Dialing for Dollars
not a dog
Is the process any different now from how it used to work back in 1971
when UHF channels would have Dialing for Dollars at 3:00 a.m. and play
obscure Jeanette MacDonald movies?
Jim Ellwanger
not a dog <nota...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> How does a film get broadcast on TV?
The local TV station or network pays the distributor for the rights to
broadcast it. In most cases, they pay for an entire package of films,
which generally includes a couple of good movies and a whole bunch of
mediocre ones.
> Is the process any different now from how it used to work back in 1971
> when UHF channels would have Dialing for Dollars at 3:00 a.m. and play
> obscure Jeanette MacDonald movies?
Not really.
--
Jim Ellwanger <trai...@mindspring.com>
<http://trainman1.home.mindspring.com>
(Quotes temporarily unavailable due to new operating system)
Slartibartfast
> How does a film get broadcast on TV?
>
Didn't you watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?
The actors are chopeed up into little pieces and sent through the air.
Then, they are reassembled in miniature, inside the TV.
Kids don't know any science these days.
Slartibartfast
not a dog
>
> In article <3C5EC6...@hotmail.com>,
> not a dog <nota...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > How does a film get broadcast on TV?
>
> The local TV station or network pays the distributor for the rights to
> broadcast it. In most cases, they pay for an entire package of films,
> which generally includes a couple of good movies and a whole bunch of
> mediocre ones.
I shoulda been more specific. I'm wondering what the physical process is. How does
film get onto video? Who does it? I assume that the distributor or somebody sends a
videotape which gets played by the station, but I dunno, is that what really happens?
Are there, for example, tape format issues which make it easier for the distributor to
send film and have the stations do the conversion?
Did the flick come already chopped up for commercials and swears cut out and all that,
or did some poor schmuck at Channel 81 have to go through and redub it? Did that mean
that every channel had to have video/film editing machines?
> > Is the process any different now from how it used to work back in 1971
> > when UHF channels would have Dialing for Dollars at 3:00 a.m. and play
> > obscure Jeanette MacDonald movies?
>
> Not really.
Likewise, back in the olden days did every station have to decide whether it was going
to squeeze 20 minutes or 30 minutes of commercials per hour into the Late Late Movie,
or did they get to choose the hacked-up version or the super-hacked-up version from the
distributor.
Nowadays, I assume it's not such a big deal for a TV station to do its own editing, but
was this something that was possible 30 or 40 years ago? And did they have to somehow
convert film to video, or was there someone who did it all for them?
not a dog
Nope, that's how little boys and giant candy bars get on TV.
Damn kids don't read watch TV carefully enough these days.
Greg Goss
>Nope, that's how little boys and giant candy bars get on TV.
>
>Damn kids don't read watch TV carefully enough these days.
Never, ever, use plutonium fuel elements as remote control batteries.
--
"If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates" (Jim Hightower)
Jim Ellwanger
not a dog <nota...@notmail.com> wrote:
> Jim Ellwanger wrote:
> >
> > In article <3C5EC6...@hotmail.com>,
> > not a dog <nota...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > How does a film get broadcast on TV?
> >
> > The local TV station or network pays the distributor for the rights to
> > broadcast it. In most cases, they pay for an entire package of films,
> > which generally includes a couple of good movies and a whole bunch of
> > mediocre ones.
>
> I shoulda been more specific. I'm wondering what the physical
> process is. How does film get onto video? Who does it? I assume
> that the distributor or somebody sends a videotape which gets played
> by the station, but I dunno, is that what really happens? Are there,
> for example, tape format issues which make it easier for the
> distributor to send film and have the stations do the conversion?
Yeah, after I posted the above message, I realized, "Hmm, I'll bet what
he really wanted to know was..."
Usually, it's the distributor who puts a copy of the film through a
telecine machine, which, basically, converts it from 24
frame-per-second film to 30 frame-per-second video by capturing every
fourth frame twice:
FILM FRAME 123445678890122345667890012344
VIDEO FRAME 123456789012345678901234567890
By the way, for films that were once major theatrical releases, the
distributor is almost always a division of the studio that did the
theatrical release (e.g., Warner Bros. movies are distributed to
television by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution).
These days, most films get distributed to local stations via satellite.
The distributor will have bought a couple of hours of satellite time,
and they tell the local stations that have bought the movie what time
it's feeding and what satellite to look at, and the local station
records it on their tape format of choice and then plays it back
whenever they've scheduled the movie. See below for what happened in
the olden days...
> Did the flick come already chopped up for commercials and swears cut
> out and all that, or did some poor schmuck at Channel 81 have to go
> through and redub it? Did that mean that every channel had to have
> video/film editing machines?
