That would seem to be a daft thing to do if they had been recorded on tape
to start with. Some very old recordings from that time will still play as
long as somebody still has the working machines somewhere.
Brian

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"Andy Burns" <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote in message
news:j2jccqFopmmU1@mid.individual.net...
> Scott wrote:
>
>> How do they 'colourise' a black and white recording?
>
> If the B&W film recording is off-air from a PAL transmission, the
> chroma-dots can be used to reconstruct the colours
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_recovery>

That would have taken one heck of a long time!
Brian

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"Adrian Caspersz" <email@here.invalid> wrote in message
news:j2jet2Fp9a8U1@mid.individual.net...
> On 23/12/2021 13:47, Scott wrote:
>>
>> Thanks, but in this case the BBC report refers to 'colourisation'
>> rather than colour recovery. Maybe the terminology is wrong, but I
>> wonder how you would colourise a pure black and white recording.
>>
>
> https://colour-recovery.fandom.com/wiki
>
> https://colour-recovery.fandom.com/wiki/Processed_programmes
>
> Looks like Mr Russell's work again.
>
>
> This from 3 years ago
>
> "Morecambe & Wise restored using BBC BASIC!"
> https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=16161
>
>
>
> --
> Adrian C

Not mass market no, but you could get them. They were reel to reel with one
reel slightly overlapping the other offset in height. Used half inch lowband
video tape, Sony came to mind, often found in Schools at the time.
When U-matic came out though it revolutionised that market. Still expensive
and quite big, but easer to use.
I seem to recall that Technicolor brand did a reel to reel portable colour
vcr, but it looked pretty naff and must have been a swine to lace up!

Brian

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"williamwright" <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote in message
news:j2klghF1shqU1@mid.individual.net...
> On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:
>> Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might
>> explain
>> the problems with colour after 50 years.
>
> I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a private
> house.
>
> Bill

Both of them were into tech at the time, and did record stuff from TV, so
its most likely from one of those stashes.

I remember when they wanted to restore the audio of old Goon Shows they
often had huge chunks removed to suit the market. For example many had the
Indian remarks and jokes taken out and others had the musical breaks taken
out and were sent out as discs.
In many cases the only recordings of the complete shows were from home made
recordings from medium wave and you can hear the joins even with modern
signal processing.

Of course Peter Sellars was also into technology and had many personal
recordings of things.
Even back in them there 60s, one particular unlikely person was into mobile
recording of anything and everything. You may have heard of him due to his
untimely death, one Jimmy Hendrix. You will find a number of restored
recordings of his on the recently released Joni Mitchell archive
collections.

And look at the first moon landing. The pictures were awful with low frame
rates and very bloopy video as it was sent over a low bit rate data stream,
and shown to us on a tube with hight persistence to try to stop the flicker
effect. Since some of the data tapes were found in Australia, they were able
to clean them up a lot fo that dvd they put out.
Brian

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"Jeff Layman" <jmlayman@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:sq2fi7$ok3$1@dont-email.me...
> On 23/12/2021 16:52, Roderick Stewart wrote:
>> On Thu, 23 Dec 2021 16:39:53 +0000, Jeff Layman
>> <jmlayman@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On 23/12/2021 13:19, Scott wrote:
>>>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-59599741
>>>>
>>>> How do they 'colourise' a black and white recording? Is this a manual
>>>> process or is it automated. I assume you would need to tell the
>>>> computer what each colour is supposed to be. How would the operator
>>>> know?
>>>>
>>>> I think I read once (with Dad's Army) that the black and white
>>>> recording contained hidden colour information for the export version.
>>>> Could this have happened here too?
>>>>
>>>> Also, I see the recording dates from 1970. I thought the main
>>>> channels moved to colour in 1969, so why was it not recorded in
>>>> colour, or maybe it was in colour with the tape found in the attic a
>>>> B&W archive?
>>>
>>> This was on the main news last night and today. It was previewed in the
>>> Christmas Radio Times available a couple of weeks ago, so what makes it
>>> news now rather than then? Strangely, though, the RT mentions it as only
>>> being "restored" - there is no mention of colourising. So it's a bit
>>> ambiguous as to whether the colour was there and has been restored, or
>>> whether it was just B/W and that required restoration, and the colour
>>> has been added.
>>
>> The BBC article refers to "films" being discovered in "canisters" but
>> technical terminology is routinely so sloppily used these days that
>> it's hard to say what it means. A videotape in a case might be
>> described as a film in a canister by someone who hasn't a clue.
>
> Yes, the BBC article is totally confused as to what was inside the can! It
> refers to "the footage..." which suggests a film (I've never heard of
> "tape footage". Was it ever used?). Then says "Dating from 1970, the
> 45-minute episode had originally been wiped by the BBC so the expensive
> tape could be re-used", which states it was a tape. It continues "His
> agent sent them off to be examined and the films inside them were checked
> by experts", so back to films. Finally, it says "...these are important
> pieces from the golden era of television so to find something that was
> presumed wiped,..." which is back to tape!
>
> The BBC programme on Christmas day is titled "The Morecambe and Wise Show
> 1970: the Lost Tape". The article in the RT about Gary Morecambe's
> discovery in 2020 says that he found a stack of reels (sic - there is no
> mention of cans), but the BBC programme entry for 7.45 says ".. it was
> discovered in an unmarked can"!
>
> --
>
> Jeff

