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Tvam- Timeslot - James Martin - 16-06-2021
The unions actually kicked off one year because the management wanted to record the Christmas Day programme in 3 hours 25 minutes. The unions said that wasn't possible. The argument back was that the station did that every day, it just happened to be live!
Tvam- Timeslot - Robertclark125 - 23-06-2021
Back in the day, was it possible for a companies transmiiters, say STV, when they weren't broadcasting 24hours, to be set to TV-am, before 06:00? I'm thinking at about 05:30?
Tvam- Timeslot - Neil Jones - 23-06-2021
Robertclark125 post_id=23467 time= user_id=1163 Wrote:Back in the day, was it possible for a companies transmiiters, say STV, when they weren't broadcasting 24hours, to be set to TV-am, before 06:00? I'm thinking at about 05:30?
Don't see why not, if STV had gone off the air at 1am for example, a handover didn't need to happen at 6am on the dot, it could have happened at 3am, 4am, 5am for those transmitters. The 6am handover on the dot across the board probably only became the norm when 24hr broadcasting was a thing across all ITV regions in the late 1980s, though whether it actually happened at 6am prior to 24hr broadcasting I don't really know.
Plenty of examples on YouTube where TV-am starts at 6am with an IBA slide before it and no "splat" after the slide (of course said "splat" is over exaggerated on video recordings), showing it had been switched before 6am.
Tvam- Timeslot - Steve in Pudsey - 23-06-2021
I think it's beyond doubt that the IBA slide originated from TV-am.
If we look at the other end of their timeslot, in that initial period where there was a 10 minute switching break it's clear that TV-am put up an IBA slide, the regional stations put up their copy of the same slide, and BT does the switch between them.
(Note: this video contains a former pop star pre fall from grace)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0Tdp1i7M0A
There is a theory that before the switch, the feed from TV-am was routed by BT Birmingham both to the transmitter and to Central. Once Central were switched in circuit (note the picture disturbance just before it switches) Central could fade out the TV-am slide and music cleanly and put their own local version up until it was time to start.
Tvam- Timeslot - James2001 - 23-06-2021
The IBA slide is on some of the master tapes of TV-am broadcasts, which shows that it came from them.
Tvam- Timeslot - Neil Jones - 23-06-2021
James2001 post_id=23492 time= user_id=956 Wrote:The IBA slide is on some of the master tapes of TV-am broadcasts, which shows that it came from them.
Multiple versions of the output of TV-am seems to exist if the TV-am YouTube channel is anything to go by. A right mixture of off-air, archive dubs and clean. Even the clip on their channel of their last ten minutes or so once it fades to black doesn't match up with the off-air from another video (the posted clip presumably has to have been studio output only).
Tvam- Timeslot - James2001 - 23-06-2021
I think all those recordings were still made using output from Camden, it just seemed to vary from day to day what feed they used to record their output, whether it was a feed with or without the clock and/or adverts etc. Wasn't remotely consistent either across the 10 years, some clips from 1983 were from a clean feed, some from 1992 were off airs and all sorts in between.
At one time the Moving Image site had loads and loads of clips which showed allsorts of various things (indeed a couple of them had the IBA slide on). Did include plenty of clips of ad breaks- sometimes you saw the adverts, sometimes it stayed in studio output (one I remember was a clip of Michael Parkinson talking to Raymond Burr before going on air) there were even some clips where you saw the studio output but heard the adverts, sometimes it was VT clocks etc. Sadly most of these clips haven't made it to their youtube channel.
Tvam- Timeslot - James Martin - 01-07-2021
Steve in Pudsey post_id=23486 time= user_id=942 Wrote:There is a theory that before the switch, the feed from TV-am was routed by BT Birmingham both to the transmitter and to Central. Once Central were switched in circuit (note the picture disturbance just before it switches) Central could fade out the TV-am slide and music cleanly and put their own local version up until it was time to start.That would involve a LOT of lines to feed TV-AM to each regional company though, unless it went via the London contractor then made hops out from there across the country? My personal theory is the switching was automated at this particular TX but the rollout wasn't complete.
