8mm Forum: Basil Brush Shows At Risk

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Topic: Basil Brush Shows At Risk

Maurice Leakey
Film God

Posts: 5895
From: Bristol. United Kingdom
Registered: Oct 2007

posted November 29, 2016 03:07 PM

The British Film Institute have announced that 100,000 British television episodes held by them on obsolete video formats are to be digitised to preserve them for the future. They say that their 2" and 1" video tapes whilst held in perfect storage conditions may not be playable for long as tape players are no longer available. Such old favourites as Basil Brush and Tiswas will be involved.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38131911

So much for the benefits of video tape, as new formats have been introduced over the years and now we are in a digital age what hope is there for the future?

I have many vintage American TV shows on 16mm film in my collection. Shows such as "Sergeant Bilko" and "I Love Lucy" which I hope will have a longer life than the shows on video tape at the BFI.

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Maurice

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Tom Photiou
Film God

Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003

posted November 29, 2016 03:57 PM

i would love a few bilko episodes on 16, great series.

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Tom Spielman
Master Film Handler

Posts: 339
From: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Registered: Apr 2016

posted November 29, 2016 04:14 PM

The future is a mixed bag. It's a shame that players may not exists to play them on their original medium. On the other hand, once they are digitized, multiple copies can be kept in multiple places and they can be played over and over without worrying about damaging the tape.

Digital mediums don't last forever and the content will have to be moved from time to time. However that's a much less expensive process than digitizing or preserving tape. Somebody will just have to care enough to make sure that it happens. That will be the biggest problem.

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Dave Groves
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 508
From: Southend on Sea, Essex, UK
Registered: Feb 2015

posted November 30, 2016 06:50 AM

I suspect that over time, as the digital march ahead continues, an awful lot of stuff will be lost forever due to the sheer cost and time involved of making it available. Probably the most popular films etc. will have first consideration and then it will be a case of prioritising the rest.

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Dave

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Robert Tucker
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 688
From: Essex, UK
Registered: May 2005

posted November 30, 2016 12:43 PM

I think the news article is a little condescending. As I have worked with the BBC archives for many years. Before the BBC gave a donation of their quad 2 inch tapes to the BFI. They made Umatic copies from the original quad machines.

Currently the BBC are going thorough a digital conversion and have been for the last couple of years. So all is not lost with classic tv programs like Basil Brush.

Unfortunately with the exception of Thames Television archive. Most commercial TV channels archives, i.e LWT for just an example are in very poor condition that are archived on 2 inch quad tape. Mainly because they were never looked after in the first place in there archive. Hence why a lot of archive commercial TV shows are not repeated or are incomplete.

[ December 01, 2016, 05:42 PM: Message edited by: Robert Tucker ]

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