Responding to several things on this thread..........
The fact that nobody has considered in their imagined scenarios is the cost of tape. A reel of videotape was very expensive, so an ITV contractor would do everything possible to avoid using it. So for the timeshifting of programmes like Crossroads or Emmerdale, one nominated contractor would either record it down the line from its originating company (sometimes recording at the same time as the programme was being transmitted elsewhere, and sometimes a special daytime playout for recording purposes) and then play it out to all other contractors who needed it at at an agreed time. Sometimes the originating company would send out a tape copy but not only did that cost in terms of tape, but carriage was far from cheap on big reels of two inch Ampex!
Monday's Newcomers was never, ever used to distribute commercials to the stations. It was solely for advertising agencies to take a look at them before the campaigns began. In any case, when Newcomers started practically all the commercials were distributed and played back via 16mm film, not tape.
Rarely would you bother adding a VTR clock to a dirty recording. (In this context dirty = including continuity fore and aft). There was no need. VT would wind the tape back to the roll point (ten or fifteen seconds to the start of the programme) and presentation would cue it at the appropriate moment.
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In was of course entirely edited on 2" tape and was a triumph for the brave souls who undertook such a complex task. The edits were made using a microscope (to see the pattern of sync pluses on the oxide) and there were scary numbers of edits in each programme. I know someone who did the editing and I reckon it reduced his lifespan by about ten years.
Don't forget Noggin that for ITV at least there was another option - the tape could simply be played out from the source company into the tx slot of the receiving company in real time. If I recall correctly under those circumstances the tape machine would be under the supervision of the source TX controller, so he or she made sure the local VT was rolled on time to 'hit' the on-air time at the receiving end. This was obviously pre-agreed between the source and receiving TX controllers during the day in the run up to the tx. Routine stuff though.
Surely this is also a preferable solution for technical quality reasons anyway, it saves another playback/record generation.
How many generations could Quad dubs tolerate before IBA COP was breeched (typically) ?
Responding to several things on this thread..........
The fact that nobody has considered in their imagined scenarios is the cost of tape. A reel of videotape was very expensive, so an ITV contractor would do everything possible to avoid using it. So for the timeshifting of programmes like Crossroads or Emmerdale, one nominated contractor would either record it down the line from its originating company (sometimes recording at the same time as the programme was being transmitted elsewhere, and sometimes a special daytime playout for recording purposes) and then play it out to all other contractors who needed it at at an agreed time. Sometimes the originating company would send out a tape copy but not only did that cost in terms of tape, but carriage was far from cheap on big reels of two inch Ampex!
Monday's Newcomers was never, ever used to distribute commercials to the stations. It was solely for advertising agencies to take a look at them before the campaigns began. In any case, when Newcomers started practically all the commercials were distributed and played back via 16mm film, not tape.
Rarely would you bother adding a VTR clock to a dirty recording. (In this context dirty = including continuity fore and aft). There was no need. VT would wind the tape back to the roll point (ten or fifteen seconds to the start of the programme) and presentation would cue it at the appropriate moment.
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In was of course entirely edited on 2" tape and was a triumph for the brave souls who undertook such a complex task. The edits were made using a microscope (to see the pattern of sync pluses on the oxide) and there were scary numbers of edits in each programme. I know someone who did the editing and I reckon it reduced his lifespan by about ten years.
'My' splicer doesn't use a microscope. It's the emt version which I think is featured on the vtoldboys website.
Don't forget Noggin that for ITV at least there was another option - the tape could simply be played out from the source company into the tx slot of the receiving company in real time. If I recall correctly under those circumstances the tape machine would be under the supervision of the source TX controller, so he or she made sure the local VT was rolled on time to 'hit' the on-air time at the receiving end. This was obviously pre-agreed between the source and receiving TX controllers during the day in the run up to the tx. Routine stuff though.
Surely this is also a preferable solution for technical quality reasons anyway, it saves another playback/record generation.
How many generations could Quad dubs tolerate before IBA COP was breeched (typically) ?