These days, when the local stations get it, it's almost always the
"edited for television" version, chopped up for commercials. Depending
on how the distributor worked things out with the local stations, there
may be national commercials already inserted with black space set aside
for the local commercials. (That's true of all syndicated programming,
by the way...it can either be "barter," in which the local station gets
it for free in exchange for there already being commercials included,
or "cash," in which the local station has to pay for it but gets to put
in all its own commercials. Most commonly, though, it's "cash plus
barter," which is a hybrid.)
The "edited for television" version is almost always timed out so that,
if the local station inserts the amount of commercials they're supposed
to insert, it will end at an exact time (usually exactly 2 hours).
These days, with advanced technology, the distributor can speed up or
slow down the movie while they're doing the editing, while the audio
pitch doesn't change at all. TBS and TNT, I've seen, actually put a
"time compressed" graphic at the beginning when they're showing a movie
that's had that done to it. Other networks just use the standard
disclaimer that's now required by the Motion Picture Association of
America that says something like "has been edited to run in the time
allotted." Some larger local stations have this equipment, and have
used it to cram more commercials into their programming, but if the
distributor (or network) finds out, they may be in big trouble.
Anyway, only very small local stations don't have some sort of
videotape editing equipment these days, but they usually don't need to
use it when they show movies.
> Likewise, back in the olden days did every station have to decide
> whether it was going to squeeze 20 minutes or 30 minutes of
> commercials per hour into the Late Late Movie, or did they get to
> choose the hacked-up version or the super-hacked-up version from the
> distributor.
>
> Nowadays, I assume it's not such a big deal for a TV station to do
> its own editing, but was this something that was possible 30 or 40
> years ago? And did they have to somehow convert film to video, or
> was there someone who did it all for them?
Before satellites, the distributors would ship videotapes of the movies
to individual stations. Since the cost of duplicating and shipping all
those tapes could add up, they might only make one tape for every five
or six stations that had bought the movie. Each tape would then be
sent from station to station until all the stations had shown it. This
was called "bicycling" the tapes.
And before videotape, the distributors would send prints of the film
around, usually pre-edited with commercial breaks placed already.
Local stations had their own telecine machines back in those days, and
most if not all would have film editing equipment. Some might splice
their commercials into the film of the movie, while others might use a
second telecine for the commercials.
I assume some distributors would make different length versions of the
film available, but keep in mind that, back in the old days, there were
restrictions on the amount of commercials that could be run in any
given hour, both through the FCC and through the National Association
of Broadcasters' code.
Of course, way back when, it usually didn't matter if the Late Late
Movie ran a little bit overtime, because the station would be signing
off the air at the end of it.
(The reason I know a lot of this is because I interned at three
different TV stations between 1992 and 1996, and I currently work as a
closed-captioner and occasionally have to caption the various "edited
for television" versions of movies.)
--
Jim Ellwanger <trai...@mindspring.com>
<http://trainman1.home.mindspring.com/> is worth a thousand words.
"Who cares what the network thinks...?"
John Hatpin
>On Mon, 04 Feb 2002 17:00:19 -0500, not a dog <nota...@notmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>
>>> > How does a film get broadcast on TV?
>>>
>>I shoulda been more specific. I'm wondering what the physical process is. How does
>>film get onto video? Who does it?
>
>
>Al Yellon would know more about how it's done these days ... I haven't worked in
>TV since the 70s; he works in the biz now. But I'll try ...
>
>A telecine (pron.: TELL-uh-seen) system actually projects films and slides
>directly onto the lens of a video camera. In the old days, this was generally
>done in real time, by each individual station. Nowadays, I'd guess the films are
>provided to the stations on videotape.
Is this the same format as domestic VHS? If not, what format is used?
--
John Hatpin
Greg Goss
>>A telecine (pron.: TELL-uh-seen) system actually projects films and slides
>>directly onto the lens of a video camera. In the old days, this was generally
>>done in real time, by each individual station. Nowadays, I'd guess the films are
>>provided to the stations on videotape.
>
>Is this the same format as domestic VHS? If not, what format is used?
Probably either Beta or U-Matic. I don't think that broadcasters have
ever liked VHS.
(Insert stereotyped mutter from an ex-Beta owner here. You know the
script)
Michael
>
> >radioGO-SPA...@yahoo.com wrote:
> >
> >>Nowadays, I'd guess the films are provided to the stations on videotape.
> >
> <ag...@brookview.kaDELETETHISBITroo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Is this the same format as domestic VHS? If not, what format is used?
>
> old Beta consumer units. The heads are configured differently. Again, I'd have
> to defer to someone who currently works in the industry, for an explanation of
> the head format.
