RWels
Member
Posts: 2,910
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Post by RWels on Sept 6, 2018 11:56:45 GMT
I find that with files from BBC radio the dynamic compression is so severe (I wish they wouldn't do that) that I have to leave them as they are (half as loud) otherwise they're louder than "normal" files. Surely, you can't increase the volume without re-encoding? At least, that doesn't seem to make sense to me. Yes, it's the gain. The program that Gary links to is indeed useful. ...One time I encountered a file with severe clipping - all those flattened peaks because it was way too loud. When I lowered the gain all the missing peaks magically reappeared - then I realised that someone must have taken a good file and raised the gain too much. Mp3directcut allows you to normalise the file the correct amount, but there's a manual override. Luckily if someone mucks it up you can lower the gain again without any loss. I'll probably never encounter that again - usually if there's clipping it's because someone has been sloppy with their encoding. Ah yes! If only there was a cure for clipping! Funny that it works like this. Good to know. |
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Post by darrenlee on Sept 6, 2018 16:14:11 GMT
I'm detecting a bit of digression from the thread topic. BBC radio streams are typically AAC rather than mp3.
Back on topic (more or less), you can see above many sources making contradictory (including patently false) claims about the survival status of LFMGF. Bearing in mind that there seem to be 'collectors' who think they have S1E1 but actually it's S1E3, I'll want more evidence that S1E1 is not lost than a simple assertion that it isn't.
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Post by Stephen Byers on Sept 7, 2018 12:38:46 GMT
Someone has put all episodes except one on the Internet Archive with the assertion that 'Series 1 Episode 3 is now lost'. Is anyone able to assure me that this is not true? I note that the BBC's page for the programme is a complete mess with episodes identified by a mixture of original and modern broadcast dates and far too many entries, so obviously many shows repeated. I can believe the 'lost' episode has not been broadcast by radios 4 extra or 7, but if not, why not (unless it really is lost)? The MP3 / VBR files can be downloaded from there. They amount to about 400MB. |
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Post by darrenlee on Sept 7, 2018 13:04:33 GMT
If you do that, don't forget to re-name S01E01 as S01E03! Then if you ever find another episode and it isn't any of these, you'll know it's the elusive S01E01!
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Post by Stephen Byers on Sept 8, 2018 7:18:18 GMT
These we now have ... but only at 32 kbps
\Lines From My Grandfathers Forehead
\Lfmgf 710000 S1e1 Few Words About Communication.mp3"
\Lfmgf 710000 S1e2 This Is Your Captain.mp3"
\Lfmgf 710301 S1e3 Interviewing Mr. Braithwaite.mp3"
\Lfmgf 710308 S1e4 What's He To Be Called.mp3"
\Lfmgf 710315 S1e5 Interviewing Charles Chaplin.mp3"
\Lfmgf 710315 S1e5 Marlowe & Johnson.mp3"
\Lfmgf 710322 S1e6 Come In Mr. Shirley.mp3"
\Lfmgf 710329 S1e7 What's That Noise In The Other Room.mp3"
\Lfmgf 710405 S1e8 We're Here To Get It Done.mp3"
\Lfmgf 711224 S1 XmasSp Milkman's Speech.mp3"
\Lfmgf 720709 S2e1 Moving The Piano.mp3"
\Lfmgf 720716 S2e2 Cynthia.mp3"
\Lfmgf 720723 S2e3 School Speech Day.mp3"
\Lfmgf 720730 S2e4 Buying A Coffin.mp3"
\Lfmgf 720806 S2e5 Medical Society Conference.mp3"
\Lfmgf 720813 S2e6 Shush.mp3"
\Lfmgf 720820 S2e7 Selling A Glass Cutter.mp3"
\Lfmgf 720827 S2e8 Dr. Wise Is Off Sick.mp3"
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Post by Stephen Byers on Sept 10, 2018 12:17:24 GMT
A mate has just acquired these Trans. Discs with cue sheets dated 1973. The discs have the blue BBC TS label.