I did see an old Man about the House abroad some years ago, and it was
colour but obviously transferred to film as you could see the streaks and
hear the grotty sound. Somebody told me these originally were made for
cruise ships, but I have no verification. It had Spanish subtitles.
Brian

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"Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd" <angus@magsys.co.uk> wrote in
message news:memo.20211223194242.13100A@magsys.adsl.magsys.co.uk...
>> As a matter of interest, were colour film recordings of
>> programmes ever made and later transmitted, or was film recording
>> always B&W?
>
> I worked at TVC in the early seventies, and I recall it was all monochrome
> film
> recording for export to other countries that did not even have 2in quad
> tape,
> never mind colour.
>
> 2in quad tape was so expensive at the time and the machines horrendously
> expensive, film was easier for export.
>
> I think Rank Video had the first decent colour film recorder a few years
> later.
>
>
> Angus
>
>

I don't think they do anything in house now. They used specialists, like
they do for CGI and stuff like that.
Brian

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"Scott" <newsgroups@gefion.myzen.co.uk> wrote in message
news:s1p9sgh7bg4cijfn586cvl077gh855sbgr@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 23 Dec 2021 20:41:52 +0000 (GMT), charles
> <charles@candehope.me.uk> wrote:
>
>>In article <memo.20211223194242.13100A@magsys.adsl.magsys.co.uk>, Angus
>>Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd <angus@magsys.co.uk> wrote:
>>> > As a matter of interest, were colour film recordings of programmes
>>> > ever made and later transmitted, or was film recording always B&W?
>>
>>> I worked at TVC in the early seventies, and I recall it was all
>>> monochrome film recording for export to other countries that did not
>>> even
>>> have 2in quad tape, never mind colour.
>>
>>> 2in quad tape was so expensive at the time and the machines horrendously
>>> expensive, film was easier for export.
>>
>>> I think Rank Video had the first decent colour film recorder a few years
>>> later.
>>
>>Techicolor made colour films from tapes
>
> Would the BBC not want to do it in house if it was only for archive
> purposes? I assume monochrome was cheaper as cost was clearly an
> issue.

On Fri, 24 Dec 2021 01:19:13 +0000, williamwright
<wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:

>On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:
>> Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might explain
>> the problems with colour after 50 years.
>
>I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a private house.
>
>Bill

They did exist. I had a secondhand one. It was quite compact but took
separate spools of half inch tapes that you had to thread manually.
They were used in educational or other professional settings mostly,
because they were expensive to buy new, but it's possible that a few
rich individuals such as entertainers might have their own as it would
be helpful to check their own performance.

Rod.

