Have You Ever Seen a Home Kinescope Kit??

[Richard Bignell]

I've heard a rumour in the past that at some point a home Kinescope kit was made available for 8mm, which would allow the filmmaker to photograph television programmes without getting any of the travelling black scan lines ruining the picture. However, I've never found any concrete proof of the existence of such a kit.

Then some time ago, I found the following on a website indicating that it may not have been for 8mm, but rather 16mm: "In the 1950s a home kinescope kit was introduced in Britain, allowing enthusiasts to make 16mm recordings of television programmes. The major drawback, apart from the short duration of a 16mm film magazine, was that a large opaque frame had to be placed in front of the TV set in order to block out any stray reflections - making it impossible to watch the set normally while filming. It is not known if any recordings made using this equipment still exist."

Does anyone know anything about the existence of such Kinescope kits?

Richard

[Ed Gordon]

There is an article on Wikipedia that covers the history of Kinescope. No mention of 8mm.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Kinetoscope.

Kinescope /ˈkɪnɪskoʊp/, shortened to kine /ˈkɪni/, also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 1940s for the preservation, re-broadcasting, and sale of television programs before the introduction of quadruplex videotape, which from 1956 eventually superseded the use of kinescopes for all of these purposes. Kinescopes were the only practical way to preserve live television broadcasts prior to videotape.

Typically, the term can refer to the process itself, the equipment used for the procedure (a movie camera mounted in front of a video monitor, and synchronized to the monitor's scanning rate), or a film made using the process. Film recorders are similar, but record source material from a computer system instead of a television broadcast. A telecine is the inverse device, used to show film directly on television.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinescope

[Richard Bignell]

There is an article on Wikipedia that covers the history of Kinescope. No mention of 8mm.



Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinescope

Yes, that's referring to the professional set-up, as used by television companies rather than an amateur version for use by the general public to film from their television screens at home - something that was always fraught with issues anyway, if anyone has ever tried it!

[Ed Gordon]

Yes, that's referring to the professional set-up, as used by television companies rather than an amateur version for use by the general public to film from their television screens at home - something that was always fraught with issues anyway, if anyone has ever tried it!

It will be interesting to see something on an amateur version of Kinescope. I would not think there was ever a market for such a niche device. I recall shooting 8mm film of color television back in the day. Those rolling black bars were hard to ignore!

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Sony created such a device for Super8. But it was only used professionally for educational purposes in the 70s when S8-projectors have been widely available in schools/universities and video-recorders/-players still have been rare and very expensive. Retro8 should have one of the last working devices.

Never heard of such a thing for amateurs, even though some S8-cameras had 25fps for 50Hz-countries or 15, 20 or 30fps for 60Hz-countries. (But in these cases, I guess that the camera was supposed to be used instead of a video camera with the film later getting transferred to video.)

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Not sure whether this was supposed to be an amateur camera or not:
https://www.super8.tv/de/tech-archiv...-camera-8-k-2/

[Ed Gordon]

Sony created such a device for Super8. But it was only used professionally for educational purposes in the 70s when S8-projectors have been widely available in schools/universities and video-recorders/-players still have been rare and very expensive. Retro8 should have one of the last working devices.

Never heard of such a thing for amateurs, even though some S8-cameras had 25fps for 50Hz-countries or 15, 20 or 30fps for 60Hz-countries. (But in these cases, I guess that the camera was supposed to be used instead of a video camera with the film later getting transferred to video.)

Joerg, the magic word was "Sony". This must be it:

Single 8 by Sony

Rediscovered in Japan
Jürgen Lossau

Photos: Tak Kohyama

The camera resembles a Fujica Single 8 ZXM 300 with Mickey Mouse ears. Nevertheless, it is a real Sony. It is the only remaining sound-equipped small format cine camera intended to capture television or video images from a monitor. It will work without sound, too. There were only three of these devices made with 90 meter capacity. And the last existing unit is now in the hands of Tak Kohyama. It has been used by his company, retro8, to capture film from video.

Yoshio Ozaki – formerly a gifted research and development scientist at Sony – kept the somewhat unconventional looking camera at home for a long time. It’s one of his darlings. The Sony FR-P5 Kinescope Recorder associated with the camera once stood in the Sony PCL labs in Tokyo and Osaka. A third unit was built, in case a substitute was ever needed. Today this unit – previously considered to be the “spare parts donator” – is the only one remaining, and it will be put back to work. Tak Kohyama at retro8 in Japan wants to use it to satisfy a growing need, “There are more and more cameramen who do not dare to shoot on film anymore, because they are unfamiliar with the system and the equipment. However, they desire a film look for certain documentaries and music videos.” They’ve got it backwards…

The cameras entered service at the Sony PCL labs in 1977 to copy school telecasts and continuing education programs. Many schools still didn’t have video recorders, so it was reasonable to capture the broadcasts with sound on Single 8. The national Japanese television network NHK had a second channel with school and continuing education broadcasts alongside its main programming. It was not always possible for the desired audience to be in front of the television when the programs were broadcast, so film copies were a good solution. “They could have shot the telecasts on 16mm as well,” says Kohyama, “But that would have been far more expensive.” The so-called Kinesco scanning system synchronizes with the monitor signal. The film is exposed at 18 frames per second, and the TV image uses the Japanese NTSC standard at 30 fps. A jitter-free image is produced by precisely synchronizing the film recorder.

Sony used a converted Fujica Single 8 ZXM 300 Sound as the camera. The lens and shutter were replaced. Exposure and sound were adjusted exclusively by hand, and the connected controller monitored the signals. A photo sensor was installed inside the camera to count the perforation holes. This enabled the speed to be held at precisely 18 fps. “We even have 120 m of frozen film stock with soundtrack, just as it was once used with this camera,” Kohyama cheerfully remarks.

Source: https://www.super8.tv/en/its-a-sony-...gle-8-by-sony/