Correct - the first public colour tv transmission was on 1 July 1967 on BBC2.

>Correct - the first public colour tv transmission was on 1 July 1967 on BBC2.

...thought I was right... and the first BBC1 colour transmissions were in November 1969 ??

Yes, 15 November 1969 for both BBC1 and ITV

>Yes, 15 November 1969 for both BBC1 and ITV


..thanks.

Whilst we're on the subject, does anyone know when all of BBC's output was made in colour, as obviously, a few programmes still continued to be made in black and white. Someone told me that 'Top of the Pops' wasn't transmitted in colour until 1971, but I find this hard to believe ??

I believe this to be true. Many progs on the Beeb, as with a substantial amount of regional ITV progs, continued to be produced and txd in black and white. To complicate things even more, some progs were intended to be in colour but actually only ever txd in black and white, due to union disputes. A good example of this is the pilot for Are You Being Served? from 1973. This was shown a few years back on BBC2 and, despite being in black and white, had a BBC COLOUR c 1973 end-credit.

I also remember an awful BBC Wales Welsh-language copy of Top Of The Pops shown on TV Offal called Disc a Dawn from 1974, again in black and white.

In addition, the Channel Islands weren't even capable of transmitting colour progs, be them N/W or local, until 1976! Although, I'm not totally sure if BBC South West were broadcasting colour to them before Channel Television. Any ideas?

Mr Ree !

Was the pilot episode for 'Are you Being Served' ? actually made in colour but just tx and preserved in B&W ??

That clip of John Lennon singing 'Instant Karma!' on TOTP in 1970 was in colour. I remember that.

It's odd that, to the naked eye, colour VT hasn't improved in quality since 1969 (I'm thinking of first-series Python, which is as clear as a bell).

While you're on the subject of colour broadcasts,the british seem to think that our colour tv system is the best in the world but really the French SECAM E 819 line system would've been so much better than PAL I If a colour subcarrier was added to it. SO there!

Yes, the pilot for AYBS? was definitely never txd in colour, the union dispute at the time put a stop to this as technicians weren't (so I understand) going to paid more by management to work with the introduction of colour tv. As a result, there never was a colour version available.

I seem to remember a couple of years back seeing a Jon Pertwee Dr Who from the early seventies (a UK Gold omnibus), where the first episode (or two) was in black and white and the remainder of the story in colour. Can anyone at the BBC confirm this?

>Yes, the pilot for AYBS? was definitely never txd in colour, the union dispute at the time put a stop to this as technicians weren't (so I understand) going to paid more by management to work with the introduction of colour tv. As a result, there never was a colour version available.
>
>I seem to remember a couple of years back seeing a Jon Pertwee Dr Who from the early seventies (a UK Gold omnibus), where the first episode (or two) was in black and white and the remainder of the story in colour. Can anyone at the BBC confirm this?

yep - this was most probably Episdode 1 of a story called 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' which exists only on 16mm B&W film. This heralds from 1974 and is the last Dr Who epsiode (in chronological order) to have suffered from the BBC purge in destroying material in the seventies.(It is rumoured that this got 'wiped' as althought the story was called 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' the first episode was simply called 'Invasion' and this may have been confused with a 1968 Patrick Troughton story of the same name that was partly junked)

The other story that this could have been was 'planet of the Daleks' from 1973 where Episode Three exists again on a 16mm telecine B&W Film print. BBC1 actually showed the print along with the other 5 episodes back in 1993 on Friday evenings at 7.30. A brave move by the beeb, never been done since at this kind of time slot on prime time telly !

>Correct - the first public colour tv transmission was on 1 July 1967 on BBC2.

Hmm... that would correspond to the usual dates for Wimbledon fortnight, but I recall those first colour tennis broadcasts being of a special pro-tournament (Laver, Rosewall, etc) played *at* Wimbledon (surely not at the same time as the main event?). Tennis wasn't 'open' until '68, so the aforementioned stars were excluded from the Grand Slams until then.

>It's odd that, to the naked eye, colour VT hasn't improved in quality since 1969

I hate to be dead picky (well i don't hate it actually) but there is a tiny improvement in that when a camera moves very fast in front of a light, it doesn't create that sort of light smearing effect like it used to. I quite liked it on shows like TOTP where it gave it a sort of psychedelic look.

You all know what im talking about, right???

>>It's odd that, to the naked eye, colour VT hasn't improved in quality since 1969

Well, the picture's sharpened up at least, but compared to the difference in film in the last 30 years it's not much

>I hate to be dead picky (well i don't hate it actually) but there is a tiny improvement in that when a camera moves very fast in front of a light, it doesn't create that sort of light smearing effect like it used to. I quite liked it on shows like TOTP where it gave it a sort of psychedelic look.
>
>You all know what im talking about, right???
>

The same sort of effect it takes expensive computers to do these days in the 'remixed' jaaaaam episodes on Saturday nights

>>I hate to be dead picky (well i don't hate it actually) but there is a tiny improvement in that when a camera moves very fast in front of a light, it doesn't create that sort of light smearing effect like it used to. I quite liked it on shows like TOTP where it gave it a sort of psychedelic look.

