Old TV slides

Not quite sure where to post this, it's sort of TV presentation. I found these old slides in the loft, I scanned them in on Mum's computer but they haven't come out too well, I've tried to improve the brightness on the best of them.

http://www.leeseaman.com/stuff/tvforum/slides/01.jpg http://www.leeseaman.com/stuff/tvforum/slides/02.jpg

http://www.leeseaman.com/stuff/tvforum/slides/03.jpg http://www.leeseaman.com/stuff/tvforum/slides/04.jpg

http://www.leeseaman.com/stuff/tvforum/slides/05.jpg

http://www.leeseaman.com/stuff/tvforum/slides/06.jpg

These slides were given to my Dad when he worked at Anglia Television many years ago. I'm wondering how these would've been used, would these actual slides have been broadcast and how? That coloured ITV logo is very C4! I assume the Channel 4 slides were from the days when ITV would advertise programmes for C4...

I've just remembered my Dad has an old projector that these should work on, I may clean these slides and use it to get better images if anyone is interested in seeing all the slides.

From Christmas 1986 if I'm not mistaken, more please!

How many have you got - anything Schools-related?

The ITN slide I have is from '86, so you're probably spot on. Nothing schools-related, mainly adverts or promos, and as I say, one ITN slide from '86 - Review of the Year or something.

Slides were used as a source of TV graphics well into the 1980s - and slide scanners were certainly still around in the 90s. They were used routinely before electronic still stores were commonplace - though caption cameras were also used.

Flying spot devices - similar to flying spot telecines used to transfer moving film to video - were used to scan slides, and they often included remote controlled "slide change" controls to allow you to "change on".

They were in widespread use in Presentation areas - though BBC presentation went to a Quantel still store in the 80s (and station graphics were then often added electronically using Paintbox, rather than being part of the slide)

This has to be the best thing ever posted here IMHO! Pitty the Anglia endcap slide is so mashed though. Still, if you can get a good pic of it, you can always do a repair job in Photoshop. Great find! Thanks for posting.

PS - If you post some more, is it possible to post them in a higher resolution?

Interesting, how did you get hold of them etc?

Sorry to invade the thread but on a related note, in our garage we have two old film reels of BBCtv programmes directed by my uncle (featuring my dad on a farm or something) from circa 70's/80's. I'm just wondering how I would go about viewing them? They have been stored in reel tins which may have corroded.

Alright for some, the best I got was aload of free crap from the now non existant Greenalls Group.

Just out of interest what year was the Christmas ITV one? As I was never sure whether it was 1986, 1987 or 1988.

Yes there seems to have been a move within the ITV network to phase slide-scanners out of presentation areas around the end of 1988 -- I know of at least 4 ITV stations which moved to computer-generated slides at that time, and both YTV and Tyne Tees changed over on December 21st 1988 which surely can't be a coincidence. (Perhaps these were funded out of ITV pooled coffers in preparation for the 1989 ITV corporate identity? Would certain small backwater stations have kept with old-fashioned slide scanners for a lot longer otherwise?)

They were still in place though for quite a long time after that -- TTTV's computer broke down in 1991 and a succession of old 1988-style slides were brought out to cover the lack of coming next graphics, which was a strange sight at the time.

And caption cameras were being used for presentation purposes in the early 90s as well at the station, witness this from TV Ark...

http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itvnortheast/itvnortheastengland/idents/tyneteesendcap1990.jpg

Clearly not computer generated (there is distortion consistent with a camera being pointed at a card), although it was taken from a computer-generated still in the first place, so I'm not quite sure why they were doing this when electronic equipment can't have been thin on the ground by that stage

The Open University used traditional slides up to the February 1991 rebrand. Though whether they were actually coming from slide scanners is open to question.

TSW must have been one of the first regions to go to an electronic stills store - a demonstration of the software was given at TSW's Open Day in 1987. However, many stills continued to originate from slides for some time thereafter. When You Bet! broke down in 1990, TSW dug out a 1988 slide which it had not shown in ages. Ellis Ward was unrecognisable with a completely different hairstyle!

Interestingly, TSW never bothered with "own-brand" programme slides, they relied heavily on whatever the originating companies sent them. Strange when you think how image-conscious they were.

NO! This is COMPLETELY presentation!!! And EXACTLY what people are supposed to be using this forum for taking about. Shows how completely misunderstood the forum has become over the years.

Anyway - great stuff - the most fascinating thread on here for ages. There are still a few staff in BBC Presentation that remember using the old slide scanners before they were replaced with slide stores (in fact, until very recently, they still referred to the source on the vision mixer as "SS")

I believe the BBC had a mechanical device as part of their slide scanner which allowed the directors to create a stack of slides for use in a junction. They could only change the slide while the network was in black though, so you'd often hear the director say "Fade down, change, and up" during slide-slide-symbol junctions. In those days most junctions consisted of slides - as trails were often voiced and mixed live from a separate gallery down the corridor!

Can anyone remember anything else about this mechanical slide changer? No doubt it will have had a vaguely amusing name either an acronym like "COW" - the first electronic BBC Globe which stood for Computer Originated World and the accompanying clock "GNAT" - Generator of Network's Analogue Time, or like "NODDY" which was the robotic camera that pointed at various captions and emergency slides, symbols and schools dots. That was so called because it nodded up and down and side to side in order to point at the required caption.

Some places had a device with two metal wheels, with slots for the slides arranged round the circumference. You could cut to one, make the other one move on, then cut to it, etc etc. However if one wheel jammed, your sequence would go wrong. Add in the effect of panicky multiple button presses and random freeing of the jammed wheel, and a complete shambles could easily follow on-screen!

What I meant to say was I didn't know whether this was more of a request for info...

I somehow left five of the slides in the scanner, so I'm having them bought here later tonight, and I'll try and get this projector thing working. Not sure how I'm going to do it yet, I guess I just point it at a wall and take a picture! Although I think I have something that'll produce a more professional-looking effect, can't tell you what it is because I don't really know... but if you point a projector at one side of it, and a camera the other side, you get good pictures. I think. Will try it out later and get the pictured uploaded.

Thanks for all the info!