>
> -- Geno
It is my understanding that most stations are upgrading to a digital
format. Even our local cable affiliate (which is not known for award
winning commercials) has gone to digital for all cable production.
I think tape is pretty much on the way out.
--
Michael
I have three e-mail addresses :
mitc...@image-link.com mitc...@att.net mitc...@attbi.com
If one doesn't work, well...
John Hatpin
>>radioGO-SPA...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>>>Nowadays, I'd guess the films are provided to the stations on videotape.
>>
>On Tue, 05 Feb 2002 01:44:46 +0000, John Hatpin
><ag...@brookview.kaDELETETHISBITroo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Is this the same format as domestic VHS? If not, what format is used?
>
>Many TV stations use the old Betamax tapes, but they are non-compatible with the
>old Beta consumer units. The heads are configured differently. Again, I'd have
>to defer to someone who currently works in the industry, for an explanation of
>the head format.
Thanks (and to Greg too).
I'll admit to being surprised when I found out how old the video
technique is. A good example is the series "Not Only ... But Also",
from the 1960s. The one with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, among
others.
All these were shot on videotape, except for filmed (externally shot)
inserts. The Good Old BBC had a policy of wiping tapes for economic
reasons, so most of the recordings are lost. Criminal.
Joe McGrath (the producer) actually used to run a video camera at a
monitor in an attempt to salvage some of the recordings, and Peter
Cook offered to buy new tapes for the BBC if they would just not wipe
the series. He was turned down by stupid people, so all we're left
with is the first and last eposides of some series (policy for a
while), the filmed inserts, and a few audio tracks.
It makes me seethe with misdirected anger.
--
John "arrggghh!!!!" Hatpin
Al Yellon
news:ferv5uo4srgt8v1h4...@4ax.com...
> >radioGO-SPA...@yahoo.com wrote:
> >
> >>Nowadays, I'd guess the films are provided to the stations on videotape.
> >
> <ag...@brookview.kaDELETETHISBITroo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
with the
> old Beta consumer units. The heads are configured differently. Again, I'd
have
> to defer to someone who currently works in the industry, for an
explanation of
> the head format.
I'm not a technician, but I can confirm that the Beta tapes that are
currently used (our station uses them) are not compatible with the old
consumer Beta units. The only similarity is that they are both made by Sony.
Until our station's conversion to digital a year ago, we were still using
the old telecine (film chain) method of converting films. The film was
projected on a mirror, then recorded on videotape using a camera. This
obviated the problem you get because TV is 30 frames a second and film is 24
(that's why you see "rolling" sometimes when you see a TV in a movie -- the
frame speed is incompatible).
Now, everything is done on file servers.
Opus the Penguin
> Until our station's conversion to digital a year ago, we were still
> using the old telecine (film chain) method of converting films. The
> film was projected on a mirror, then recorded on videotape using a
> camera. This obviated the problem you get because TV is 30 frames a
> second and film is 24 (that's why you see "rolling" sometimes when
> you see a TV in a movie -- the frame speed is incompatible).
I'm confused. How does taping something being projected at 30 frames a
second get rid of the rolling? And why was the mirror necessary?
Wouldn't it reflect the projector as well?
--
Opus the Penguin
John Hatpin
>On Tue, 05 Feb 2002 17:00:50 +0000, John Hatpin
><ag...@brookview.kaDELETETHISBITroo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>The Good Old BBC had a policy of wiping tapes for economic
>>reasons, so most of the recordings are lost. Criminal.
>
>Here in the States, NBC did the same thing, in order to make room in some damn
>warehouse. We've lost, IIRC, the first few Super Bowls ... the first couple of
>years of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson ... most of the game shows, variety
>shows, and soaps of the 50s and 60s ... and lots of irreplaceable news footage.
But surely, if Johnny C had said to NBC: "Look, I really want to
these tapes to be kept .. so how about I replace them out of my own
pocket, but you get to keep them, and the copyright stays the same?"
those tapes would be alive today.
The BBC staff should be murdered slowly, one by one, for what they
did to some 1960s tapes. It was unforgivable and stupid.
--
John "slowly, I turned ..." Hatpin
Greg Goss
>Here in the States, NBC did the same thing, in order to make room in some damn
>warehouse. We've lost, IIRC, the first few Super Bowls ... the first couple of
>years of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson ... most of the game shows, variety
>shows, and soaps of the 50s and 60s ... and lots of irreplaceable news footage.
I heard a report about the last two technicians who understood the
particular model of videotape unit at the CBC. They had these two
guys working full-time on transferring old shows by babying obsolete
and worn-out equipment, hoping that the remaining equipment would
survive until the retirement date of the last two guys able to run it.
