Red phone. There was a loud ringer at the nominated contractor's which allowed them to call everyone. But the phone was a) live 24/7 and b) on an open loudspeaker in Presentation Control Rooms (but not presentation offices). Thus the example given above was not uncommon "Grampian - where's 'Crossroads'???" "Sorry - tape's snarled - respooling..." was the kind of stacatto conversation you might hear. If there was a serious breakdown, the originating contractor (or playout contractor) would call the nominated contractor (Thames or LWT) and ask them to ring the red phone. There would then always be a roll call to make sure everyone was listening and got the message.
A red phone call around 2220 always meant that ITN wanted extra time; a call after the junction out of 'News at Ten' generally meant that something had happened and ITN wanted to come back with a newsflash.
There were exceptions to all this - I was on duty the day Chairman Mao's death was announced and it was an early Sunday morning. ITN initiated the call at 9am to notify anyone who was about to go on the air that they needed to do a newsflash. At times like these, we'd put up an ITN slide and the local announcer would read the ITN-supplied (written down on the back of a fag packet) script. On the day of Mao's demise we went to the emergency slide box for a photo of Mao and the slide was cracked so we had to very hurriedly remount it for telecine.
The present-day talkback from NC-1 or NC-2 to the Nations and Regions is entirely different.
On the topic of the red phone Tony, I think back to the tragic occasion when Tommy Cooper suffered his heart attack on stage, during the sunday night programme, "Live from Her Majesty's". I've seen the clips of the incident, and the subsequent ad break, in the LWT area, and it was an LWT programme. In such an instance, how would the red phone have been used? I gather, from what has been said elsewhere, whilst LWT were ready for the ads, some regions weren't, and there was black for about 20 seconds after the music for the end of that part of the show was played.
I wasn't there so I don;t know, but I'd guess LWT - being in control of the programme - took an instant decision to cut to the break. There would have been no time to warn on the red phone BUT the cue dot would have been used and on a live programme (sport especially) breaks could appear in very unexpected places, so Transmission Controllers everywhere would have been on the alert. But because a light entertainment show usually ran its parts roughly to time (over-runs were more common than under-runs) and it was Sunday night at a time when many TCs would be making a pot of tea (within earshot but possibly outside the suite), I'd guess some were caught by the sudden break and had to rush back into the chair.
I would also expect LWT would have kept something on screen (probably faded down the sound and vision from the theatre but left the superimposed title caption to run over black). It was of course the normal practice to leave at least a ten second hold on the final shot or caption, to help avoid a blank screen going out anywhere.
as the picture would hopped to the right, 112ns if I remember correctly
The Sony BVT2000P TBC had a video phase knob on the front panel
Well if you think about it an edit where the picture moved sideways by half a cycle of subcarrier isn't really an 'invisible edit', it was indeed a commonly used term in analogue days and describes an edit where the PAL 8 field sequence has been maintained over the edit point. There should/would be no picture movement.
As I described above (perhaps not very well) a quad machine, or certainly a top of the range quad machine and not a cut down version, could edit to either 8 field or 4 field accuracy depending on what was required from a post production perspective. 8 field could mean a longer lock up tme for the quad edit pair and that could be frustrating if they were being temperamental. It also meant you were restricted as to where you could perform the edit programme content-wise as you could only perform an edit on the playback material every 8 fields. For 'normal' 4 field editing, and indeed general playback usage the machines would be in 4 field lock up mode - much faster to lock up and so what if the pictures were moved sideways slightly as they were still within the technical spec.
With the introduction of 1" we had timebase correctors with wider correction windows too, this meant they could now start to correct errors greater than a tv line and so it became possible for machines to lock up, and edit, to 2 field accuracy. It you performed such an edit the picture would be pushed up (or down?) a line at the edit point if there was a PAL sequence error. Bit naughty really as potentially you had an extra black line either at the top or bottom of the picture, but again the viewer would never see it. And of course with the general introduction of timecode and very clever editing systems with computers every edit should be an 8 field invisible edit. A long time ago, and I have to admit my memory is getting a bit dim on most of it.
Yes a very long time ago, we used to run the edit suite BVH1100APS and BHV2000PS's in 4 field lock, except when the editor wished to add a freeze on the end of a sequence, then the tweakers would come out and we would attempt an 8 field edit, usually increasing the pre roll time, hopefully the machines locked up in time.
