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Post by Richard Marple on Apr 1, 2017 11:05:20 GMT
It's interesting that Australia took so long to decide on a colour format, but made programmes on colour film from quite early on so it could be exported.
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Post by Sue Butcher on Apr 1, 2017 12:20:47 GMT
If we'd gone to colour broadcasting much earlier, the all the colour sets would have had to be imported!
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Apr 1, 2017 13:32:05 GMT
Because the ABC was 625-line PAL mono from the beginning, there was no standards conflict preventing them from buying 625-line colour tapes as soon as they became available from the BBC circa 1967, and then broadcasting them in mono. However, I think it was the economics of distribution and the lack of modern equipment at remote stations that kept them buying mostly 16mm copies for a while. But they could have bought certain programmes on colour tape well before colour change-over in 1975. I just wanted to make that clear. Sue is correct. The ABC did acquire programmes in colour prior to screening them IIRC. There are some oddities though. The copies of 'The Time Warrior' are film recordings. 'Frontier in Space' were colour tapes that they had in 1975. Paul
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Post by Richard Molesworth on Apr 5, 2017 0:15:06 GMT
Because the ABC was 625-line PAL mono from the beginning, there was no standards conflict preventing them from buying 625-line colour tapes as soon as they became available from the BBC circa 1967, and then broadcasting them in mono. However, I think it was the economics of distribution and the lack of modern equipment at remote stations that kept them buying mostly 16mm copies for a while. But they could have bought certain programmes on colour tape well before colour change-over in 1975. I just wanted to make that clear. Sue is correct. The ABC did acquire programmes in colour prior to screening them IIRC. There are some oddities though. The copies of 'The Time Warrior' are film recordings. 'Frontier in Space' were colour tapes that they had in 1975. Paul The ABC / 2-inch PAL 'Frontier in Space' story is a lot more complex than that. ABC initially purchased the Pertwee stories 'Spearhead' through to 'Green Death' as 16mm b&w film prints, from 1971 through to 1974. 'Inferno', 'Mind of Evil', 'Daemons' and 'Green Death' weren't screened at all from this batch, due to issues with the censors. So 'Frontier in Space' was initially screened by ABC in b&w from 16mm film. We know it was supplied on 16mm film, as we have the notes from the Australian Film Censors noting the length of film that was cut from episodes 1, 5 & 6 of 'Frontier' to enable the story to be screened, and we have one of the physical cuts still retained in the 'censors cuts' as discoverd by Damian Shanahan in 1996. 'Time Warrior' was the first DW story to screen in colour in 1975 in Australia, so PAL colour VTs were definately sent of that story. However, some regions reportedly only screened it in b&w, so it's possible 16mm films were also sent (or perhaps b&w VT's were made from the colour ones...?). 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' was skipped (due to Part One being junked by this point), and so the final three Pertwee's - 'Death', 'Monster' and 'Spiders' - were supplied as PAL colour VTs too. 'Death to the Daleks' was cut by the censors, losing the opening scene from Part One, plus some shots of Bellal in close-up from Part Three. All of these sales were for 2 screenings (as were most of the Hartnells & Troughtons in the 1960s), and so any pre-1978 repeats would have come from this batch of 16mm films / PAL colour tapes, with only the four S11 stories being in colour. In 1978, ABC wanted to show the Pertwee stories for a third time, and as they'd used up their alloted two screenings, they had to buy the episodes & rights again from the BBC. And this time they wanted to show the episodes in colour, and so no b&w stories were screened during this repeat run. So ABC were sent new, colour PAL copies of 'Spearhead from Space', 'Day of the Daleks', 'The Three Doctors', 'Carnival of Monsters' and 'The Green Death'. As a result of this, 'The Green Death' was shown for the first time by ABC at this point. ABC also renewed the rights to repeat the four S11 stories again, but I suspect they could have retained their original tapes, rather than been supplied with new ones (as the cuts to 'Death' were carried over, AFAIK). This same colour Pertwee package was 'sold' to ABC again in 1979/80 for another repeat run. Again, I think no new VT copies were supplied, this was a sale of rights only, with ABC using the same tapes they had from 1975/78. The Pertwee colour package was 'sold' again to ABC in 1982/3, only this time, 'Frontier in Space' was added to the stories in the package. This is when ABC got their hands on the PAL 2-inch tapes