Tha article said that there was a vast amount of tape in the
libraries, but only a limited amount of it could be transferred in the
year or two till these guys retired.
Gary S. Callison
: The BBC staff should be murdered slowly, one by one, for what they
: did to some 1960s tapes. It was unforgivable and stupid.
A staggeringly large amount of the 1960s Dr. Who episodes were lost.
SONS OF BITCHES.
--
Huey
not a dog
<snip interesting stuff>
> Before satellites, the distributors would ship videotapes of the movies
> to individual stations. Since the cost of duplicating and shipping all
> those tapes could add up, they might only make one tape for every five
> or six stations that had bought the movie. Each tape would then be
> sent from station to station until all the stations had shown it. This
> was called "bicycling" the tapes.
>
> And before videotape, the distributors would send prints of the film
> around, usually pre-edited with commercial breaks placed already.
> Local stations had their own telecine machines back in those days, and
> most if not all would have film editing equipment. Some might splice
> their commercials into the film of the movie, while others might use a
> second telecine for the commercials.
It sounds like problems could arise in the old days, where, say a tape first went
to somewhere like Boston or Salt Lake City with a powerful decency group. As a
result, if the conservative station cut out things like people eating sandwiches
in church or showing skirts above the knee, would the next station get a mangled
tape?
Or, say station #1 just wanted to squeeze some more commercial time into the tape.
Was there any obligation that they put the missing stuff back before they passed
it on to station #2?
Also, did the studios worry about copyright issues much back in the pre-VCR
days when old movies usually only showed up on TV, film festivals, and the
screening rooms of scary faded heroines?
John Hatpin
1928) and father (b. 1925) were talking about the films they used to
go to see when they were kids in the 1930s.
I asked them about distribution of the reels (in those days, copies
were expensive, and passed from local cinema to local cinema after
release), and they stopped me short with a factiod they were positive
was true, to whit:
In those days, it was important to see a film when it first came out,
because each cinema after the first showing would trim scenes out of
the film, in order to try to cram as many films into the standard
two-hour slot as possible. By the time a film was four weeks old, it
could have been cut by one-third.
Presumably, the cutting was done by regional cinemas on basic
equipment, with little regard for overall structure and content.
Was this a UKan phenomenon, or was it routine for cinemas (LP "movie
theaters") to chop films up into little bits in order to be able to
turn the audience round that much quicker?
Does any of this still go on?
--
John Hatpin
Bob Ward
<ag...@brookview.kaDELETETHISBITroo.co.uk> wrote:
>-:In those days, it was important to see a film when it first came out,
>-:because each cinema after the first showing would trim scenes out of
>-:the film, in order to try to cram as many films into the standard
>-:two-hour slot as possible. By the time a film was four weeks old, it
>-:could have been cut by one-third.
What "standard two-hour slot" would that be, John? I've never heard
of anything like that happening in the US.
--
This space left intentionally blank
Jim Ellwanger
<nota...@notmail.com> wrote:
> It sounds like problems could arise in the old days, where, say a
> tape first went to somewhere like Boston or Salt Lake City with a
> powerful decency group. As a result, if the conservative station cut
> out things like people eating sandwiches in church or showing skirts
> above the knee, would the next station get a mangled tape?
That isn't a problem with videotape; since it's extremely hard to
physically cut and splice it, any edits on the local station level
would be done electronically and would result in creating a second,
edited copy of the tape.
With film, though, it's possible the next station down the line could
get a beat-up print, maybe even with scenes removed, although they
could then complain to the distributor that the station up the line
from them was editing the films and/or handling them poorly.
I think in most cases, stations that thought they might have local
content issues would either pass on buying a film in the first place,
or would try to get a more stringently edited version from the
distributor.
> Or, say station #1 just wanted to squeeze some more commercial time
> into the tape. Was there any obligation that they put the missing
> stuff back before they passed it on to station #2?
Yes, they would have been obligated to deliver the print in as pristine
a condition as possible to the next station down the line. (See
above.)
I collect TV Guides, and the "bicycling" concept explains why, up until
the early 1980s, in TV Guide issues that list channels from more than
one city, there are plenty of cases of two or more stations showing
different episodes of the same syndicated show on the same day (e.g.,
having an almost completely different list of celebrities on "Hollywood
Squares").
> Also, did the studios worry about copyright issues much back in the pre-VCR
> days when old movies usually only showed up on TV, film festivals, and the
> screening rooms of scary faded heroines?
Well, I assume there weren't too many people lugging home movie
cameras into movie theaters to make bootleg copies of movies...