I did it myself using a projection colour system. Bit overkill and you did
still see convergence errors at the edges, even with back projection, which
could still show the proverbial hot spot on freznel screens and a bit of
smear due to the cheaper vidicon tubes used in domestic cameras at that time
Worked OK on mono, but if you did it with, say 8mm cine film in colour it
had a habit of looking odd.
Funny to see how quickly tech has changed.
I had one of the early Philips 1500 machines and we thought they were
amazing, sounding more like a power station giving off enough heat to keep
your plate warm at dinner time and needing an engineer every 3 months to
change the lacing cord and the capstan roller and of course cleaning the
induction motors which tended to get jammed due to muck falling into them.
Heads new every year and tapes that only lasted an hour and if you used
any other make but scotch eventually got a fold in the bottom edge meaning
the tape got stuck.
Brian

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"Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd" <angus@magsys.co.uk> wrote in
message news:memo.20211224081529.12632B@magsys.adsl.magsys.co.uk...
>> Would the BBC not want to do it in house if it was only for
>> archive purposes? I assume monochrome was cheaper as cost was
>> clearly an issue.
>
> The BBC had been using monochrome film recorders for 20 years until 2in
> quad
> video tape became available, there was never a need to buy any colour
> systems.
>
>
> Television Centre was built with all these film recorders in the basement
> under
> the fountain, most were replaced by quad tape, but a few kept for overseas
> distribution.
>
> Colour film recording was always far more complicated that monochrome, you
> can
> not point a camera at large curved shadow mask CRT, it needed separate
> exposures of the film for each colour from flat monochrome CRTs or better
> technology.
>
> Angus
>
>

In article <j2klghF1shqU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
<wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:
> On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:
> > Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might
> > explain the problems with colour after 50 years.

> I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a private
> house.

> Bill

I had a colleague who owned a Sony one for the 405 line service - that
would not have been colour.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 24/12/2021 01:19, williamwright wrote:
> On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:
>> Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might explain
>> the problems with colour after 50 years.
>
> I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a private house.
>
> Bill

The first home VCR I bought (I think it was a Grundig) had a mono/colour
switch on the back and the mono position gave a slightly better picture
on my monochrome IV so I left it in that position.

I never found out if the recording on the tape was mono or colour
because I had replaced the VCR and reused the tapes before I got a
colour TV.

Jim

On Thu, 23 Dec 2021 23:43:04 +0000, NY wrote:

> Did they use separate CRTs for the three colours, rather than one shadow
> mask CRT, to avoid adding a shadow mash pattern to the image which could
> produce moiré fringing when the film was later telecined and displayed
> on other shadow mask CRTs?

Yes. I can't remember if they were coloured phosphor crts or mono ones
with colour filters, but there were definitely 3 of them.

--
TOJ.

On Fri, 24 Dec 2021 00:01:29 +0000, NY wrote:

> Come to think of it, I'm surprised that the image of the raster of a
> monochrome screen on a film recording doesn't produce moiré if there is
> any vertical and horizontal jitter in the precise position of each film
> frame as it is scanned by the telecine.

Spot wobble was applied to the scans to make the lines touch each other to
eliminate line structure.

--
TOJ.

On Fri, 24 Dec 2021 08:24:54 -0000, "Brian Gaff \(Sofa\)"
<briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>That would seem to be a daft thing to do if they had been recorded on tape
>to start with. Some very old recordings from that time will still play as
>long as somebody still has the working machines somewhere.
> Brian

I think it was the cost of the tape that was prohibitive.

"Scott" <newsgroups@gefion.myzen.co.uk> wrote in message
news:d79bsgdo71n2q2qlm234ar1vhuo84g5kv0@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 24 Dec 2021 08:24:54 -0000, "Brian Gaff \(Sofa\)"
> <briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>That would seem to be a daft thing to do if they had been recorded on tape
>>to start with. Some very old recordings from that time will still play as
>>long as somebody still has the working machines somewhere.
>
> I think it was the cost of the tape that was prohibitive.

Presumably 2" quad tape could only be re-used if it had not be
splice-edited - or if it had, as long as the control track was never erased.
If a splice-edited tape ever had its control track erased and then a new one
put on as part of a new recording, the "electronic sprocket holes" would
almost certainly move, placing the splice within one of the video tracks,
which would lead to a bad dropout at best, and a head crash requiring
new/cleaned heads at worst.

Was splice-editing of 2" tape avoided if possible (using dub-editing
instead), except in situations such as sport where very rapid turnaround of
highlights was more important than being able to reuse the tape.

On 24/12/2021 01:19 am, williamwright wrote:

> On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:

>> Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might
>> explain the problems with colour after 50 years.
>
> I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a private
> house.

