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TV Breakdown Appreciation Thread

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TI
TIGHazard
I wonder if it was the same master tape they tried to use between the 1992 showing and the 1996 showing. Wonder how they coped today if they tried to show this film.

Unlikely, in 1996 it would have been played from D3 tape and that was only launched onto the market in 1991. It would have been presumably either a 1" tape or even maybe still played from film.


It's irrelevant anyway as the first breakdown was a failure of it getting into Cardiff, presumably fine for everyone outside Wales


Unless Wales were timeshifting it, and that's what went wrong. Genome says it was 23:55 on 'England' couldn't seem to select any variations ?


Would that then still be "a matter beyond our control"?
MA
Markymark
Unlikely, in 1996 it would have been played from D3 tape and that was only launched onto the market in 1991. It would have been presumably either a 1" tape or even maybe still played from film.


It's irrelevant anyway as the first breakdown was a failure of it getting into Cardiff, presumably fine for everyone outside Wales


Unless Wales were timeshifting it, and that's what went wrong. Genome says it was 23:55 on 'England' couldn't seem to select any variations ?


Would that then still be "a matter beyond our control"?


That statement is all encompassing in my experience!
GE
thegeek Founding member
Eh, it fell off air 4 years earlier? Some sort of jinx on it!


Yeah, I'm interested myself as to how "Heaven Can Wait" fell off air twice in four years. Behold, the cursed film of the BBC.

Wasn't there another film that had breakdowns twice? I thought 'Red Corner' (victim of a 2001 TVC power failure) might have been one, but I can't see anything obvious...
TE
Technologist
Though having off air feeds of BBC 1 and 2 Mendip on the station router might have been handy? (Like all station routers it was probably full up with other stuff!)

I'm surprised they didn't have 2 paths of the network feed into Cardiff, nowadays that's standard for anything broadcast critical.!


Not that such an issue would be as much of a problem these days, everything's centralised so could be switched downstream


Dual path operation only came into use when there were circuits available which certainly was not the usual case for analogue base band vision circuits...
but as soon as video was carried on digital bearers it was physically
there and affordable ..
and in the period roughly 2004 to 2016 (Raman) there were four feeds between bbc sites( all due to how you make a SDH network resilient )

I think the BT M&B Hermes is a much more usual dual path IP I.e ST 2022-7 hitless switched system .
BE
Bennyboy1984


So as we've seen the grey screen on BBC2 before and it was mentioned it could have been an uncooperative tape machine... Could that have been the problem here too?
IS
Inspector Sands
So as we've seen the grey screen on BBC2 before and it was mentioned it could have been an uncooperative tape machine... Could that have been the problem here too?

The full frame grey is the output of a VT machine which doesn't have a tape in it, or the tape is 'stood down' - loaded but the head isn't running. It's also seen if there's a bad head clog - dust or dirt has gone into the heads and stopped any signal coming from the tape.

The convention I remember being used is that the tape is stood up 2 minutes before TX, they're set to stand back down again after x number of minutes of inactivity so the heads aren't constantly moving against the tape.


So here what's probably happened is that the automation has cut to the VT machine, but for some reason it hadn't started and was still stood down - either the automation didn't do it or the VT machine was in local (they were played from a Flexicart in those days so unlikely) Either that or it had started running but was so clogged up that nothing was coming from it.
NG
noggin Founding member

The convention I remember being used is that the tape is stood up 2 minutes before TX, they're set to stand back down again after x number of minutes of inactivity so the heads aren't constantly moving against the tape.


That was the default set-up on most VTRs - but ISTR that it was a menu option, and you could configure some VTRs to not drop out when "on cue" to avoid that happening. (Ditto inhibiting the Jog/Shuttle wheel working when in play, unless you hit the Jog/Shuttle button first to enable it - by default it was 'live')
IS
Inspector Sands

That was the default set-up on most VTRs - but ISTR that it was a menu option, and you could configure some VTRs to not drop out when "on cue" to avoid that happening. (Ditto inhibiting the Jog/Shuttle wheel working when in play, unless you hit the Jog/Shuttle button first to enable it - by default it was 'live')

The setting that always needed changing for the machines in pres was the one that excluded the Play button so it could still be pressed if the machine was in Key inhibit or Remote. On the rare occasion that they needed starting manually it was an extra step you didn't need.


Incidently, while it was running the practise was to take it out of remote once it was on air as they trusted the tape ops more than the automation. Once that was done a small laminated sign saying 'ON AIR' prevented any accidents
RO
robertclark125
Speaking of films, when BBC2 used to show midweek films at about 6pm, I remember once flicking through the channels one evening, to discover a TWO slide on BBC2, with a photo of the dog Lassie, and the title "Harfords Point" on it. This slide, with music, was up for several minutes. Eventually, the announcer said that after problems with the tape, they were able to return to the film.

And it wasn't just movies with tape problems. Once on the 9 o' clock news, near the end, Michael Buerk introduced a report. Report started, and soon became jumpy, so quick fade back to Michael. He was very open, and said the machine the tape was in wasn't working properly, so they were putting the tape into another machine, and playing it again. And, when they tried again, all was well.
Curto21 and itvblocks gave kudos
JA
james-2001
You'll find cases of telecine faults from the time that they used to put film straight to air too. There's an infamous one of the film breaking on air during an episode of Star Trek, I've seen one from Newsround as well.
Curto21 and itvblocks gave kudos
GE
thegeek Founding member
You'll find cases of telecine faults from the time that they used to put film straight to air too. There's an infamous one of the film breaking on air during an episode of Star Trek, I've seen one from Newsround as well.

Before he recently retired, a colleague used to regale us of tales of his days in LWT. As a trainee in telecine, he was being shown the ropes by an old hand who had not long returned from lunch. Transmission buzzed down to complain about a hair in the gate. I think the standard procedure was to get an air puffer to dislodge it, but this chap went for the more rustic approach of blowing at it himself. The hair disappeared, but was replaced by some bits of sandwich...
IT
itvblocks
You'll find cases of telecine faults from the time that they used to put film straight to air too. There's an infamous one of the film breaking on air during an episode of Star Trek, I've seen one from Newsround as well.




(probably been posted here before but I might aswell wack it on here again)
Last edited by itvblocks on 5 February 2020 9:09pm

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