--
Jim Ellwanger <trai...@mindspring.com>
<http://trainman1.home.mindspring.com/> will never give up.
"Everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty."
John Hatpin
As I understand it, back in the 1930s and 1940s, cinemas were very
different places to the ones we see today. No-one had TV, so "going
to the pictures" was a major event in most people's lives, and they
often used to go several times a week. I'd imagine that's a
well-known fact.
Cinema owners in those days were independent. There were no chains.
They had abolute discretion in what they showed. New films would be
passed from cinema to cinema every couple of days, and the canister
would get lighter. Here's why:
A typical "showing" would consist of a short, usually educational,
film, followed by the newsreels, and then the Main Feature. The
concept of a "B Movie" came a little later.
I was a bit too glib in describing a "standard two-hour slot", because
different cinemas programmed differently. However, each cinema would
have a "standard slot" itself, so you knew that, say, the Carlton
would have showings at 5pm and 7pm, and the Regal at 5:30pm and
7:15pm, and so on, regardless of the length of the "Main Feature".
This went on all day and all evening.
It was important for cinemas to have consistent showing times, because
people then didn't normally buy daily newspapers which listed
showings.
What I learned the other day was that it was the cinema owners who
were allowed to edit films down, in order to turn over more customers
by keeping to a shorter overall period.
Apparently, it was very common practice, and people would flock to the
early releases of films not through impatience, but through a desire
to see the whole film before scenes started getting deleted.
Also, breakdowns were commonplace. A film would snap, or there would
be a jam in the projector and a few frames would be burnt out by the
heat of the lamp. These were (I gather) routinely covered up by a
quick removal of entire scenes, in order for the next house to be
unaware of the editing.
Even if a film wasn't subject to physical failure, it would be cut
more and more by the cinemas until, in some cases, the whole film made
little sense due to hasty deletion of crucial scenes.
I'm just quoting what my parents told me, but they're intelligent,
good people, so I tend to believe them.
Does that answer your question?
--
John Hatpin
Kim
"Jim Ellwanger" <trai...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:060220022306529962%trai...@mindspring.com...
>
> I collect TV Guides, and the "bicycling" concept explains why, up until
> the early 1980s, in TV Guide issues that list channels from more than
> one city, there are plenty of cases of two or more stations showing
> different episodes of the same syndicated show on the same day (e.g.,
> having an almost completely different list of celebrities on "Hollywood
> Squares").
Well, I find it totally fascinating that you collect TV Guides! What is the
oldest one you have - and are any of them "valuable"? In your collection who
appears on the covers the most? And who appears most on the official list of
TV Guide covers? I've saved a couple of TV Guides myself - the ones that had
Stephen King's mini series interviews/forwards.
And to the group: What do you have a collection of?
Kim ~ I collect clown figurines (thread merge) and recently have started a
really great collection of dustbunnies that I hide under the furniture for
safe keeping.
Mirhanda Sarko
> And to the group: What do you have a collection of?
>
I have an odd collection also. I collect those old "coffee table ashtrays"
from the 50s and 60s. The more garish and ugly, the better!
Mirhanda
--
To email me, please use azziza at bellsouth dot net
You live on the edge?
Well, I fell off some time ago.
Hugh Jass
Sarko) wrote:
>"Kim" <ki...@NOSPAMfamily-net.org> wrote in alt.fan.cecil-adams:
>
>> And to the group: What do you have a collection of?
>>
>
>I have an odd collection also. I collect those old "coffee table ashtrays"
>from the 50s and 60s. The more garish and ugly, the better!
>
>Mirhanda
I collect mariachi frogs. Real dead frogs that have been stuffed and
shellacked and equipped with little wooden carvings of various musical
instruments. They sell them in the tourista shops just across the
Mexican border.
Hugh
Nick Spalding
<TJS88.3503$9%6.86...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>:
> And to the group: What do you have a collection of?
The only thing I can think of around the house is empty wine bottles
waiting to be taken to the bottle bank. A fair few full ones awaiting
emptying too of course.
--
Nick Spalding
Sean Houtman
>And to the group: What do you have a collection of?
I have a complete collection of Mad magazines going back to about 1973 or 1974,
some of the specials and superspecials are tossed in there as well.
I also have a small herbarium, containing about 2000 specimens.
And some rocks, about 200 pounds of pretty rocks.
Sean
--
Visit my photolog page; http://members.aol.com/grommit383/myhomepage
Last updated 01-16-02 with 46 pictures of petroglyphs added.
rob...@bestweb.net
>Well, I find it totally fascinating that you collect TV Guides!
>What is the oldest one you have - and are any of them "valuable"?