Lines From My Grandfather's Forehead.
Ep 5.
Tx'd 28-10-73
Tx'd 29-12-75
Ep. 6
Tx 04-11-73
Tx 13-01-75
Ep. 9
Tx 25-11-73
Tx 24-02-76
Ep.10
Tx 02-12-73
Tx 10-03-76
Ep.11
Tx 09-12-73
Tx 27-03-76
Ep.12
Tx 15-12-73
Ep.13
Tx 03-04-76
====
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Post by Stephen Byers on Sept 11, 2018 11:37:24 GMT
Re: the Trans Discs -
The Tx dates don't match Genome. So could these have been aired on the World Service, or maybe from an overseas staton?
The discs are part of a set of 13 eps. - the usual number for a series. Each disc side is 25mins.
(Side 14 is blank as usual with the TS logo embedded).
So the full set would be 13 eps x 25 mins = 325 mins = 5 hours 25 mins
Now if aired from master tapes (sans the Christmas special) these would be
Series 1 = 8 eps x 30 mins = 240 mins = 4 hours
Series 2 = 8 eps x 30 mins = 240 mins = 4 hours
Total = 8 hours
So the conclusion is that apart from truncating each episode on disc by 5 mins, at least 2 hours 35 mins of material has been cut out from the master tapes to make the set of trans discs.
It seems that there are two sets of episodes - 1/ capped off air from master tapes, and 2/ capped off air from trans discs.
What we now need is a listing of performances for each episode presumed to come from master tapes.
And then a list of performances for each trans disc (as far as can be ascertained.)
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Post by Dan S on Sept 12, 2018 0:02:43 GMT
Ah yes, transcription discs were usually 5 minutes shorter than the full half hour. No idea why. Perhaps so the overseas station could fit it into a half hour with their own added commercials?
With shows that had a music (like The Goon Show) they usually cut one or more of the musical numbers, but when there's no music they'd have to cut some actual content.
It looks like you're assuming that 17 episodes were recut into 13 transcription episodes. It didn't work like that. They'll have chosen 13 episodes (cutting 5 minutes from each) and ignored the other 4 episodes (likely the Christmas one and 3 others). You only need to compare the opening line with the mp3's to work out which episodes you have.
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Post by Stephen Byers on Sept 12, 2018 10:23:40 GMT
I'm told that the discs are being digitised right now. Sadly the rest of the set are missing. Does anyone have Trans Discs of this series to compare? Meanwhile I can report that the previous owner said that he acquired said discs 15 years ago from a friend who used to live in British Guiana. So the chances are good that they came from that country's national radio station, and were last played in 1973 as per the tx notes on the cue sheets.
This also beggars the question as to what trans discs are still held by overseas radio stations? When folks have been visiting overseas stations for mythical survivals of Dr Who eps. I guess they never bothered to ask about radio programmes.
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Post by darrenlee on Sept 12, 2018 14:13:08 GMT
Following an on-site review (prompted by this discussion?) submitted by chrisjbrady (who contributed to this thread 4 years ago), the collection on the Internet Archive has been corrected and now includes a genuine S01 E01. So there are no missing episodes (except perhaps the 'Just a few lines ...' compilation). The quality is not brilliant, but with sufficient interest it could be included in 4 Extra's schedules. Does a better copy exist? There's probably just sufficiently little interest in the programme at the BBC, as shown by the non-appearance of Keith Wickham's 'series 3' episodes.
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Post by Stephen Byers on Sept 12, 2018 14:45:26 GMT
And who knows what's on the transcription discs? They will be digitised as WAV or FLAC or 320 kbps mp3. But if offered would the Beeb want them? Likely not if previous offers of radio eps. discoveries are anything to go by. Anyway I'm sure Keith W. has his own high quality copies.