Difficult to say, maybe 4-5?. When you could see quad banding you knew you had gone too far. But it would very unusual to have that number of dubs in the first place. Banding is more easily seen on new heads rather than old heads that had done a lot of hours. A worn head would give more rf signal off the tape to start with and the signal to noise was better so the signal was 'quieter'.
Kind of bringing this debate into the 21st century and going a different direction but noticeable with the iPlayer especially now that some shows on the iPlayer seem to be taped from the airing on TV, complete with any ECP. I don't remember any ITV region or BBC for that matter using any form of ECP in the nineties, but C4 definately occassionally shrunk the credits to usually promote something related to the show, so how did S4C handle that?
From what I've seen ITV and C4 on demand shows are not taken from the broadcast airing, but it does seem they're uploaded as one programme with the ads triggered at the relevent point, usually with the end of the last part airing at the beginning of the next, rather than uploading each part separately. Bringing this back on topic do STV and UTV Players have to basically take the programme as it aired on STV/UTV, or do they get supplied with copies for the players, or indeed just access the content directly on the ITV servers.
RS
Rob_Schneider
Live shows would certainly be an off-air recording I imagine.
Live shows would certainly be an off-air recording I imagine.
I'm pretty sure S4C worked off a dirty feed.
I think they did Nov 82 to Dec 31 92, on Jan 1 93 C4 switched to transmitting its own ads, and used a new digital distribution network to allow the 6 macro regions, as part of that the Channel Islands received a feed via fibre, and I think S4C got an assignable feed, i.e. Clean if they wanted it ( rather like the BBC nations get from Ericsson)
Last edited by Markymark on 25 January 2016 6:52pm
Kind of bringing this debate into the 21st century and going a different direction but noticeable with the iPlayer especially now that some shows on the iPlayer seem to be taped from the airing on TV, complete with any ECP.
Shows that are live such as Strictly and Watchdog, understandable they're off-air copies, but for everything else, I suppose it depends on what's easier - if an episode isn't iPlayer ready it may be easier to record off-air and feed that to iPlayer than leave a hole.
Quote:
From what I've seen ITV and C4 on demand shows are not taken from the broadcast airing, but it does seem they're uploaded as one programme with the ads triggered at the relevent point, usually with the end of the last part airing at the beginning of the next, rather than uploading each part separately.
But not on Sky On-Demand, it's presented as one long (commercial-free) file. Great as this is, it also shows how the commercials take out of an ITV programme slot - 13/14 minutes an hour. The recent Sound of Music Live show had a 2.5hr slot - on-Demand on Sky was only about 105 minutes.
From what I've seen ITV and C4 on demand shows are not taken from the broadcast airing, but it does seem they're uploaded as one programme with the ads triggered at the relevent point, usually with the end of the last part airing at the beginning of the next, rather than uploading each part separately. Bringing this back on topic do STV and UTV Players have to basically take the programme as it aired on STV/UTV, or do they get supplied with copies for the players, or indeed just access the content directly on the ITV servers.
STV just uses what is broadcast on its channel. you can even see the ECP on the player versions. I believe STV own shows are clean copies.
Last edited by A former member on 30 January 2016 6:51pm
Kind of bringing this debate into the 21st century and going a different direction but noticeable with the iPlayer especially now that some shows on the iPlayer seem to be taped from the airing on TV, complete with any ECP.
Shows that are live such as Strictly and Watchdog, understandable they're off-air copies, but for everything else, I suppose it depends on what's easier - if an episode isn't iPlayer ready it may be easier to record off-air and feed that to iPlayer than leave a hole.
I've just watched Wednesday's A Place to Call Home on Virgin Media's catch up service, and it had a BBC Two Scotland ECVO. On this service, the BBC programmes are never clean, but are usually recorded from network and not Scotland!
RS
Rob_Schneider
How did C4 get to the Channel Islands originally? Did the Channel Islands relay an off air feed from the mainland a la ITV, opting out for commercials?