the 1930s, but what I've found is from demonstration films, or BBC newsreel cameras, rather than any direct broadcast - a lot of interesting stuff at the History of the BBC here, including clips. That famous footage of Adèle Dixon singing 'Magic Rays of Light' would therefore have been captured by the BBC newsreels cameras, and is not what viewers would have seen (?). It's unclear whether some of the clips from demonstration films seen here were actually broadcast.
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RWels
Member
Posts: 2,857
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Post by RWels on Apr 12, 2021 8:11:50 GMT
Well, there's the (future) queen's wedding in 1947 preserved on film recording. There's also some 30-line stuff from the Thirties which were recorded experimentally on gramophone records. So does any British TV from the 1930s survive? Or even the 1920s? The latter is most unlikely, I suppose, but I note that John Logie Baird began his experimental broadcasts in 1929. Simultaneous sound and vision was achieved the following year. The BBC began their own TV broadcasting in 1932, but it wasn't until 1936 that the BBC Television Service officially launched. It appears that yes, there is British TV surviving from the 1930s, but what I've found is from demonstration films, or BBC newsreel cameras, rather than any direct broadcast - a lot of interesting stuff at the History of the BBC here, including clips. That famous footage of Adèle Dixon singing 'Magic Rays of Light' would therefore have been captured by the BBC newsreels cameras, and is not what viewers would have seen (?). It's unclear whether some of the clips from demonstration films seen here were actually broadcast. You mean apart from the brief clips mentioned above? Well, there are scripts at the written archive that are very very detailed. So a broadcast COULD be re-enacted, if diction and acting style were also paid attention to.
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Post by Paul Hayes on Apr 12, 2021 8:35:37 GMT
1930s-wise, I think directly "off tube" stuff is just those two brief mute films - the RCA one from America, and the clip from the 1937 coronation.
Obviously there's filmed material like the demonstration films, cartoons, as well as all those Gaumont-British and Movietone newsreels the BBC showed.
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Post by Dan S on Apr 12, 2021 11:11:16 GMT
That famous footage of Adèle Dixon singing 'Magic Rays of Light' would therefore have been captured by the BBC newsreels cameras, and is not what viewers would have seen (?) Yes, they saw it. "Television Comes To London" was shown 6 times in 1936. I wonder how many people had sets? www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02cjphq
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Post by John Wall on Apr 12, 2021 11:54:31 GMT
I think in those days it was in the hundreds.
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Post by Simon B Kelly on Apr 13, 2021 6:30:19 GMT
I think in those days it was in the hundreds. So about the same as some of the Freeview and Freesat channels these days!
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Post by T Morgan on Apr 15, 2021 23:10:46 GMT
You mean apart from the brief clips mentioned above? Well, there are scripts at the written archive that are very very detailed. So a broadcast COULD be re-enacted, if diction and acting style were also paid attention to. I didn't notice any mentions of 1930s archive material upthread, but there's a lot of posts to wade through. I think one of Logie Baird's early experimental broadcasts was recreated in the 1960s. Didn't the BBC recreate something for the 80th anniversary of Ally Pally in 2016?
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Post by T Morgan on Apr 15, 2021 23:11:49 GMT
1930s-wise, I think directly "off tube" stuff is just those two brief mute films - the RCA one from America, and the clip from the 1937 coronation. Obviously there's filmed material like the demonstration films, cartoons, as well as all those Gaumont-British and Movietone newsreels the BBC showed. What were the demonstration films used for? Were they actually broadcast on BBC TV? That didn't seem clear from the BBC History pages. What do you mean by "off tube" - telerecordings? Not sure what the difference is between filmed material and the "off tube" stuff.
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Post by T Morgan on Apr 15, 2021 23:29:28 GMT
That famous footage of Adèle Dixon singing 'Magic Rays of Light' would therefore have been captured by the BBC newsreels cameras, and is not what viewers would have seen (?) Yes, they saw it. "Television Comes To London" was shown 6 times in 1936. I wonder how many people had sets? www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02cjphqThanks for the link. What I meant was that the Dixon clip, having been filmed by a newsreel camera, rather than the studio camera being used for the live transmission, isn't what viewers would have seen on opening night. That is to say it's the same performance, but filmed by a different camera: it's not the version originally transmitted 'live'. Depending where the cameras were placed, it probably isn't much different. The musical double act Bob and Alf Pearson were apparently the first double act to appear on TV. Their Wikipedia entry says: This obviously pre-dates Alexandra Palace - probably the 1930-1932 period, when JLB was broadcasting from Long Acre via the BBC's transmitters. The earlier Pearson TV appearance in Genome is Cabaret from 1937. However, Radio Times didn't carry any TV listings before 1934, so it's likely their earlier appearances aren't catalogued, unless they're detailed in the Baird archives.
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Post by Paul Hayes on Apr 16, 2021 8:32:50 GMT
What were the demonstration films used for? Were they actually broadcast on BBC TV? That didn't seem clear from the BBC History pages. What do you mean by "off tube" - telerecordings? Not sure what the difference is between filmed material and the "off tube" stuff. They were broadcast in the daytime, so that people installing sets had something to tune them into - I'm not sure exactly at what times or how often, though. In the 1946 one, they even comment to the installers that they will come to know every moment of the film off by heart. Yes, when I say "off tube" I mean something actually filmed from the screen as it was going out, so what the viewer would have seen of a live transmission. (As opposed to the pre-filmed items like the demo films and newsreels). The only two that are - as far as I know - known to exist from the 1930s are very bad-quality mute footage of a few minutes shot off-screen on cine film at RCA in New York when they received the Alexandra Palace transmissions due to freak weather conditions, and a similarly mute short snippet of the 1937 coronation: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04d7h0x(This version on the BBC website has had some audio dubbed onto it). Incidentally, that latter one is probably the single example from the 1930s where we *can* compare the angles of the live TV broadcast with the BBC's own filmed coverage, whose camera was just behind the live camera: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04d7byw
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Post by Robert Clark (rcgreybeard) on Apr 16, 2021 11:08:41 GMT
The earlier Pearson TV appearance in Genome is Cabaret from 1937. However, Radio Times didn't carry any TV listings before 1934, so it's likely their earlier appearances aren't catalogued, unless they're detailed in the Baird archives. Not quite true - this is a random entry from 1932: genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/0000dc1695f747259c6704b59bf50ab9It was still experimental at this time, and it wasn't the only experimental service to be transmitted either. The service proper (i.e. non-experimental) started on the 22nd August 1932. I believe that sound and vision couldn't be transmitted at the same time, so one went first (probably vision) with the other (sound) following - I wonder if there were any complaints about repeats! There is a book being published later this year by Kaleidoscope, written by Andrew Martin (not sure if the link will work unless you are a member of the KAL fb group: www.facebook.com/groups/kaleidoscopearchive/permalink/10161104661515198). The cover states 1929-1939 and although it is mainly Ally Pally, it does say "(and from some other places)" so may include the early Baird stuff.
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