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Post by Stephen Byers on Sept 12, 2018 14:47:32 GMT
Ah yes, transcription discs were usually 5 minutes shorter than the full half hour. No idea why. Perhaps so the overseas station could fit it into a half hour with their own added commercials? Barry Cryer explained all of this in his series Comedy Greats - Overseas. Cuts were made for commercials, but also to remove imagined offensive jokes or narrative. The PC brigade was active years ago, long before the epidemic of left wing sensibilities and the snowflake culture of today. www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/2012/07/comedy_greats_overseas.html |
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RWels
Member
Posts: 2,910
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Post by RWels on Sept 13, 2018 22:48:51 GMT
Ah yes, transcription discs were usually 5 minutes shorter than the full half hour. No idea why. Perhaps so the overseas station could fit it into a half hour with their own added commercials? Barry Cryer explained all of this in his series Comedy Greats - Overseas. Cuts were made for commercials, but also to remove imagined offensive jokes or narrative. The PC brigade was active years ago, long before the epidemic of left wing sensibilities and the snowflake culture of today. www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/2012/07/comedy_greats_overseas.htmlIf you want to include the mary whitehouse type of cuts in the definition of PC, I suppose that's a point one could make. But it would be different categories than today. Stricter against anything involving sex or religion or swearing, for example. I'd prefer it if we keep political opinions out of this. I'm sure there's idiots and extremists to be found everywhere, but if I watch the news then I really wonder if, speaking worldwide, "snowflakes" (the use of the word already implies a position of sorts) are currently the biggest problem. |
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Post by darrenlee on Sept 14, 2018 11:45:54 GMT
OK, I am going to back-track on what I said previously about thinking all episodes except S1E1 have been broadcast in modern times. I have no evidence that S1E1, S1E3 and S2E4 (the episodes described as 'missing' earlier in this thread) have been on Radio 7/4 Extra. Here is the list of episodes as described on the BBC's programme page, and which episodes they are as far as I know (or is suggested by the BBC page):
From 06/08/1972 S2E5
16/11/2009 S2E6
From 27/8/1972 S2E8
From 20/8/1972 S2E7
From 13/8/1972 S2E6
From 23/7/1972 S2E3
From 16/7/1972 S2E2
From 05/04/1971 S1E8
From 29/03/1971 S1E7
From 22/03/1971 S1E6
From 15/03/1971 S1E5
From 08/03/1971 S1E4
From 22/02/1971 S1E2
18/01/2007 S2??
30/01/2008 S2E5,6,7 or 8
12/01/2004 S2E6
12/07/2003 *
From 09/07/1972 S2E1
26/12/2007 S1E8
19/12/2007 S1ESP
12/12/2007 S1??
05/12/2007 S2E1,2,3 or 4
28/11/2007 S1E5
21/11/2007 ??
*This apparently includes the piece about putting on milk to avoid socialising - I remember hearing it, but have not identified the episode yet. EDIT: it's S2E2
One thing that's bothering me is where is the Christmas episode other than '19/12/2007' which was last on Radio 7 in 2010? I'm sure I've heard it on 4 Extra. Any help/additions/corrections appreciated.
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Post by Richard Marple on Sept 14, 2018 12:37:33 GMT
Barry Cryer explained all of this in his series Comedy Greats - Overseas. Cuts were made for commercials, but also to remove imagined offensive jokes or narrative. The PC brigade was active years ago, long before the epidemic of left wing sensibilities and the snowflake culture of today. www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/2012/07/comedy_greats_overseas.htmlIf you want to include the mary whitehouse type of cuts in the definition of PC, I suppose that's a point one could make. But it would be different categories than today. Stricter against anything involving sex or religion or swearing, for example. I'd prefer it if we keep political opinions out of this. I'm sure there's idiots and extremists to be found everywhere, but if I watch the news then I really wonder if, speaking worldwide, "snowflakes" (the use of the word already implies a position of sorts) are currently the biggest problem. Ironically "snowflakes" is often used at the sort of people who probably grew up watching non-child friendly cartoons(South Park, Family Guy et al) & playing the sort of computer games that get blamed for causing violent behaviour - so it's mostly just a slur by right wingers for anyone more open minded than they are. |
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