of 'Frontier' for the very first time. (Also added to the package were 'The Sea Devils', 'The Mutants' and 'The Time Monster' as colour NTSC conversions, and so these stories were also shown by ABC in colour for the first time.) I suspect that these 625-line colour 'Frontier' tapes had recently surfaced from the Middle East, as Dubai had purchased the story in colour in 1975, followed by Brunei in 1976. Certainly, the BBC in England hadn't got colour copies at this point, and BBC Enterprises in Villiers House almost certainly hadn't got colour copies either. Either the tapes had been sent back to Villiers House in England just around the time that ABC had asked to buy all the colour Pertwee stories again in 1982/3, or - as seems far more likely - the tapes had been sent back from the Middle East directly to BBC Sydney, who then offered them to ABC. We know that BBC Sydney offered ABC colour copies of 'The Ambassadors of Death', 'The Mind of Evil' and 'Frontier in Space' in 1981, dangling the 'you can have these stories in colour for the first time' carrot under their noses, only to then have to tell ABC that they didn't actually have colour copies of 'Ambassadors' and 'Mind' when ABC showed some interest... But this establishes that ABC didn't have colour copies of 'Frontier' prior to 1981. (This raises a further point - we know a batch of about 30 2-inch colour tapes of Pertwee and early Tom Baker DW episodes were returned to the BBC from Dubai in 1991, from which David Stead fished out the 2-inch tape of 'Death to the Daleks' that I now use as a doorstop. He recalled seeing Episodes 4, 5 & 6 of 'Planet of the Daleks' in the pile also (but no Episode 3), but has never specifically mentioned episodes of 'Frontier in Space' being there. If they were in the 1991 returns, then this would prove that ABCs tapes could have only come from Brunei, and that perhaps Dubai and Brunei didn't share the same VTs. Which is quite unlikely, as they purchased exactly the same batch of Pertwee stories on 625-line VT a year apart from each other. However, if there were no episodes in the 1991 pile, it does rather support the Dubai 1975 -> Brunei 1976 -> BBC Sydney 1981 -> ABC/Australia 1982/3 'bicycle' route for these 6 tapes.) Regards, Richard
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Post by Damian Morse on Apr 5, 2017 9:45:55 GMT
Fascinating Richard - thank you for the insight. These shipped episodes really do have a life of their own.
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Post by G D Peck on Apr 5, 2017 11:45:07 GMT
(This raises a further point - we know a batch of about 30 2-inch colour tapes of Pertwee and early Tom Baker DW episodes were returned to the BBC from Dubai in 1991, from which David Stead fished out the 2-inch tape of 'Death to the Daleks' that I now use as a doorstop. He recalled seeing Episodes 4, 5 & 6 of 'Planet of the Daleks' in the pile also (but no Episode 3), but has never specifically mentioned episodes of 'Frontier in Space' being there. If they were in the 1991 returns, then this would prove that ABCs tapes could have only come from Brunei, and that perhaps Dubai and Brunei didn't share the same VTs. Which is quite unlikely, as they purchased exactly the same batch of Pertwee stories on 625-line VT a year apart from each other. However, if there were no episodes in the 1991 pile, it does rather support the Dubai 1975 -> Brunei 1976 -> BBC Sydney 1981 -> ABC/Australia 1982/3 'bicycle' route for these 6 tapes.) Regards, Richard Thanks for sharing Richard, really interesting stuff. Quick question as it ever been established what happened to Dubai's PAL Colour Planet of the Daleks 3?
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Post by Richard Marple on Apr 5, 2017 12:22:13 GMT
Was the Carnival of Monsters Part 1 sent to Australia the early edit with extended scenes & the Delaware version of the theme?
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Post by Jon Preddle on Apr 5, 2017 18:29:43 GMT
Was the Carnival of Monsters Part 1 sent to Australia the early edit with extended scenes & the Delaware version of the theme? It was Part 2... but yes -- when the ABC first aired Carnival from 1973 to 1974, it was the 'standard' version in black and white. But when the serial was repeated in colour for the first time in 1978, it was the extended version, which the BBC's Sydney office had been holding onto. New Zealand had already aired the extended colour version in 1975 (also supplied to them by BBC Sydney). It's possible the United Arab Emirates aired the longer version earlier than that, but since no airdates have been found there, we don't know for sure whether NZ or UAE was the first.
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Post by Robert Lia on Apr 5, 2017 22:54:20 GMT
It makes you wonder what the survival rate of the colour Jon Pertwee episodes might have looked like in PAL format had Australia and New Zealand gone to PAL Colour a few years sooner.