I wasn't there so I don;t know, but I'd guess LWT - being in control of the programme - took an instant decision to cut to the break. There would have been no time to warn on the red phone BUT the cue dot would have been used and on a live programme (sport especially) breaks could appear in very unexpected places, so Transmission Controllers everywhere would have been on the alert. But because a light entertainment show usually ran its parts roughly to time (over-runs were more common than under-runs) and it was Sunday night at a time when many TCs would be making a pot of tea (within earshot but possibly outside the suite), I'd guess some were caught by the sudden break and had to rush back into the chair.
And of course LWT was the only company getting keyed talkback from the OB so very likely the OB director would have yelled something down the talkback to Kent House to tell them something was going very wrong and that they would be going to a break. As you say, very difficult to convey that to the other ITV companies in the short time available. I dare say the red phone was in use straight after with the lwt transmission controller liaising with OB director in one ear and the other ITV transmission controllers in the other.
I wasn't there so I don;t know, but I'd guess LWT - being in control of the programme - took an instant decision to cut to the break. There would have been no time to warn on the red phone BUT the cue dot would have been used and on a live programme (sport especially) breaks could appear in very unexpected places, so Transmission Controllers everywhere would have been on the alert. But because a light entertainment show usually ran its parts roughly to time (over-runs were more common than under-runs) and it was Sunday night at a time when many TCs would be making a pot of tea (within earshot but possibly outside the suite), I'd guess some were caught by the sudden break and had to rush back into the chair.
And of course LWT was the only company getting keyed talkback from the OB so very likely the OB director would have yelled something down the talkback to Kent House to tell them something was going very wrong and that they would be going to a break. As you say, very difficult to convey that to the other ITV companies in the short time available. I dare say the red phone was in use straight after with the lwt transmission controller liaising with OB director in one ear and the other ITV transmission controllers in the other.
Would LWT have had a standby tape of something to roll in case of a serious mishap (though the event under discussion is in that category) ?
I can remember when there was an IRA bomb scare on ATV's Sunday Night at the London Palladium (Jimmy Tarbrush era) up came an emergency tape of Sammy Davis Jnr in concert.
Each contractor had a cupboard full of standby programmes. But I don't know of any who kept a tape on a machine 'just in case'. With a limited number of VTR machines and a high demand from production as well as presentation; not to mention the fact that if a show fell off air the remaining gap would be an awkward duration, it wasn't something that was routinely done. If a programme failed, the first thing to do was always put up a slide, apologise and play music while it was established whether the programme could be resumed or not. If it was negative, then something to fit the gap would be hauled out of the cupboard, laced up (on either VT or Telecine) and the Transmissionm Controller would do a frantic calculation of how to fill the entire gap and when to start the standby.
Incidentally, I neglected to mention the end of part 'freeze' but it was of course a requirement of any networked programme that the end of part and end of programme would be kept on screen for ten seconds beyond the official duration, just in case. That was one of the reasons why, historically, shows ended on a contractor's production caption - it could be held for however long was necessary in the case of an under-run or a technical problem.
At the BBC it was standard practice to have a standby programme of a similar duration to the live programme it was placed against, in case of complete loss of the programme. Replacing a programme that is mid way through transmission is much trickier, especially if you don't know (as is often the case) how long the breakdown is going to be.
EDIT
genuinely fascinating thread by the way - thank you.
Each contractor had a cupboard full of standby programmes. But I don't know of any who kept a tape on a machine 'just in case'. With a limited number of VTR machines and a high demand from production as well as presentation; not to mention the fact that if a show fell off air the remaining gap would be an awkward duration, it wasn't something that was routinely done. If a programme failed, the first thing to do was always put up a slide, apologise and play music while it was established whether the programme could be resumed or not. If it was negative, then something to fit the gap would be hauled out of the cupboard, laced up (on either VT or Telecine) and the Transmissionm Controller would do a frantic calculation of how to fill the entire gap and when to start the standby.
Presumably it was the responsibility of the originating contractor to 'fill the gap' with an alternative programme, or did/could each region do their own thing ?
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I recall one occasion in the early 1990s when an episode of Wheel of Fortune failed. The programme obviously was still being played out by STV as Yorkshire continued to play the programme but there was a lot of interference, and the speed was highly erratic. Tyne Tees on the other hand pulled the programme after about a minute of this and played 10 minutes of cartoons, which suggests that the individual companies certainly had alternate programming ready for events like this, but the choice on whether to show something at sub broadcast quality was up to the individual companies. I never did work out where Yorkshire's feed was coming from or why it continued in that state for more than ten minutes.
Presumably it was the responsibility of the originating contractor to 'fill the gap' with an alternative programme, or did/could each region do their own thing ?
Wouldn't that depend on the nature of why the programme had fallen off air?