>In your collection who appears on the covers the most? And who
>appears most on the official list of TV Guide covers? I've saved a
>couple of TV Guides myself - the ones that had Stephen King's mini
>series interviews/forwards.
In the Worldwide TV-FM DX Ass'n we used to trade them from different cities.
Helped ID receptions we'd logged.
>And to the group: What do you have a collection of?
Reference works: maps and football rule books (the latter mostly ca. 1980).
Ca. 1980 I was also collecting political party platforms; I had only to go
down Laramie Ave. in Cicero from where I was living to collect the 12-pt.
program of the National Socialist White People's Party at their HQ.
Check in rec.pyrotechnics, where there are people who collect firecracker
labels.
Robert
Jim Ellwanger
Kim <ki...@NOSPAMfamily-net.org> wrote:
> Well, I find it totally fascinating that you collect TV Guides! What is the
> oldest one you have - and are any of them "valuable"? In your collection who
> appears on the covers the most? And who appears most on the official list of
> TV Guide covers? I've saved a couple of TV Guides myself - the ones that had
> Stephen King's mini series interviews/forwards.
There are two different types of TV Guide collectors: people who
collect them because of the covers and/or articles, and people who
collect them because of the listings. I'm in the second category. My
parents had a subscription, and at a very early age, I realized that,
since only the channels in our area were listed, and it said "Tampa Bay
Edition" at the bottom of each page in the black-and-white listings
section, then there must be different editions in different parts of
the country where they had different channels listed in their
black-and-white pages. (In 1981 or 1982, they added the Ft. Myers
channels to that edition and renamed it the "Tampa-Sarasota Edition."
Truly an exciting moment in my life.)
However, it wasn't until I was about to turn 15, on a family trip to
Colorado in the summer of 1989, that I started my collection by buying
a copy of the Denver edition. The collection grew slowly until the
Internet came along, and I was able to make trades with people who
lived in other parts of the country, although I prefer buying them
myself, which involves a lot of trying to find supermarkets and/or
drugstores while on a long-distance drive. (I've even made a couple of
long trips solely for the purpose of buying various local editions,
such as the time I drove from Pittsburgh to Erie to Jamestown to
Buffalo to Rochester and back to Pittsburgh, in one 15-hour day.)
I've also occasionally bought older TV Guides on eBay, especially ones
that are local editions that aren't published anymore, either because
the regions have been split apart or combined. My oldest issue is the
July 23, 1955, issue, which has on the cover Janet Leigh and Jack Webb,
promoting the upcoming movie "Pete Kelly's Blues." (TV Guide started
as a national magazine in 1953.)
It is the Lake Ontario edition, which contains the listings for
Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Watertown, and the Toronto area. That's
12 stations, including two sharing one channel in Rochester. These
days, that area is covered by six local editions, and they all list a
lot more than 12 stations if you include the cable channels.
I believe the person most often featured on TV Guide's cover has been
Lucille Ball.
GrapeApe
>> when UHF channels would have Dialing for Dollars at 3:00 a.m. and play
>> obscure Jeanette MacDonald movies?
>
>Not really.
I'd argue that it is different... Local Affiliates used to keep their own 16mm
film libraries for the late late show, and actually project the films LIVE as
they were broadcasting them. You would see the projector eat a film on
occasion.
These days, most films are broadcast from videotape over cable networks.
GrapeApe
>second get rid of the rolling? And why was the mirror necessary?
>Wouldn't it reflect the projector as well?
Some video cameras used for the process were non light-sensitive enough that it
paid to get the initial image as bright as possible, so film to tape machines
might involve such a mirror, but mainly to allow the device to fit in a smaller
room.
WSM-TV used to project films on a white screen in a small room in real time for
the movies they aired for Creature Feature, etc...
As far as preventing the
'rolling' , when things are really well put from film to tape, there is
actually a duplication of some frames to keep the timing straight. This can
also be faked on the cheap on some film to tape transfer machines with a
shutter synced to the 30 (29.97 actually) frame per second video camera,
although the projector was still pulling the film through 24 frames of film per
second, the shutter is breaking it up into 30 flashes, so the black bar flicker
and rolling doesn't show.
Alan Hamilton
>As far as preventing the
>'rolling' , when things are really well put from film to tape, there is
>actually a duplication of some frames to keep the timing straight. This can
>also be faked on the cheap on some film to tape transfer machines with a
>shutter synced to the 30 (29.97 actually) frame per second video camera,
>although the projector was still pulling the film through 24 frames of film per
>second, the shutter is breaking it up into 30 flashes, so the black bar flicker
>and rolling doesn't show.