I'm currently watching Matlock Police from 1971 at is on PAL BW 625 video tape & 16mm BW film and the quality is very high. Same with The Box which was also made in the same manor. Just finished episode #205 from I believe December 1974 and it was still being made on black and white video tape.
Its just amazing how some production company's saved things for decades and let them sit on the shelf while other company's were wiping stuff as soon as it was shown
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Post by Arthur Chim on Apr 6, 2017 10:57:44 GMT
Conversely what could have occurred if Australia had moved to colour several years later... We have heard that the ABC TV returned a large batch of Troughton stories to the BBC in July 1975, due to screening rights having expired and the lack of interest in screening B&W programmes after full time colour transmissions began on March 1 1975. The ABC may not have been so quick to clear out B&W programmes if colour was introduced say in 1978 - there may have been more awareness of the purging of old DW episodes then and the ABC returns saved. Wishful thinking.
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Post by Richard Molesworth on Apr 7, 2017 2:05:34 GMT
(This raises a further point - we know a batch of about 30 2-inch colour tapes of Pertwee and early Tom Baker DW episodes were returned to the BBC from Dubai in 1991, from which David Stead fished out the 2-inch tape of 'Death to the Daleks' that I now use as a doorstop. He recalled seeing Episodes 4, 5 & 6 of 'Planet of the Daleks' in the pile also (but no Episode 3), but has never specifically mentioned episodes of 'Frontier in Space' being there. If they were in the 1991 returns, then this would prove that ABCs tapes could have only come from Brunei, and that perhaps Dubai and Brunei didn't share the same VTs. Which is quite unlikely, as they purchased exactly the same batch of Pertwee stories on 625-line VT a year apart from each other. However, if there were no episodes in the 1991 pile, it does rather support the Dubai 1975 -> Brunei 1976 -> BBC Sydney 1981 -> ABC/Australia 1982/3 'bicycle' route for these 6 tapes.) Regards, Richard Thanks for sharing Richard, really interesting stuff. Quick question as it ever been established what happened to Dubai's PAL Colour Planet of the Daleks 3? IIRC, when David Stead revealed the origins of the 'Death' #1 PAL Quad as being from Dubai in 1991, and also disclosed that eps 4,5 & 6 of 'Planet of the Daleks' were also in the same returned batch (while at the same time as keeping the details 'officialy' hush-hush, as he felt it could compromise his position at the BBC), the information was fed back to senior people at the BBC, and an official enquiry was forwarded to the Dubai broadcaster, requesting that they search their archives for any more 2-inch BBC 'Doctor Who' tapes that they might still hold. The response was that they had just returned everthing they once held. They had no more 'Doctor Who' 2-inch tapes. So... Dubai's PAL copy of 'Planet of the Daleks' #3 was no longer in Dubai in 1991. If it had been there at all, it would have been returned in 1991. Perhaps David Stead missed it as he went through the damp pile of 2-inch tapes that had been returned...? If it wasn't returned in 1991, it was either junked prior to 1991, returned some time before 1991, or sent somewhere else prior to 1991. Whichever it was, there was no paper trail to indicate which. One other thing to factor in: The BBC's Commercial Rights sheets don't record a sale of 'Planet of the Daleks' to Dubai in the 1970s. Now this wouldn't be the first time the BBC's Commercial Rights paperwork could be said to be wrong, but such examples are quite few and far between. I would really hate to call David Stead's recollections into doubt, and bearing in mind we're talking about events that are 25+ years ago, it might seem reasonable to do so. But David recalled seeing the 'Planet of the Daleks' 4-6 tapes *AT THE TIME* back in 1991, and in the same breath that he was explaining away the reality of an uncut 2-inch spool of 'Death to the Daleks' #1 turning up. So, I don't think we'll ever unpick this particular thread, sadly... Regards, Richard
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Post by Jon Preddle on Apr 7, 2017 21:46:56 GMT
If they were in the 1991 returns, then this would prove that ABCs tapes could have only come from Brunei, and that perhaps Dubai and Brunei didn't share the same VTs. Which is quite unlikely, as they purchased exactly the same batch of Pertwee stories on 625-line VT a year apart from each other. However, if there were no episodes in the 1991 pile, it does rather support the Dubai 1975 -> Brunei 1976 -> BBC Sydney 1981 -> ABC/Australia 1982/3 'bicycle' route for these 6 tapes.) TVNZ sent their tapes of Death to the Daleks to Brunei in February 1976, several months before the serial aired in NZ, which was in August. TVNZ had therefore made a transmission dub. What this means is that it's almost next to impossible to determine a clear path for where the Frontier tapes had been if there were dubs being circulated as well as BBC masters.
