Older TV shows preserved on tape and their resolution (1 Viewer)

[DeWilson]

The BBC wiped the bulk of their B/W videotapes in the early 70's due to expense and storage. The reason why they look "odd" is that those are actually kiniscopes made at a different scanning rate with blended frames.

The British process is called "Telerecording" and is inherently different from the american Kinescope/Kinephoto process.

 

[Frank Soyke]

Ah, but the Are You Being Served pilot is only a kinescope, as are most surviving BBC B&W programs. That's might be where the problems come from. Doctor Who only looks as good as it does because of Vidfire and having a dedicated restoration team. Unfortunately, there is no Dad's Army Restoration Team out there.

The TZ videotaped episodes did have an interesting atmosphere to them, however, they were limited by being studio-bound. That was part of the reason those 6 episodes were taped and no more... it would have seriously compromised the series to keep them within the confines of a studio.

I don't know Robert. I think many of those classic TZ eps could have fairly been done on video without giving away too much and adding a much more realistic feel too them. I just keep thinking about how wonderfully creepy eps like Where Is Everybody, Invasion, The Hitchhiker, or Nick Of Time would have looked...... and hey, what about... The Obsolete Man???

 

[Lord Dalek]

The British process is called "Telerecording" and is inherently different from the american Kinescope/Kinephoto process.

Both involve shooting a 16mm or 35mm camera at a high resolution tv screen. They are not fundimentally different from each other outside of the fact that the British system worked a lot better after 1959.

The BBC also used a process where the electronic signal from the videocameras were fed directly to a 35mm film recorder but this was mostly used for editing purposes and rather infrequently to boot. That system bears a strong resemblence to the Electronocam system that the classic 39 episodes of The Honeymooners were preserved with in 1954.

I don't know Robert. I think many of those classic TZ eps could have fairly been done on video without giving away too much and adding a much more realistic feel too them. I just keep thinking about how wonderfully creepy eps like Where Is Everybody, Invasion, The Hitchhiker, or Nick Of Time would have looked...... and hey, what about... The Obsolete Man???

Pretty much all those shows would have been compromised on tape. Exteriors are notoriously unconvincing in The Twilight Zone's vt episodes, The Whole Truth being the worst offender.

 

[TravisR]

I don't know Robert. I think many of those classic TZ eps could have fairly been done on video without giving away too much and adding a much more realistic feel too them. I just keep thinking about how wonderfully creepy eps like Where Is Everybody, Invasion, The Hitchhiker, or Nick Of Time would have looked...... and hey, what about... The Obsolete Man???

I have the opposite feelings. I'd even say that if The Twilight Zone had been shot on videotape, the show would be forgotten today because the limitations of shooting on tape would have resulted in far weaker episodes. Just looking at the videotape episodes, I think the more serious or scarier ones (The Lateness Of The Hour, Twenty-Two and Long Distance Call) would have been much better & atmospheric shows if they hadn't looked so cheap and not been a 'live' production. Episodes like The Night Of The Meek and Static probably wouldn't be significantly better or worse if they had shot them on film but at least they would have looked better than they do being stuck on a stage and shot on tape. I don't know if anything would have saved The Whole Truth though.

 

[Neil Brock]

I love the live look of videotaped shows, although it doesn't work for dramas. When they brought back One Step Beyond in the late 70s and started shooting on tape, it just had such a cheap feel to it that they went back to film midway through. But for sitcoms and variety programs, its fine. Nothing beats the look of old 2-inch videotape. Of course, maybe those with high-def TVs that's not the case but TV wasn't meant to be watched that way.

 

[Vic Pardo]

Were daytime soap operas done on film or video back in the 1970's?

Tape. Those shows whose producers didn't erase them to save money were the lucky ones.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 once devoted a segment to a 1960s b&w videotaped episode of "General Hospital." I don't know where they got it from or how it escaped being erased, a story I'd be most interested in hearing. However, as someone who never watched "General Hospital" except during the '80s when that whole "Luke and Laura" thing dominated the storylines (and only then because a co-worker had it on the office TV every afternoon at 3PM when the boss was gone), I was struck by this '60s episode (with Roy Thinnes and John Beradino) because it took place entirely in a hospital and was focused exclusively on the business of a hospital. The only characters we saw were doctors, nurses and patients and all they talked about were medical issues. Quite a far cry from the 1980s GH which hardly ever saw the inside of a hospital.

 

[DeWilson]

Both involve shooting a 16mm or 35mm camera at a high resolution tv screen. They are not fundimentally different from each other outside of the fact that the British system worked a lot better after 1959..

