In message .com
"Stephen Furley" wrote:


Graeme Wall wrote:

The 10 second run-up of a tape machine (or telecine) to achieve sync was
a problem until electronics were devised to enable the machines to go
from play to record on the fly at a predetermined point. Eventually
Ampex devised a quad machine that would do instant starts, first used on
the Andre Previn concerts.

Was that the AVR1?


Possibly, sounds vaguely familiar. To be honest I don't really know, I was
on the gallery end of the chain and it was just VT69 (or whatever) as far as
I was concerned.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

"Graeme Wall" wrote in message
...
In message .com
"Stephen Furley" wrote:


Graeme Wall wrote:

The 10 second run-up of a tape machine (or telecine) to achieve sync
was
a problem until electronics were devised to enable the machines to go
from play to record on the fly at a predetermined point. Eventually
Ampex devised a quad machine that would do instant starts, first used
on
the Andre Previn concerts.

Was that the AVR1?


Possibly, sounds vaguely familiar. To be honest I don't really know, I
was
on the gallery end of the chain and it was just VT69 (or whatever) as far
as
I was concerned.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html
And , of course, 'it was all right leaving you', Graeme....
Brian

In message
"BH Williams" wrote:


"Graeme Wall" wrote in message
[snip]

Possibly, sounds vaguely familiar. To be honest I don't really know, I
was on the gallery end of the chain and it was just VT69 (or whatever) as
far as I was concerned.

And , of course, 'it was all right leaving you', Graeme.... Brian


Of course! I used to know that phrase in Russian, relic of an early
satellite tx.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

Daniel Bowen wrote:

I've often thought it amusing that so much paperwork is still kept in the
BBC archives about these shows, yet the shows themselves have been
lost/disposed of.

Yeah but from the perspective of the late 1960s/early 1970s the need for
paper trails was clear, the need to retain old programmes that were almost
certainly never going to be screened again and which were no longer sellable
was not.

Why were they no longer sellable?

--
Aidan Stanger
http://www.bettercrossrail.co.uk

In message , Daniel Bowen
writes
"Aidan Stanger" wrote in message
...
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Daniel Bowen wrote:
I've often thought it amusing that so much paperwork is still kept in
the
BBC archives about these shows, yet the shows themselves have been
lost/disposed of.

Yeah but from the perspective of the late 1960s/early 1970s the need for
paper trails was clear, the need to retain old programmes that were
almost
certainly never going to be screened again and which were no longer
sellable
was not.

Why were they no longer sellable?

At the time they didn't consider that they'd ever to be able to sell them
again to anybody.
Television at the time was regarded very much as "ephemeral". It would
be like asking why we don't record and keep every theatre performance.

Evidently nobody fore-saw home VHS, DVD,
It often surprises people to learn that a domestic method of playing
television programmes (on disc) was invented by John Logie Baird. They
were being sold in London before WWII but for whatever reason the system
never "caught on".

multitudes of
satellite/cable channels, and a fascination in TV nostalgia.
That, indeed, was utterly unforeseen until I would say the 1980s.

In those circumstances though, I'm still not clear on why there was a need
for paper-trails.

I suspect it may have been more a matter of the BBC paperwork and red-tape
department having unlimited budget and space for storage, and the department
looking after the old tapes/films not.
Remember that the BBC is (was) in many ways vice department, where
record keeping was regarded as Important "because that's the way we've
always done it"! The don't call it "Auntie" for nothing. (And I'm
sure Daniel you can think of at leas one other public broadcaster that
was made in the same image! I bet they kept all the same sort of
stuff. Indeed, at least some Doctor Who clips survive because they
were cut by the Australian censor but carefully retained by the ABC.)
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

In message
(Aidan Stanger) wrote:

Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

Daniel Bowen wrote:

I've often thought it amusing that so much paperwork is still kept in
the BBC archives about these shows, yet the shows themselves have been
lost/disposed of.

Yeah but from the perspective of the late 1960s/early 1970s the need for
paper trails was clear, the need to retain old programmes that were
almost certainly never going to be screened again and which were no
longer sellable was not.

Why were they no longer sellable?


Predates home VCRs so there was no domestic market for the programmes.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

Aidan Stanger wrote:

I've often thought it amusing that so much paperwork is still kept in
the
BBC archives about these shows, yet the shows themselves have been
lost/disposed of.

Yeah but from the perspective of the late 1960s/early 1970s the need for
paper trails was clear, the need to retain old programmes that were
almost
certainly never going to be screened again and which were no longer
sellable
was not.

Why were they no longer sellable?

The rights had expired is the main reason. Most stories had something like a
five or seven year period in which they could be sold overseas, with an
option for one period to be renewed. After that what use were they?

Domestically agreements with the acting unions plus the switch to colour
meant that the propsect of repeats of loads of old back and white television
was very unlikely.

Domestic video recorders existed (the earliest known Doctor Who off air
videoing dates back to early 1969) but they were extremely expensive and I
don't think anyone had foreseen the era of cheap machines and the mass
selling of old programmes.

Daniel Bowen wrote:

In those circumstances though, I'm still not clear on why there was a need
for paper-trails.

I suspect it may have been more a matter of the BBC paperwork and red-tape
department having unlimited budget and space for storage, and the
department
looking after the old tapes/films not.

This is another myth - until 1978 there *wasn't* a department with a job to
"look after" the old tapes. Engineering just had a job of storing them until
they were next used. The Film Library was not evisaged as a mass archive of
old programmes, whilst BBC Enterprises only seemed to keep stock they were
selling.