I've always found these breakdowns more entertaining than the actual shows! Although I don't remember this breakdown in particular as I was one year old back then!😁😁😁
Well that's an odd fault and not the one I was expecting. I thought it was just going to be a plain old sprocket jump, but the TK seemed to be framing itself for wide-screen Presentation, and seemed to be doing it automatically. In fact you see the operator manually adjust it back to academy ratio, but it's as if as soon as the op leaves the controls alone the machine starts floating back to wide-screen mode.
Andy is now doing excellent work as always on Greatest Hits Radio on the Late Show & covers brilliantly Rossis Breakfast Show & Simon Mayos Drivetime during holiday periods - Top Man
Most film material on UK Television was transmitted direct from telecine until the early 90s. UK engineers didn't believe 1" VT gave good enough picture quality for filmed material, so waited until the likes of D2/D3 came along in around 1992 before "conforming" to VT for transmission, and it took a good couple of years for those formats to become commonplace.
The UK networks would always do their best to persuade distributors to send film prints rather than pre-telecined VT, because they could always get better results. Admittedly for US material that was to avoid standards conversion, but it all came under "best technical quality". The other benefit that was considered was that it meant a VT machine and operator wasn't tied up. It was always preferred to keep VT machines free for production, editing and playout of video-originated material. Remember even when a VT programme wasn't been played out, there was always a high demand for machines to carry out edits.
Beautiful stuff, this kind of thing makes gripping television. There's a character which looks remarkably like Mr Blobby, on the wall behind Andy. Predating the real thing by some five years. Isn't the phrase "Life's A Beach" a bit dodgy for CBBC? I mean, when Andy explained what it meant he really had to swerve the real crux of its origin. Nice little Rick Roll, too. This clip is packed with goodies.
When there's a breakdown on CBBC I like to watch the monitor as they mess about with the telecine or VT trying to get the show back. But Andy unkindly covered it up this time...
They said it was a 'gate' issue, but AFAIK that wouldn't affect the actual aspect ratio of the film...a gate problem would cause the film to be cut off on the top and bottom rather than squashed like here. It seems like an adjustable anamorphic lens on the telecine machine might have had a busted detent or faulty adjustment motor and kept falling out of adjustment as a result. The abrupt stop might have been the lens adjustment travelling so far out of alignment that it caught in the projector drive mechanism, perhaps? I love how he smoothly covers up the monitor with the letter sent in while they muck about with the replacement telecine machine...
I think the BBC were using flying spot telecines at the time, and they use a CRT to scan the film. It has to be adjusted carefully to get the film frame to match the TV picture, so I'd say some of the CRT controls were drifting or badly adjusted. It also looks like someone hit the film stop button before Andy could cut back to the Broom Cupboard!
The only other example I can think of was the time an episode of Star Trek snapped (well I say snapped, it was more of a bad splice caused by an odd editing choice). I imagine telecines were a pain in the backside to use when broadcasting live, I bet a lot of the engineers wished the films were transferred to videotape prior to transmission but due to various reasons it was probably more viable to transmit the films live. That's not to say videotapes were perfect, far from it, because you could also face mishaps with them such as head clogs (in fact more videotape technical faults survive).
I think the announcers used it for the National Anthem at closedown - my worst nightmare in a similar situation would be to have the engineers run an actual advertisement instead of a public information film and then tell me to play the wrong track on the National Anthem LP and end up playing the wrong one!
So many times BBC pres was saved - so I'm told.. - by the enthusiastic well-known 'Cola' drinkers, compared to the VT bods who were - so I'm told... - pelted by stones. Cripes a Lawky.