Something I just found out -- for PAL broadcasts (most of Europe)
films are broadcast with each film frame on 2 video frames. Problem
is, PAL is 50Hz, but 24fps would be only 48 video frames. So the film
runs 4% faster, and the soundtrack is chipmonkified by 4% as well.
Although this seems to be accepted as "normal", I can hear the
difference myself -- that's why I investigated it.
--
/
/ * / Alan Hamilton
* * al...@arizonaroads.com
Nick Spalding
It isn't two full video frames it is two half frames interlaced - the
odd numbered lines in one and the even ones in the other. It is to
increase the perceived (or rather not perceived) flicker rate. I
would be surprised if NTSC is not the same.
--
Nick Spalding
Al Yellon
news:j17d6uk08jq7jjfcb...@4ax.com...
> It isn't two full video frames it is two half frames interlaced - the
> odd numbered lines in one and the even ones in the other. It is to
> increase the perceived (or rather not perceived) flicker rate. I
> would be surprised if NTSC is not the same.
If you would like a more detailed description of the process of "telecine",
which is what "film chains" that did this kind of transfer are called, see:
http://www.henninger.com/resourcecenter/questions/telecine/
Alan Hamilton
wrote:
>It isn't two full video frames it is two half frames interlaced - the
>odd numbered lines in one and the even ones in the other. It is to
>increase the perceived (or rather not perceived) flicker rate. I
>would be surprised if NTSC is not the same.
Whoops -- right, forgot about interlacing. But in any case, the 24fps
film is sped up to 25fps for PAL broadcast. For NTSC, the 24 frames
are converted to 30 full video frames and it's shown at the original
rate.
As picky as some videophiles are, I'm surprised nobody makes a stink
about a film being effectively time-compressed by 4%. The speedup of
the video isn't too noticeable, but to someone that's good at hearing
pitch, the chipmonkification is annoying.
Beckett Graham
>"Kim" <ki...@NOSPAMfamily-net.org> wrote in alt.fan.cecil-adams:
>>
Dime store glass. Mismatched silver. Assemblage art. Books. Old
typewriters. Old film projectors.
Beckett
chrisgreville
"Beckett Graham" <missb...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020212205503...@mb-cj.aol.com...
Free CD's from computer mags. Whe have a fair collection of drinks coasters,
but just can not think of anything else to do with the damn things.
Mind you, I did see a lorry (truck) with a decorative pattern in the cab.
Chris " pass that drink" Greville
Mike Muth
On 14-Feb-2002, "chrisgreville" <chrisg...@grevillec.freeserve.co.uk>
wrote:
Clock faces
Use them like frisbees
Spacers
Sting some together and hang them over the garden to scare away birds
Mike
chrisgreville
"Mike Muth" <wuf...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:a4g53...@enews1.newsguy.com...
What sort of spacers?
I have had it suggested that I use them as a way to lighten a dark corner in
the garden by pinning the to the garden fence as reflectors.
Chris " If I used all the free hours offers, AOL would go bankrupt" Greville
Gary S. Callison
: "chrisgreville" <chrisg...@grevillec.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
: > Free CD's from computer mags. Whe have a fair collection of drinks
: > coasters, but just can not think of anything else to do with the
: > damn things. Mind you, I did see a lorry (truck) with a decorative
: > pattern in the cab.
: Clock faces
: Use them like frisbees
: Spacers
: Sting some together and hang them over the garden to scare away birds
- Buy an old land yacht and some construction adhesive: Disc Caddy
- Carefully drill holes in each, and sew them to a suit from the
Salvation Army, and next Halloween you can be "Sonny Discman".
--
Huey
Mike Muth
> "Mike Muth" <wuf...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
> news:a4g53...@enews1.newsguy.com...
> >
> > On 14-Feb-2002, "chrisgreville" <chrisg...@grevillec.freeserve.co.uk>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > "Beckett Graham" <missb...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > > news:20020212205503...@mb-cj.aol.com...
> > > >
> > > > >"Kim" <ki...@NOSPAMfamily-net.org> wrote in alt.fan.cecil-adams:
> > > > >>
> > > > >> And to the group: What do you have a collection of?
> > > >
> > > > Dime store glass. Mismatched silver. Assemblage art. Books. Old
> > > > typewriters. Old film projectors.
> > > > Beckett
> > >
> > > Free CD's from computer mags. Whe have a fair collection of drinks
> coasters,
> > > but just can not think of anything else to do with the damn things.
> > > Mind you, I did see a lorry (truck) with a decorative pattern in the
> cab.
> >
> > Clock faces
> > Use them like frisbees
> > Spacers
> > Sting some together and hang them over the garden to scare away birds
> What sort of spacers?
Basically the kind one would use in a manner similar to someone evening the
legs on a table, or as one might insert a thin layer of something to make two
other layers line up properly.
