Not the nine o clock news end credits

But how is that relevant to this discussion? However the credits were added (most likely in post rather than during the studio record), the textless elements certainly aren't tacked onto the end of the TX masters - they just don't exist at all any more.

This thread has developed to this point because of Neil Jones saying "Pretty much all transmission masters where there are credits or text or anything appear clean (without said credits) at the end of the master tapes of the original episode it came from." That is simply not true at all in respect of the vast majority of archive programming.

And it's worth remembering that even modern programmes don't necessarily keep textless versions. TOTP2 is a prime example; since it started being repeated extensively on Dave, issues have cropped up in respect of the caption straps that wipe on during the performances - for example, where the original caption referred to a performer in the present tense, such as by wishing them a happy birthday, and they've subsequently died.

Since clean versions of the TOTP2 programmes were never made, and it's too expensive for Dave to replace the texted performances with the clean ones from the original editions of TOTP, they came up with two typical ways of dealing with problem captions. Either they simply zoom the picture to crop off the strap entirely (which is bad enough when it's a VT clip, but truly horrible when it's from a film recording), or they just key on a completely blank strap. Both solutions are far from ideal, but the latter is slightly less offensive than watching horribly fuzzy blown-up video.


You're talking about modern programming of course. The vast majority of British archive programming has no split-track audio available, which is a shame because if it *was* available then there would be no need for programmes to be edited to remove problematic music tracks, the music could simply be replaced without affecting the vision. It would have made a big difference to the Grange Hill DVD release, and it would make releases of things like Shoestring viable in the first place.

I thought tate modern was in battersea power station

anyway interesting link of the original with no credits, how it was originally transmitted.

I was hoping nobody would notice that as it messes up my argument. Clearly I don't know what was exactly going on there but it may well be the case that, like I Like Bouncing, they kept a clean version for the end-of-series compilation and that was it. The fact that it's the only bit from the sequence which had credits to be included might also suggest that there were still credits over the other stuff from the compilation.

In addition, it was shot on film and presumably done a couple of weeks, or months, before transmission, as opposed to the rest of the show which was filmed the day before, so they presumably had a bit more time to play with it and it's more likely a clean copy would have existed - but I'm guessing only as long as it took to be reused in a compilation in 1980, not by 1995.

Can anyone find any other versions on YouTube, then?



Well, John Lloyd has said that he was unhappy with some of the sketches, but that's a poor excuse because you want to see Not The Nine O'Clock News as it was at the time, not what John Lloyd would prefer it to look like in 1995. And some of the edits are really weird. If you look on that SOTCAA page I linked to, you can see stuff about how the original end to the Poland sketch couldn't be used, because of the credits, so they had to chop it off halfway through and link it to another sketch about Reagan, having to reverse the picture in that so it followed on from the previous sketch.

Indeed, I hope that they decide to show the whole series in full at some point. It would be particually interesting to see how much of the stuff that didn't make it into the 95 comps stills makes sense. The sketch following 'trucking' on the compilation is a good example, it's a spoof of a road safety advert. Griff's impression is quite good but the man concerned is long forgotten now

The point is relevant because the method of adding the captions (during the main edit, or a separate session) will often dictate whether there is a clean, earlier intermediate edit, that survives.

You wouldn't often have keyed the credits during the studio recording, but when & how you added them would dictate the likelihood of a clean version existing. Similarly co-production or investment from BBC Enterprises (now Worldwide) or BBC Lionhear (now BBC Worldwide Americas) might also play a part.



Well that is not at all the case. The clean versions will either be separate earlier edits that were created prior to captioning, or in some cases, the studio recordings or inserts (for some shows) will also have been lodged with the library.

Tacking clean elements on the end of the master tape would be very much against delivery guidelines...



TOTP2 is a graphics heavy archive show, and I suspect is still cut in a linear VT suite. I would expect the graphics to have been inherent in the show production. It is atypical - as all the clean source elements exist elsewhere in the library there would be no reason to produce a clean copy.


You're talking about modern programming of course. The vast majority of British archive programming has no split-track audio available, which is a shame because if it *was* available then there would be no need for programmes to be edited to remove problematic music tracks, the music could simply be replaced without affecting the vision. It would have made a big difference to the Grange Hill DVD release, and it would make releases of things like Shoestring viable in the first place.[/quote]

It very much depends on where the show was made and how it was made. If the show went to a dub, then the Sypher reels may have been lodged with the library, or you may be able to go back to recordings or location elements. This is less widespread though - particularly for shows edited on film rather than VT - where the dubbing sources have been lost.

More recently ADAT or DA88 stuff will often be lodged - but it IS a problem. For home video release there are commercial imperatives as well though - sometimes sources are available, but the money to re-dub from them is not.