Tvam- Timeslot - Steve in Pudsey - 01-07-2021
Not really. Take Central for example, TV-am's distribution is already going via BT Birmingham to get to Sutton Coldfield transmitter. Central have permanent local ends from BT Birmingham.
I can't see any other way of that fade to black happening.
Tvam- Timeslot - James Martin - 01-07-2021
That makes sense but would there not be a major splat between the two sources? I always remember watching at 0925 and there being a few seconds of black, with a split second of white as part of the splat - which we do see here - but I'm amazed the sound is completely unaffected.
Tvam- Timeslot - Markymark - 01-07-2021
James Martin post_id=25198 time= user_id=872 Wrote:That makes sense but would there not be a major splat between the two sources? I always remember watching at 0925 and there being a few seconds of black, with a split second of white as part of the splat - which we do see here - but I'm amazed the sound is completely unaffected.
If it was prior to 1989 I would expect the sound to be unaffected. ITV only started using Sound-In-Syncs when NICAM broadcasts started in 1989. Before then audio went via landlines
Tvam- Timeslot - technologist - 01-07-2021
Markymark post_id=25226 time= user_id=1078 Wrote:With NICAM itv would splat because it did not reframe the NICAM sequenceJames Martin post_id=25198 time= user_id=872 Wrote:That makes sense but would there not be a major splat between the two sources? I always remember watching at 0925 and there being a few seconds of black, with a split second of white as part of the splat - which we do see here - but I'm amazed the sound is completely unaffected.If it was prior to 1989 I would expect the sound to be unaffected. ITV only started using Sound-In-Syncs when NICAM broadcasts started in 1989. Before then audio went via landlines
at the region or transmitter BBC did a reframe at TX ….
BTW both the Phillips/ PYE BBC flavour and the RE itv flavour DSIS was asynchronous
to TV Waveforms,
But both BBC and ITV NICAM subcarriers was a multiple (9x) of NICAM clock.
Tvam- Timeslot - Si-Co - 02-07-2021
Once there were switched into circuit, could Central have stayed with the TVam feed and caption until they were ready to start up? I don’t know for how many minutes TVam fed this caption to the TX sites, but if they continued until about 9.25 there’s no reason for Central to plug the gap with their own caption.
Was it a case that TVam had to feed the caption and music until they were told everyone was in circuit and “off it”? If so, continuing until a set time would be just as easy. Although I don’t know if all regions handled things the same way as Central.
Tvam- Timeslot - Markymark - 03-07-2021
Si-Co post_id=25512 time= user_id=1388 Wrote:Once there were switched into circuit, could Central have stayed with the TVam feed and caption until they were ready to start up? I don’t know for how many minutes TVam fed this caption to the TX sites, but if they continued until about 9.25 there’s no reason for Central to plug the gap with their own caption.
Was it a case that TVam had to feed the caption and music until they were told everyone was in circuit and “off it”? If so, continuing until a set time would be just as easy. Although I don’t know if all regions handled things the same way as Central.
It's all a bit of a mystery. I suspect TV-am fed their version of the IBA caption to the London Tower on their outgoing circuits. There were three or four to cope with macro advertising. Central and all the ITV companies would have been receiving that on their regular BT local ends. As during that period (09:15 to 09:25) BT were busy manually patching the various ITV companies back into their local transmitter loops, so there would have been a sudden moment when TV-am's caption was being routed through each company, When each company noticed this they cut or cross faded to their own local version of the caption, until their own start ups at 09:25?
In other words the 09:15 to 09:25 period was not part of TVam or any ITV company's licenced broadcasting hours. However, because the captions bore the IBA logo, in effect they were IBA broadcasts pragmatically using TV-am and ITV originated captions
Tvam- Timeslot - Steve in Pudsey - 03-07-2021
One thing we never did establish was how the IBA Engineering Announcements were able to go out in that gap.
At the UHF sites I guess the IBA switched the C4 distribution circuit into the ITV transmitter as it went out on both. But the VHF sites wouldn't have had a feed of C4, so I guess some other arrangement was necessary?
Or did Crawley Court play it out via TV am and the regional stations and put up with a frame roll when the switch happened?