I'd say the telerecording process was at it's best when stored field replaced suppressed field and the full 405/625 line resolution was recorded.

 

[Scott511]

Are we certain all filmed series were edited on film up to 1983?

A 1981 episode of The Greatest American Hero, called The Lost Diablo was shot on 35mm film and edited on videotape. It was nominated for a Emmy award for Outstanding Videotape Editing For A Series in 1982.

A few years back I spoke to Christopher Nelson who worked on the series. I asked him why one episode went through post production like that. The best he could recall was that Steve Cannell was trying to see if that process would lower the cost of each episode. When it was all said and done the cost wasn't that significant, and they weren't happy with the "look" of the episode after finishing it in that manner. So they continued to shoot and edit on film.

The first 2 seasons of flying FX was shot on 35mm film, transferred to tape for the FX work, and then transferred back to film. That's why the flying shots are so grainy compared to the rest of the show.

The 3rd season they used the Zoptic system, and all the new flying FX were shot on film.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Mystery Science Theater 3000 once devoted a segment to a 1960s b&w videotaped episode of "General Hospital." I don't know where they got it from or how it escaped being erased, a story I'd be most interested in hearing. However, as someone who never watched "General Hospital" except during the '80s when that whole "Luke and Laura" thing dominated the storylines (and only then because a co-worker had it on the office TV every afternoon at 3PM when the boss was gone), I was struck by this '60s episode (with Roy Thinnes and John Beradino) because it took place entirely in a hospital and was focused exclusively on the business of a hospital. The only characters we saw were doctors, nurses and patients and all they talked about were medical issues. Quite a far cry from the 1980s GH which hardly ever saw the inside of a hospital.

The 60's episodes are actually mostly intact since they were produced by an outside production company.

 

[Paul Penna]

The BBC also used a process where the electronic signal from the videocameras were fed directly to a 35mm film recorder but this was mostly used for editing purposes and rather infrequently to boot. That system bears a strong resemblence to the Electronocam system that the classic 39 episodes of The Honeymooners were preserved with in 1954.

However, Dumont's Electronicam was merely a video camera and film camera housed in the same body. The only imaging they shared was what came through the lens, by means of a beam splitter. There was nothing of electronic origin that went onto the film.

 

[hanshotfirst1138]

I'm frankly amazed that they kept all of the raw TNG dailies to go back and remaster them. Given that even film is going to die within a year, God only knows what'll happen with things done on video. Can that stuff even stand up to lengthy storage, much less restoration?

 

[Ron1973]

Hee Haw was on videotape. I don't remember it ever looking terrible or "out of focus" when it aired back in the day. Watching reruns now on my 55" LED, it looks almost "out of focus" for some reason. I don't know if RFD-TV is using some sort of 2nd generation master for the shows but you can obviously tell it's on videotape.

 

[Vic Pardo]

I'm frankly amazed that they kept all of the raw TNG dailies to go back and remaster them. Given that even film is going to die within a year, God only knows what'll happen with things done on video. Can that stuff even stand up to lengthy storage, much less restoration?

Sorry, but I'm not clear what you mean by that (bolded) statement. Can you clarify?

Thanks.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Sorry, but I'm not clear what you mean by that (bolded) statement. Can you clarify?

Thanks.

Eastman Kodak's fazing out their 35mm processing plants.

 

[hanshotfirst1138]

Damn, Dalek, didn't know you were here too.

Sorry, but I'm not clear what you mean by that (bolded) statement. Can you clarify?Thanks.

In spite of the efforts of Scorsese, Tarantino, Nolan, Anderson, Abrams, and their gang, I'll be surprised if celluloid makes it to the end of the year .

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Sorry, but I'm not clear what you mean by that (bolded) statement. Can you clarify?

Thanks.

Exactly. Just because new film stock is on the way out, that's no reason why the studios would pitch out their archival film. The "death of film" and the fact that the Next Generation footage exists have absolutely nothing to do with one another.

The reason the survival of Next Gen's archival footage is so amazing is more to do with many other people being so short-sighted they'd have pitched out their original footage once they had "assembled" episodes done, as many of them wouldn't have predicted the arrival of high definition just a decade or so later and needing re-do all that editing work to get the resolution, thanks to their (at the time) cost-cutting/convenience of editing on NTSC 525 line tape.

Also, it's a good thing Roddenberry wasn't really in charge any more, or he and Majel might have taken all that film and cut it into flim clip packets to sell through Lincoln Enterprises (like they did with the original series, as well as some of the unused footage from The Motion Picture).