Unseemly truncation of Gentleman Jack

"Vir Campestris" wrote in message
...
On 24/06/2019 02:32, Bill Wright wrote:
What's going on? It started late and finished late. Even with five
minutes' padding I lost the climax (in several senses as it happens) so I
had to fart about with iPlayer to avoid disappointment. Why do they do
this sort of thing? Why were they running late? Why doesn't the EPG get
altered? **** up, brewery, or what?

It's the only programme I watch on the BBC and they can't even get that
right.

Don't worry, you didn't miss anything.

It isn't the sort of program where watching 10 minutes is exciting

you need to watch it all

tim

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
On 25/06/2019 23:48, Paul Ratcliffe wrote:
On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 10:30:12 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

On Tuesday, 25 June 2019 01:53:19 UTC+1, JNugent wrote:
I think it was in 1980 that the SAS storming of the Iranian Embassy
(live on TV!)

AIUI, it was "as live" with about 10 minutes' delay so the terrorists
wouldn't gain intelligence from the broadcast.

And how exactly did they achieve that in 1980?

Very simple. A recording machine at one end of the corridor and a playback
machine at the other, and a long loop of tape.

That would be a long loop of tape. Betacam (the only pro format whose tape
speed I can find, from a quick Google) is 4"/sec, so a ten minute delay will
be 4 * 10 * 60 = 200 feet.

I imagine the tape loop wasn't literally along a corridor but probably on a
zig-zag set of rollers between two machines in the same room. Keeping the
right tension and preventing any tape creasing or sagging of the loops must
have been a nightmare.

How common was it for broadcasters to transmit as live with a delay? Did
they have an extendable set of zig zag rollers kept "in the wings" for this
sort of application? I imagine in the case of the Iranian Embassy they been
preparing for a climax for a few days, and discussing with the MOD what
would and would not be acceptable, so they were prepared for it happening.

"NY" wrote in message
...
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
On 25/06/2019 23:48, Paul Ratcliffe wrote:
On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 10:30:12 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

On Tuesday, 25 June 2019 01:53:19 UTC+1, JNugent wrote:
I think it was in 1980 that the SAS storming of the Iranian Embassy
(live on TV!)

AIUI, it was "as live" with about 10 minutes' delay so the terrorists
wouldn't gain intelligence from the broadcast.

And how exactly did they achieve that in 1980?

Very simple. A recording machine at one end of the corridor and a
playback machine at the other, and a long loop of tape.

That would be a long loop of tape. Betacam (the only pro format whose tape
speed I can find, from a quick Google) is 4"/sec, so a ten minute delay
will be 4 * 10 * 60 = 200 feet.

I imagine the tape loop wasn't literally along a corridor but probably on
a zig-zag set of rollers between two machines in the same room. Keeping
the right tension and preventing any tape creasing or sagging of the loops
must have been a nightmare.

How common was it for broadcasters to transmit as live with a delay? Did
they have an extendable set of zig zag rollers kept "in the wings" for
this sort of application? I imagine in the case of the Iranian Embassy
they been preparing for a climax for a few days, and discussing with the
MOD what would and would not be acceptable, so they were prepared for it
happening.

It was developed for radio use in the 50s

no idea how more complicated TV needs to be

tim

On 26/06/19 10:47, NY wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
On 25/06/2019 23:48, Paul Ratcliffe wrote:
On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 10:30:12 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

On Tuesday, 25 June 2019 01:53:19 UTC+1, JNugent wrote:
I think it was in 1980 that the SAS storming of the Iranian Embassy
(live on TV!)

AIUI, it was "as live" with about 10 minutes' delay so the terrorists
wouldn't gain intelligence from the broadcast.

And how exactly did they achieve that in 1980?

Very simple. A recording machine at one end of the corridor and a playback
machine at the other, and a long loop of tape.

That would be a long loop of tape. Betacam (the only pro format whose tape
speed I can find, from a quick Google) is 4"/sec, so a ten minute delay will
be 4 * 10 * 60 = 200 feet.