I'm sure that's true (neither have I).

But there were some around as early as the late 1960s.

Reel-to-reel (IIRC) and made by Sony, maybe others too. I recall seeing
them (well, one!) on sale at Beaver Radio, Whitechapel, Liverpool, c.
1969 / 1970.

This was around the same time as Sony, Sanyo, etc, were offering RtR
stereo tape-recorders with the speakers forming the lid of the portable
unit. Stereo cassette demolished that market but the market for RtR
video never developed.

On 24/12/2021 08:51 am, Roderick Stewart wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Dec 2021 01:19:13 +0000, williamwright
> <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:
>
>> On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:
>>> Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might explain
>>> the problems with colour after 50 years.
>>
>> I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a private house.
>>
>> Bill
>
> They did exist. I had a secondhand one. It was quite compact but took
> separate spools of half inch tapes that you had to thread manually.
> They were used in educational or other professional settings mostly,
> because they were expensive to buy new, but it's possible that a few
> rich individuals such as entertainers might have their own as it would
> be helpful to check their own performance.

Bob Monkhouse had at least one of those late 60s units.

On 24/12/2021 09:58 am, Indy Jess John wrote:
> On 24/12/2021 01:19, williamwright wrote:
>> On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:
>>> Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might
>>> explain
>>> the problems with colour after 50 years.
>>
>> I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a private
>> house.
>>
>> Bill
>
> The first home VCR I bought (I think it was a Grundig) had a mono/colour
> switch on the back and the mono position gave a slightly better picture
> on my monochrome IV so I left it in that position.
>
> I never found out if the recording on the tape was mono or colour
> because I had replaced the VCR and reused the tapes before I got a
> colour TV.

JVC ("Ferguson Videostar") had that feature too.

It did improve a monochrome playback a little but was too easy to forget
about and leave in monochrome position.

"JNugent" <jennings&co@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
news:j2lvckF990mU6@mid.individual.net...
> On 24/12/2021 08:51 am, Roderick Stewart wrote:
>> On Fri, 24 Dec 2021 01:19:13 +0000, williamwright
>> <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:
>>>> Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might
>>>> explain
>>>> the problems with colour after 50 years.
>>>
>>> I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a private
>>> house.
>>>
>>> Bill
>>
>> They did exist. I had a secondhand one. It was quite compact but took
>> separate spools of half inch tapes that you had to thread manually.
>> They were used in educational or other professional settings mostly,
>> because they were expensive to buy new, but it's possible that a few
>> rich individuals such as entertainers might have their own as it would
>> be helpful to check their own performance.
>
> Bob Monkhouse had at least one of those late 60s units.

The first time I ever saw a VTR that wasn't a huge monster in a TV studio,
it was a Sony CV-2000
https://historictech.com/product/sony-cv-2000-videocorder-c1965/ in a
children's thriller series Tightrope in 1972, in which it was used to
broadcast subversive messages to a group of sixth-formers who were watching
a "for schools and colleges" programme.

In the late 70s I remember seeing a VTR at the electronics lab at Leeds
University and I'm sure it used 1/4" audio tape rather than the normal 1/2"
tape of VHS, Betamax, V2000 and Philips N1500. By that stage, our school had
an N1500 and was about to get a couple of top-loader, piano-key VHS
machines, but the one at Leeds was supposedly "semi-professional" which
presumably meant it had a slightly higher bandwidth and maybe a timebase
corrector to prevent some of the worst faults of VHS.

On 24/12/2021 04:06 pm, NY wrote:

> "JNugent" <jennings&co@fastmail.fm> wrot:
>> On 24/12/2021 08:51 am, Roderick Stewart wrote:
>>> williamwright <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:
>>>> On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:

>>>>> Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might
>>>>> explain the problems with colour after 50 years.
>
>>>> I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a
>>>> private house.
>
>>> They did exist. I had a secondhand one.  It was quite compact but took
>>> separate spools of half inch tapes that you had to thread manually.
>>> They were used in educational or other professional settings mostly,
>>> because they were expensive to buy new, but it's possible that a few
>>> rich individuals such as entertainers might have their own as it would
>>> be helpful to check their own performance.
>>
>> Bob Monkhouse had at least one of those late 60s units.
>
> The first time I ever saw a VTR that wasn't a huge monster in a TV
> studio, it was a Sony CV-2000
> https://historictech.com/product/sony-cv-2000-videocorder-c1965/ in a
> children's thriller series Tightrope in 1972, in which it was used to
> broadcast subversive messages to a group of sixth-formers who were
> watching a "for schools and colleges" programme.