If a show was not dubbed, but was mixed during the online picture edit , then often there is no way of unpicking...

To a degree. It wasn't uncommon for many shows to be delivered with a secondary music mix (in the days of mono you'd have the main mix on track 1 and a M&E mix on track 2, and in the days of stereo you'd have main on 1&2 and M&E on 3&4). The M&E (Music and Effects?) track has no voice over, and allows foreign language purchasers to re-voice. This is more of an issue on factual shows than on drama and comedy of course.

However for many shows the VT master only has these two mixes - there simply aren't enough audio tracks on VT formats (pre-HD) to record the clean source elements. Thus in the days of 1" editing there was a Sypher (effectively a time-code synced multitrack audio) tape, and more recently DA88 / ADAT digital multitrack lay-offs containing clean dialogue, clean location sound, clean music etc. which could be used to re-dub at a later date.

Audio is more problematic than vision though - particularly for 80s stuff where the Sypher reels haven't been lodged with the library - and it very much depends on how prominent overseas sales or co-production issues where in the production of the show.

I refer back to what I said previously about the trailer that used to air on ABC1 for US Sitcom 'Less Than Perfect', which used a segment of an episode that upon transmission has credits overlaid on it but it was clean on the trailer. I wonder whether it's something that's more common in American programming?

And yes, tacking clean elements onto the transmission master that somebody would copy onto the server and subsequently transmit would not be permissible, would there not be another master somewhere in the chain? Surely a transmission master and a programme master are not the same thing? I mean a programme can be commissioned for a 60 minute slot on BBC Three but you don't go and record just 60 minutes, you record far more than you need, hours on end in some cases. In theory a totally clean programme exists at one point or another. It's whether it's kept or available for use afterwards.



The whole concept of TOTP2 was effectively an excuse to use old TOTP material and I rather suspect it was the entire aim to slap coloured bars all over it as well. The issue of wishing the late Joe Bloggs birthday greetings or whatever doesn't stop Dave airing ten year old episodes of Have I Got News For You, a programme that's more likely to confuse slower viewers, let's put it that way. A small note, "Originally transmitted 23rd April 2000" sits at the start of the repeat.

A lot of stuff is generally made for the here-and-now, particularly News For You and current at the time TOTP2 captions. In fact it was only a relatively recent decision to stop referring to events as happening "this year" as well. Quiz shows are good at this, whereas you'd hear on Bullseye c.1984, "Who won something earlier this year?", now you get "In October 2009, who won the <event>?"

And in most cases, there is not. That's the problem. No matter how many clean versions or submasters existed once, most have long since been junked, with only the TX master (and any safety dubs of same) being retained.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but you seem to be implying that there's a strong chance that any given archive programme will have its original clean elements, including split-track audio, all available in the library ready and waiting to be reused. If that *is* what you're saying, it simply isn't true. Standard practice was to retain everything for a period after production, but then dispose of it, usually by junking. Studio VT rushes, uncaptioned submasters, original location film inserts and SYPHER tapes are all long gone for the majority of archive programmes. A relative handful do still exist, to be sure, but it is *not* the norm, nor anywhere close to it.

As I mentioned earlier, if only things like SYPHER tapes *could* be relied upon to exist, then series like Shoestring would have been out on DVD long ago, and all the other programmes that had to be edited for VHS or DVD to remove unclearable music could have been released uncut.

Very occasionally it's possible to find ways round things. For example, we were lucky that A Very Peculiar Practice didn't have to be edited for DVD. There was one track playing in the background of a prominent bar scene that was unclearable, and as you'd expect for a series of that age, the original studio rushes and SYPHER tapes were long gone. It was such an important scene in terms of character motivation and plot development that simply cutting it out wasn't really an option. Fortunately, Mark Ayres was able to weave some audio magic using careful editing, EQ and other tricksto mask the problematic track with a useable one.

It took a lot of time and effort (which would make it uneconomic to use on something like Shoestring), it's not a one-size-fits all solution (it only works in certain circumstances, depending on how the music has been used) and if you listen carefully you can hear that something's going on with the soundtrack, but because it was just one track and it happened to be amenable to being masked in that way, it was thankfully economically justifiable in that instance.

Can I just mention that John Lloyd had clean versions of most NTNOCN sketches, without credits, when making the 1995 compilations. In particular there were clean versions of all songs.

Except he didn't, as has been specifically pointed out in this thread - see post #26. Numerous sketches had to be edited to work around the fact that they contained non-removeable credits.

A lot of the 1995 clips were edited for the sake of being edited, rather to disguise any old credits.

Yes, as I suggested on the previous page in ragards to the Trucking sketch where a credited bit appeared clean it does seem that way. The edits seem to be artistic rather than necessary