I imagine the tape loop wasn't literally along a corridor but probably on a
zig-zag set of rollers between two machines in the same room. Keeping the
right tension and preventing any tape creasing or sagging of the loops must
have been a nightmare.

How common was it for broadcasters to transmit as live with a delay? Did
they have an extendable set of zig zag rollers kept "in the wings" for this
sort of application? I imagine in the case of the Iranian Embassy they been
preparing for a climax for a few days, and discussing with the MOD what
would and would not be acceptable, so they were prepared for it happening.

Would it have been possible to have something like an eight-track
continuous tape loop cassette for video with the equivalent of a
ten-minute delay? The recording would cycle round for 10 minutes and
then end up at a playback head. The tape would be used continuously for
as long as the broadcaster wanted. Of course, a separate machine would
be required for recording and playing back on non-live news.

--

Jeff

On 26/06/2019 10:47, NY wrote:

I imagine the tape loop wasn't literally along a corridor but probably
on a zig-zag set of rollers between two machines in the same room.
Keeping the right tension and preventing any tape creasing or sagging of
the loops must have been a nightmare.

No it's easy. You use milk bottles. The shoulder acts as an automatic
tensioner.

Bill

On 26/06/2019 19:21, Jeff Layman wrote:


Would it have been possible to have something like an eight-track
continuous tape loop cassette for video with the equivalent of a
ten-minute delay? The recording would cycle round for 10 minutes and
then end up at a playback head. The tape would be used continuously for
as long as the broadcaster wanted. Of course, a separate machine would
be required for recording and playing back on non-live news.


How about a glass sonic delay line? How long would it need to be? 70 miles?

Bill

On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 10:47:18 +0100, NY wrote:

I think it was in 1980 that the SAS storming of the Iranian Embassy
(live on TV!)

AIUI, it was "as live" with about 10 minutes' delay so the terrorists
wouldn't gain intelligence from the broadcast.

And how exactly did they achieve that in 1980?

Very simple. A recording machine at one end of the corridor and a playback
machine at the other, and a long loop of tape.

That would be a long loop of tape. Betacam (the only pro format whose tape
speed I can find, from a quick Google) is 4"/sec, so a ten minute delay will
be 4 * 10 * 60 = 200 feet.

Have just looked up my notes from 1989...

1" C-format, which I assume was taking over from Quad around then, has a
linear tape speed of 0.2398 m/s.
So a 10 minute delay would be 143.88m or around 472 feet.

I imagine the tape loop wasn't literally along a corridor but probably on a
zig-zag set of rollers between two machines in the same room. Keeping the
right tension and preventing any tape creasing or sagging of the loops must
have been a nightmare.

If it ever happened. I don't remember any stories being related about it.

How common was it for broadcasters to transmit as live with a delay?

Quite uncommon I'd have thought, as it was very resource intensive, both in
terms of equipment and people.
You can do it with 3 tape machines - 1 in record, 1 in play, 1 spooling back.
The trouble is, the more cycles you have, the shorter the interval that you
have to perform all the operations gets. It all crashes and burns eventually
when you have insufficient time to spool back from the last recording and cue
up before you need to hit play and be in sync.
The scope for someone f*cking up at some point was quite high.

I set Countryfile to record, and that was truncated - I lost the last 10
minutes.Â* So whatever it was that put the schedule out, it was the same
10 minutes for the whole evening it seems.

Jim


Phew. That's ten minutes less of the dreadful 'One Show Outdoors' you'll
need to suffer then!

Yes where did they go wrong and why change a working format and presenters
with a mess in the first place, still we don't have to watch, erm listen to
it do we?

Brian

--
----- --
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Richard Jones" wrote in message
...

I set Countryfile to record, and that was truncated - I lost the last 10
minutes. So whatever it was that put the schedule out, it was the same 10
minutes for the whole evening it seems.

Jim


Phew. That's ten minutes less of the dreadful 'One Show Outdoors' you'll
need to suffer then!