That either is, or is very like, the one I saw for sale in Beaver Radio,
Liverpool, around 1969/70.

£830? That was the price of a reasonable new car at the time.

> In the late 70s I remember seeing a VTR at the electronics lab at Leeds
> University and I'm sure it used 1/4" audio tape rather than the normal
> 1/2" tape of VHS, Betamax, V2000 and Philips N1500. By that stage, our
> school had an N1500 and was about to get a couple of top-loader,
> piano-key VHS machines, but the one at Leeds was supposedly
> "semi-professional" which presumably meant it had a slightly higher
> bandwidth and maybe a timebase corrector to prevent some of the worst
> faults of VHS.

VHS really needed a compensated channel on the TV in order to correct
tendency for the top of the picture to bend to the right (...there's
probably a technical term for that! :-)...).

A DER TV I had when I rented my first VHS (1979) suffered from that
problem. The next TV had a compensated Channel 12, optimised for video
via the UHF input (no SCART at that stage) and unbent pictures.

On 24/12/2021 09:22, charles wrote:
> In article <j2klghF1shqU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
> <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:
>> On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:
>>> Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might
>>> explain the problems with colour after 50 years.
>
>> I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a private
>> house.
>
>> Bill
>
> I had a colleague who owned a Sony one for the 405 line service - that
> would not have been colour.
>
Good heavens! Such things were undrempt of round here.

Bill

On 24/12/2021 09:58, Indy Jess John wrote:
> The first home VCR I bought (I think it was a Grundig) had a mono/colour
> switch on the back and the mono position gave a slightly better picture
> on my monochrome IV so I left it in that position.

Oh yes, some of them did have such a switch didn't they?

Bill

On 24/12/2021 10:28, The Other John wrote:
> Spot wobble was applied to the scans to make the lines touch each other to
> eliminate line structure.

Oh I remember spot wobble. You could adjust it.

Bill

In article <j2mfenFcdksU1@mid.individual.net>,
williamwright <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:
> On 24/12/2021 09:22, charles wrote:
> > In article <j2klghF1shqU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
> > <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:
> >> On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:
> >>> Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might
> >>> explain the problems with colour after 50 years.
> >
> >> I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a private
> >> house.
> >
> >> Bill
> >
> > I had a colleague who owned a Sony one for the 405 line service - that
> > would not have been colour.
> >
> Good heavens! Such things were undrempt of round here.

> Bill

especially his name for it: "Pornograph"

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 24/12/2021 18:00, charles wrote:

>>> I had a colleague who owned a Sony one for the 405 line service - that
>>> would not have been colour.
>>>
>> Good heavens! Such things were undrempt of round here.
>
>> Bill
>
> especially his name for it: "Pornograph"
>
Good heavens! Of course we were very innocent in those days.
Bill

On Fri, 24 Dec 2021 17:48:07 +0000
williamwright <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:

> On 24/12/2021 09:22, charles wrote:
> > In article <j2klghF1shqU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
> > <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:
> >> On 23/12/2021 17:55, charles wrote:
> >>> Not every customer would have had colour capapble VCRs. Film might
> >>> explain the problems with colour after 50 years.
> >
> >> I can't remember ever seeing a non-colour video recorder in a private
> >> house.
> >
> >> Bill
> >
> > I had a colleague who owned a Sony one for the 405 line service - that
> > would not have been colour.
> >
> Good heavens! Such things were undrempt of round here.
>
> Bill

You just reminded me of the first colour TV that I ever saw and it was in 405 lines. I think it was during the 1956 Radio Hobbies Exhibition at Alexandra Palace. It used a round RCA tube with top and bottom masked and three chassis on each side in a radiogram style wooden cabinet. Only stills were transmitted (presumably from Cystal Palace) but the colour was superb.

Alan

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