This is because, up until the early 90's, all video cameras, either studio or PSC (location), recorded an image via three colour "tubes" red, green & blue. These cameras produced a high quality image (early Python, AYBS etc) but, if a sudden movement occurred, especially a very bright light source, or the camera moved past a bright light, the image flared - the light "burned" its image into the colour tubes momentarily. If the light source was kept in vision constantly, the image of the bright light would have been burned into the camera tubes permanently, and the hazy image of a bulb would have appeared in every shot filmed subsequently, rendering the camera useless.

Now, cameras are built using micro-chip technology, hence the reduction in their size from the enormous monster cameras of yesteryear, plus the ability to combine the camera with the tape recorder in a single "camcorder" unit, as opposed to separate camera and recorder connected by umbilical cables. These modern "chip" cameras can cope with movement, bright light etc. without flaring or damage (obviously one should never point a camera at the sun for too long, but chip cameras can cope with spotlights and laser beams on Top of the Pops)

As a matter of interest, the studio cameras on "This Morning" were only updated from tube to chip at the beginning of the current series last September. Until then, band recordings with fast camera shots past spotlights and other sudden moves/lights in shot still created flares on the transmitted image. The update took place only because This Morning's studio, no.8, was updated by the London Studios with a new digital gallery and cameras, in order that ITV sports programmes can be transmitted from there at nights/weekends. All the huge, old-fashioned monster cameras from Granada's "Ark" in Manchester were chucked out! Judy was hit by one of them once, when the cameras went wheeling across from one set to another, and this was quite a shock for her - they've now adopted a rule that cameras move first, artistes and turns later!

Thanks for that Si! What about that thing where up 'til early 90's, images tended to be shot on VT indoors, and outdoors film was used, hence the shaky picture on outdoor scenes on Only Fools, Corrie and just about everything else? It is hard to believe not many people notice it!

Sorry, I am young and naive and eager to learn about telly!

Thanks for that Si! What about that thing where up 'til early 90's, images tended to be shot on VT indoors, and outdoors film was used, hence the shaky picture on outdoor scenes on Only Fools, Corrie and just about everything else? It is hard to believe not many people notice it!

Sorry, I am young and naive and eager to learn about telly!

>Thanks for that Si! What about that thing where up 'til early 90's, images tended to be shot on VT indoors, and outdoors film was used, hence the shaky picture on outdoor scenes on Only Fools, Corrie and just about everything else? It is hard to believe not many people notice it!
>
>Sorry, I am young and naive and eager to learn about telly!

A brilliant example is the sequence leading up to Tom Baker's regeneration in "Dr Who", "Logopolis" (1981). You've got him clambering along the set (actually the 1981 "Top of the Pops" set!) away from a chromakeyed cardboard cut out of the Master, and other studio sequences e.g. their fight on the gantry, with a chromakeyed photo of the ground and trees behind it; then location (film) footage of security guards climbing up the ladder of the real radio telescope... Visually, a dog's breakfast - but it's great!! Quite a nightmare to plan out, I would think, filming loads of it in advance on film, then rushing all the studio work to get it in by 10pm...

Anyway, I mentioned how early TV studio cameras were bloody enormous, because of their colour tubes etc. Likewise early video cameras were bulky, and the recorder was a separate unit connected to the camera by umbilical wires.

Back in the early days of TV, studio cameras were almost never taken outside (except in sport, for rare outside broadcasts) so any dramas/sitcoms requiring "exterior scenes" would need an outdoors set built in studio, and lit to resemble daylight - sometimes quite successfully, often not. ABC's "Lena Oh My Lena" (1960), BBC's "Til Death Us Do Part", or even the first episode of "Dr Who" in 1963, where Ian and Barbara drive to the junkyard and park their car outside - all in a studio set.

News/current affairs obviously couldn't - and in those days wouldn't, Carlton take note - fake outdoor scenes, and so had to find a way of filming outdoors. By the early 60's, a new range of lightweight film cameras (Arriflex) were on the market, and steadily filtered through into TV. They enabled crews to go out and film in real locations eg. any 60's episode of "World In Action".

This eventually filtered through to drama and comedy, where any "exterior" scene would be filmed in a real location, requiring just interior sets to be built in studio. Some dramas, such as the BBC's "Wednesday Play" (monochrome precursor to "Play for Today") might be completely on film, eg. "Cathy Come Home", or a combination of studio VT and location film eg. Dennis Potter's "Where the Buffalo Roam" starring Hywel Bennett. Of course, some writers would be budget-bound to set everything indoors - I've hardly seen any episodes of "The Rag Trade", but I recall it being entirely set inside the factory, and therefore all on live studio VT - no filmed locations required. It was cheaper that way.

In the 70's, some producers/directors chose to take advantage of the cheaper and more disposable VT format for location work, despite its bulkiness. With tape you can rehearse/record as many times as you like, recording over anything you don't like, whereas film exposure is a once-only medium and everyone is duty bound to get it right first time! Tom Baker's first ever "Dr Who", "Robot" (1974) was recorded entirely on VT, as was his 1976 serial "The Seeds of Doom" - allowing a better blend between location and studio work. "Boys from the Blackstuff" was all VT.

These days film is far too expensive for conventional TV eg. sitcoms, and with cameras being smaller, cheaper, yet still technologically complex, it's easier and better to use them. The evolution of TV culture now is such that "drama" is always plush, expensive, often based on classic novels and therefore requiring total, high-grade film. I don't think I've seen a drama made on VT for ages.

Anyway, lecture over. Next week, the development of commercial television in the UK. And make sure you've read chapters 1-5 of "On Camera" by Harris Watts....