Historical Televison Events on DVD? (1 Viewer)

[MattPeriolat]

Must get it, it really is amazing. Quite shocking what Manchester got published. Even more amazing is some stuff was cut at the request of Jackie Kennedy, but were kept by the Kennedy Library. With both Jackie and Manchester gone, it's a matter of time before they come to light.

 

[David Von Pein]

Now this is downright sacrilege. Dig up the "Four Days" VHS tape and put it in its proper temperature-controlled locality asap. Got it? (Don't make me do it myself.)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/630...lance&n=404272

 

[MattPeriolat]

*shudders*

I have so many videos in my garage, it's frightening. However, with my new VCR to DVD recorder, my hope is to start transfering more stuff to DVD for better preservation.

Hope it's not too late. These tapes have down there for YEARS.

 

[Tony J Case]

Yeah, but you can find it for much cheaper through other non-amazon sources. I think I got mine for 35 bucks.

And it's really worth it - each year gets an hour from 80 to 89, and while brief, does touch on all the major events of the year. And really clears up some of the stuff that when clean over my head when I was a youngster (That whole PLO thing, the Solidarity movement and Lech Wa³êsa - you know, stuff a teenager wouldnt normaly pay attention to)


Oh, on a side note - happy Moon Landing Day! (or not - if you believe the tinfoil hat crowd)

 

[MatthewA]

This would be more suited for a 50gb Blu-Ray disc, which could hold several hours of 480i material, as I assume this is. It could hold whole videotaped TV series.

 

[Bryan Ri]

I would LOVE to get all of FDR's fireside chats on disc.

 

[Sylvia*ST]

The one I'd like is the Tonight Show from the night before RFK was assassinated. Pierre Salinger was the main guest, and I lived in Hawaii at the time and all our TV was shipped over and ran 10 days late. The entire audio from that program was deleted by the time we got it.

Some people in an assassination research group said he discussed the fact that when (if) Bobby was elected, he planned to reopen the investigation into his brother's death. This would have been way before the House Subcommittee got around to it and presumably more memories would have been fresh, less evidence destroyed, more people alive.

BTW, Vanderbilt University has been recording live evening and late evening nightly news from all networks for decades. I got the news shows announcing the death of Eva Peron from 1952, so that may be the ultimate source for everyone--including me--who'd like a lot of this stuff.

 

[MatthewA]

Almost all Carson Tonight Shows from before the 1970s are gone. NBC was re-using the 2" video tapes (which cost hundreds of dollars each), and if I recall correctly it wasn't until Johnny found out about it himself that he put a stop to it.

 

[AnthonyC]

I'd purchase news footage of JFK's assassination/aftermath and Watergate, but including the entire coverage would be too extravagant and repetitive. Perhaps a six-disc set with two discs' worth of the most important coverage from each network.

 

[Brandon Conway]

I got this book as a gift a couple years back, and it has a DVD with good clips(though not totally complete broadcasts, obviously) of "unforgettable moments" in television, divided into three catagories with about a dozen subjects each:

Entertainment, hosted by Dick Van Dyke, featuring:

1) I Love Lucy - "Vitameatavegamin" (5/5/1952)
2) Elvis debuts on Ed Sullivan (9/9/1956)
3) Dick Van Dyke Show - "That's My Boy?" (9/25/1963)
4) The Fugitive - "The Judgement" (8/29/1967)
5) All in the Family - "Sammy's Visit" (2/19/1972)
6) The Brady Bunch - "The Subject Was Noses" (2/9/1973)
7) Saturday Night Live - The Early Years (1975-1980)
8) Dallas - "Who Done It?" (11/21/1980)
9) M*A*S*H - "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" (2/28/1983)
10) Cheers - "I'll Be Seeing You" (5/10/1984)
11) The Tonight Show - "Funny Moments and a Final Farewell" (5/22/1992)
12) Survivor - Season 1 Finale (8/24/2000)

News, hosted by Walter Cronkite, featuring:

1) Nixon's Checkers Speech (9/23/1952)
2) The First Great Debate - Kennedy vs. Nixon (9/26/1960)
3) Four Days in November (Kennedy Assasination) (11/22-25/1963)
4) Vietnam - Cronkite Denounces the War (2/27/1968)
5) Television in Space (John Glen, Moon Landing, Challenger Tragedy) (2/20/1962, 7/20/1969, 1/28/1986)
6) Nixon - From Watergate to Resignation (6/17/1972-8/8/1974)
7) The TV Princess (Wedding, Life and Death of Lady Di) (7/29/1981-9/6/1997)
8) The Rescue of Baby Jessica (10/14-16/1987)
9) The Fall of the Berlin Wall (11/9/1989)
10) Chasing O.J. (6/17/1994)
11) Presidential Election Night Coverage 2000 (11/7/2000)
12) 9/11 (9/11/2001)

Sports, hosted by Bob Costas, featuring:

1) Wide World of Sports (4/29/1961-Present)
2) Home Run Kings - Maris, McGwire, Bonds (10/1/1961, 9/8/1998, 10/5/2001)
3) Black Power - The Protest at the 1968 Mexico City Games (10/16/1968)
4) The Heidi Game (11/17/1968)
5) Monday Night Football (9/21/1970-Present)
6) 1972 Munich Olympics Crisis (9/5/1972)
7) The Battle of the Sexes - Bobby Riggs vs. Billie Jean King (9/20/1973)
8) The Perfect 10's - Comaneci and Retton (7/18/1976, 8/3/1984)
9) Lake Placid 1980 - "Do You Believe in Miracles?" (2/22/1980)
10) Ali Lights the Centennial Torch (7/19/1996)
11) Tiger's Win for the Ages (4/13/1997)

The book itself is a really nice coffee table book. It also comes with two CDs with audio from most of these events.