> I have had it suggested that I use them as a way to lighten a dark corner in
> the garden by pinning the to the garden fence as reflectors.
That would work, too.
Personally, I've done the coaster (an AOL CD), the clock face (FedLog), the
Frisbee, and scarecrow uses.
Mike
David J. Martin
>
> Mike Muth (wuf...@newsguy.com) wrote:
> : "chrisgreville" <chrisg...@grevillec.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> : > Free CD's from computer mags. Whe have a fair collection of drinks
> : > coasters, but just can not think of anything else to do with the
> : > damn things. Mind you, I did see a lorry (truck) with a decorative
> : > pattern in the cab.
> : Clock faces
> : Use them like frisbees
> : Spacers
> : Sting some together and hang them over the garden to scare away birds
>
> - Buy an old land yacht and some construction adhesive: Disc Caddy
And then you'd have an art car. Not original, but what the hey.
http://www.artcars.com/TempArtCars/tempgert.html
They cheated and used magnets. I like the permanancy of the
construction adhesive Huey suggests.
David
Marie Martinek
My husband glues 2 of them together (using spray contact cement)
shiny-side-out, then saws them into decorative shapes. Tiny hole drilled at
the edge, loop of fishing line, lots of shiny Xmas ornaments.
Of course, he's starting to think it's more trouble than it's worth, with
the wear on the plastic sawblade, and sometimes the *sping* as the glue
lets go and/or flings a piece across the basement. And if he wants to cut a
curve (we've got about 4 "crescent moons") he's got to do it by hand.
Marie Martinek
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. USA
mv-ma...@northwestern.edu
Andrew Gore
wrote:
>
>On 14-Feb-2002, "chrisgreville" <chrisg...@grevillec.freeserve.co.uk>
>wrote:
>>
>> Free CD's from computer mags. Whe have a fair collection of drinks coasters,
>> but just can not think of anything else to do with the damn things.
>> Mind you, I did see a lorry (truck) with a decorative pattern in the cab.
>
>Clock faces
>Use them like frisbees
>Spacers
>Sting some together and hang them over the garden to scare away birds
It was inevitable: People have begun collecting old AOL disks
to the point that they are being sold on Ebay. Valuable ones, like
most collectibles, include rare and/or foreign ones. Knew it was gonna
happen. I still have some of the old AOL *floppies* that originally
came out. Why? Cuz they could be "recycled"; blanked out and used
again.
My predictin for future collectibles: Fancy refrigerator
magnets. Those branded phone cards, with 10 minutes time or whatever.
I see them handed out as clever tchotchkes at trade shows.
Lalbert1
<dic...@earthlink.net> writes:
> It was inevitable: People have begun collecting old AOL disks
>to the point that they are being sold on Ebay. Valuable ones, like
>most collectibles, include rare and/or foreign ones. Knew it was gonna
>happen. I still have some of the old AOL *floppies* that originally
>came out. Why? Cuz they could be "recycled"; blanked out and used
>again.
> My predictin for future collectibles: Fancy refrigerator
>magnets. Those branded phone cards, with 10 minutes time or whatever.
>I see them handed out as clever tchotchkes at trade shows.
>
Phone cards have been collectibles for several years. The fact that a phone
card can have a variety of things printed on it makes it collectable. And the
cards are mostly printed in limited runs, with scarcities of each card
resulting from a finite number of a particular run.
Les
StarChaser_Tyger
> On Thu, 14 Feb 2002 10:54:56 GMT, "Mike Muth" <wuf...@newsguy.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >On 14-Feb-2002, "chrisgreville" <chrisg...@grevillec.freeserve.co.uk>
> >wrote:
> >>
> >> Free CD's from computer mags. Whe have a fair collection of drinks coasters,
> >> but just can not think of anything else to do with the damn things.
> >> Mind you, I did see a lorry (truck) with a decorative pattern in the cab.
> >
> >Clock faces
> >Use them like frisbees
> >Spacers
> >Sting some together and hang them over the garden to scare away birds
>
> It was inevitable: People have begun collecting old AOL disks
> to the point that they are being sold on Ebay. Valuable ones, like
> most collectibles, include rare and/or foreign ones. Knew it was gonna
> happen. I still have some of the old AOL *floppies* that originally
> came out. Why? Cuz they could be "recycled"; blanked out and used
> again.
I think that's the only reason anyone ever used them...
> My predictin for future collectibles: Fancy refrigerator
> magnets. Those branded phone cards, with 10 minutes time or whatever.
> I see them handed out as clever tchotchkes at trade shows.
Too late, on the phone cards. They're already collected.
--
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