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Post by Richard Molesworth on Apr 7, 2017 23:59:52 GMT
If they were in the 1991 returns, then this would prove that ABCs tapes could have only come from Brunei, and that perhaps Dubai and Brunei didn't share the same VTs. Which is quite unlikely, as they purchased exactly the same batch of Pertwee stories on 625-line VT a year apart from each other. However, if there were no episodes in the 1991 pile, it does rather support the Dubai 1975 -> Brunei 1976 -> BBC Sydney 1981 -> ABC/Australia 1982/3 'bicycle' route for these 6 tapes.) TVNZ sent their tapes of Death to the Daleks to Brunei in February 1976, several months before the serial aired in NZ, which was in August. TVNZ had therefore made a transmission dub. What this means is that it's almost next to impossible to determine a clear path for where the Frontier tapes had been if there were dubs being circulated as well as BBC masters. "Okay, kid. This is where it gets complicated......." The thing is, New Zealand never screened 'Frontier in Space' in the 1970s. So I can't see how the 'Frontier' 2-inch tapes might have started out in NZ before they turned up in the Middle East in 1975-or-so. Which is possibly not what you're saying here, I must admit... Having spent waaaaaaaaay too many hours plotting potential bicycling routes on waaaaaaaaay too many spreadsheets, I've come to the conclusion that - easy as it is to try and break DW sales down into seasons, or just blocks of stories - the reality is that any one given story has a different route through the various overseas broadcasters then either story either side of it. Occasionly, a glimpse of reality might offer a degree of certainty about one or more story in a few markets, but the pathway breaks down when you begin to try and scale it up to any degree... .... and yet we still try our best Regards, Richard
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Post by Jon Preddle on Apr 8, 2017 0:49:29 GMT
Having spent waaaaaaaaay too many hours plotting potential bicycling routes on waaaaaaaaay too many spreadsheets.... [snip] .... and yet we still try our best Tell me about it!
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Post by Ed Brown on Apr 12, 2017 17:33:55 GMT
TVNZ sent their tapes of Death to the Daleks to Brunei in February 1976, several months before the serial aired in NZ, which was in August. TVNZ had therefore made a transmission dub. What this means is that it's almost next to impossible to determine a clear path for where the Frontier tapes had been if there were dubs being circulated as well as BBC masters. I've raised previously, on another thread, the fact that in 1992 JNT organised the release of a VHS box set of Cybermen episodes from incomplete serials, in his 'Early Years' series, which included a 16mm poor quality second-generation dub of what, IIRC, was episode 6 of 'Wheel In Space'. It has struck me in subsequent years, when I understood more about the mechanics of telerecording, how odd it was to have this lone dub in the BBC archives, which the BBC had no motive for making. Enterprises would not have bothered to duplicate from a positive, unless they had a customer but no longer had the master negative. But if they had junked the negative, that indicates a decision not to retain that serial, so why would they bother to duplicate a surviving positive? They had no reason to care about the fate of 'Wheel in Space' once its negatives had been junked, so would just have shipped the last remaining set of positives overseas to their customer. The only logical place for a positive to be duplicated is overseas, in a huge country - such as Canada or Australia - where there could be a motive for having more than one print. For instance, you could only show a serial simultaneously in such a country, i.e. in all provinces at once (in the days before it was possible to use a satellite link to transmit from a single print), by supplying a separate print to each transmitting station. That gives ABC and CBC a motive for striking dub prints. And it's not unreasonable, given that they were both financially capable of bearing that cost: far more so than the smaller countries that participated in the cycling process. If we are puzzling over rogue dubs of VT material, we shouldn't overlook the evidence for the existance of rogue dubs of 16mm b/w film prints. If overseas stations were routinely striking their own duplicates of film or VT material, there may have been more prints and tapes in existence than we have previously supposed. ADDENDUM, 2 May 2017: Having checked my VHS collection, I find that the poor quality dub on the BBC's VHS release of "Cybermen - The Early Years" was actually Episode 3, the episode recovered by David Stead.
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