 

[David Von Pein]

That looks pretty good Brandon. Never heard of that product before. Thanks for the heads-up.

Another related product similar to the one Brandon detailed above is "We Interrupt This Broadcast" (which is a Book/CD combo deal which has had updated versions published every few years). .....

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/157...e=UTF8&s=books

 

[MattPeriolat]

Ah yes, Stay Tuned. I have that one packed away myself along with We Interupt This Broadcast. Well done packages, but more of brief clips with modern contextual reference.

Yes, I know, the things I would wish for would be extreme and massive, but it would be fascinating seeing these newscasters under the gun, reporting on events that are just pounding down at them.

Just me wishing for something that probably cannot be obtained.

 

[Paul McElligott]

Of course, Spacecraft Films puts out the complete television broadcasts of all the Apollo missions (and more).

 

[MattPeriolat]

This is me.

This is me KICKING MYSELF because I forgot all about them! Oh man, I'll have to check out their selection and start saving my pennies.

Oh and for those who want sound but no picture, follow these links:

http://otrcat.com/jfk.htm

And for the gent who asked about the Fireside chats: http://otrcat.com/fdr.htm

 

[Tarkin The Ewok]

I don't see this ever happening, but can you imagine if they put all of the O.J. Simpson coverage on DVD? The Bronco chase alone would take at least one disc.

 

[David Von Pein]

But this "television" footage is NOT the Network TV broadcast footage (there's no Cronkite or Reasoner, etc., reporting on the Live events as they happen).

The Spacecraft Films DVDs show the NASA "Television Downlink" material, portions of which was then fed to the networks. But there's no TV Network stuff on the Spacecraft DVDs. Just the raw "downlink" material from NASA.

Those DVDs are nice though (for the completist). But I wish there was some of the CBS & NBC footage too. But there is not.

www.spacecraftfilms.com

BTW...Here are some other good JFK-related products......

http://www.earthstation1.com/Merchan...egory_Code=JFK

http://www.earthstation1.com/Merchan...egory_Code=JFK

 

[Michael Alden]

That would be the equivalent of storing them under water. Tapes are very resilient but about the 2 worst places you can store tapes are in the basement and even worse, the garage. Nothing does more harm to tape than dampness and moisture and unless you live somewhere that never gets rain or humidity (like the moon), you probably have a bunch of non-playing cassettes at this point.

 

[ChadP2k]

I would be interested in sets like this as well, and I believe there would be a market for them. After all everybody used to say nobody would buy TV shows on DVD and look at that.

Of the major networks CBS has the best archival operation, and has saved almost every news special, live event, etc they have done since the 1950's. They didn't start recording the evening news until the '70's. Of course some tapes were lost, damaged, or stolen over the years so there are exceptions. I do know CBS broadcast roughly 56 hours of coverage over the four days in November following JFK's assassination. In the early '90s when CBS first began allowing outside producers to use their archives a JFK enthusiast bought alll 56 hours of their coverage (on beta sp tapes mind you, what were they thinking!) and most of the footage in circulation now can be traced back to this set of tapes he acquired.

CBS of course learned from this and wised up, now unless you are a producer or network they no longer honor requests. To my knowledge NBC has never honored requests from individuals, and their collection has many more "gaps" than CBS's does because of lost/missing tapes. ABC I don't have any experience with, but I know to save money they routinely kinescoped programs and reused the videotapes well into the '70's. In fact a large majority of their color evening newscasts are only available in B&W kinescope because of this process.

A lot of these events are in circulation already though. I've been collecting historical news footage for many years now. I've got about 34 hours of CBS's JFK Assassination Coverage, the CBS Apollo 11 Moon Landing Coverage, Nixon's resignation, etc.

I've also got coverage of every Presidential Election Night from 1960 (14 hrs worth!) to the Present and countless other events.

 

[MattPeriolat]

Well, my opinion has always been: business is about business and business is about... making money.

The networks can make lots of money of releases of some of their news material. But to be honest, only CBS seems to have really done it with recent releases of selections from 9/11, the death of President Reagan and the death of Pope John Paul II.

There is so much out there. I just hope I live long enough to see it all out, but not just for me, but for my kids.

 

[David Von Pein]

Speaking of "Mega DVD Sets" -- Would anyone be interested in "Complete Season" sets of major-league baseball seasons?

Now THOSE would be some MEGA-mega sets.

"New York Yankees: The Complete 2000 Season" (162-Disc Set.)(MSRP: $10.49.)