General Election 1964 on BBC Parliament

[Davewantsone]

I have been watching this BBC 1964 general election coverage. It all seems to have been recorded on 16mm film. I have found it very interesting.
Maybe someone can inform me on what was the TV standard used in the studio was it 625 or 405 lines? Had all the regional areas been converted to 625 lines by 1964 for I saw feeds from Cardiff, Bristol Birmingham and Manchester in the programme.

[McMurdo]

Definitely telerecorded as it's speckled with dust. I'd have said 405 line.
Great treat to see Clement Atlee acting as pundit.

[Nicklyons2]

It was definitely a telerecording and the studio would have been 405 line. The big question is to the film gauge; I doubt whether it was 35mm (although it looked quite good and in the 1950 the BBC used 35mm quite a bit) but, by the 1960s economy and the improvements in 16mm stock made it more favoured. BUT the 'joker in the pack' is 17.5mm - the BBC had some modified 35mm gear designed to run 'split down' 35mm stock which enabled the use of existing machinery but allowed economy of operation (if poorer quality). By this time though, if I were a betting man - which I'm not, I'd say 16mm.

[AidanLunn]

Definitely 405, no point in making it in 625 as it was only shown on BBC1 and only the London studios were equipped for 625, some of the regions would be 405 for some years.

Judging by the cameras (EMI 203s) and the size of the studio, it looks as though the roughly 6-months old studio 1 at TV Centre was used. Certainly TC1 would have been handy for this kind of programme using the latest equipment in the largest studio the BBC had.

As an aside all of the other programmes recorded that night, including an episode of a Dalek serial on Doctor Who, had to be recorded from studio feed directly to telecine, as opposed to the usual 2" videotape, as all of the BBC's videotape facilities throughout the country, apart froma few 625 line machines for BBC2's pplay out that night, were tied up with the election coverage.

[dominicbeesley]

I was wondering exactly the same - I watched it for a few hours yesterday while minding the baby - my missus was speculating if I was the only person in the country watching it...seems like I was not alone!

For a good part of the programme there was a scratch about 1/3 the way across the screen in black...would that have been a fault on the negative? It didn't look to be particularly good quality film.

I was quite impressed by the "effects" I noticed a couple of vertical swipes picture in picture (Whicker in Trafalgar Square) and a diagonal swipe. Also the massive telly in Trafalgar square looked impressive - it looked like quite a large projector but it wasn't clear if it was really a TV or just projecting up results which might have just been done with slides?

In the program had a quite slick and modern feel - often when we're shown footage of older programmes the quality is poor and the staging is quite am-dram for plays etc. This by contrast was a huge production and would hold its own in production values against modern efforts...it must have cost a good few quid to put on at the time

[emeritus]

I came across the broadcast by chance and stayed with it right through to the end. A couple of noteworthy moments near the end were where Dimbelby picks up the phone and then announces that China has just exploded its first atom bomb, followed by a discussion of whether this would have affected the result had it happened a day earlier, and Ken Dodd's hilarious interview.

I recall reading that the BBC were using a 16 2/3 frame rate to record telecine around this time rather than 25, each frame of film recording two half-fields of a frame with the pull-down occupying the next half-field. Even at 16 2/3 frames/second, a 400" roll would only run for about 15 mins.

[McMurdo]

NIce shots of big in-vision tv monitor for certain interviews

[AidanLunn]

Originally Posted by dominicbeesley

I was quite impressed by the "effects" I noticed a couple of vertical swipes picture in picture (Whicker in Trafalgar Square) and a diagonal swipe. Also the massive telly in Trafalgar square looked impressive - it looked like quite a large projector but it wasn't clear if it was really a TV or just projecting up results which might have just been done with slides?

It was a real TV/projector, but it was showing the results directly from a caption camera in TV Centre, one of the ones looking at the boards showing the state of the parties, latest results etc. A "raw" feed if you like.

[dominicbeesley]

Impressive a 20' 405 line set - that really would upset the missus if I dragged it home!

[Keith1973]

When I was working at TV Centre back around 1999/2000 I remember someone transferring some ITN footage of the 1964 General Election from 405line Quad video tape. Everytime the picture changed from the studio to a live location feed there would be a recorded sync disturbance as the machine re-locked. I don't suppose much video tape actually survives from that era as most was telerecorded to film and that tape must have been a rare survivor.

[Brigham]

That will be an Eidophor, then?

[Nicklyons2]

Originally Posted by Keith1973

Everytime the picture changed from the studio to a live location feed there would be a recorded sync disturbance as the machine re-locked. I don't suppose much video tape actually survives from that era as most was telerecorded to film and that tape must have been a rare survivor.

A time before synchronisers - alot of this went on; in fairness to the BBC they often tried to 'genlock' the remote source so a field interval synchronous cut could be achieved. ITV, being at the time a collection of disparate sources didn't normally do this as no company wanted to 'trust' the sync train of another or genlock to it, particularly so if it was an OB at some Town Hall at the end of a Post Office temporary circuit! Even as late as the Iranian Embassy Siege the same situation prevailed - nearly every camera on the ITN/ITV coverage was 'non-sync' meanwhile the BBC had nearly everyone locked to station or 'synchronised'.

Non sync cuts on telerecording are less disturbing to view because the displaying monitor can follow almost instantaneously, the only problem being the film camera has to re-phase its shutter & pulldown. The effect of this being a black shutter bar may run through for a second or so but this is much quicker than the VTRs of the time would need to relock.

[peter_scott]

I see that part 2 ran for 405 minutes. Unfortunately part 1 one spoilt it by taking 407.

Peter