Category Archives: Notices

February 18th 2013

Terry Watson RIP

From Bob Tolson

It is with great sadness that I have to tell you my great pal Terry Watson passed away on Wednesday 13th February. He lost a battle with cancer having only been diagnosed with it towards the end of last year. As you probably know, after he retired from the BBC he moved to the Cotswolds with his wife Anne and it is with her that our thoughts are now.

 

January 1st 2013

A Happy New Year to everybody – rather a significant year for the “Class of 63” as it will be 50 years since we joined (September 9th) and 20 years since we left (March 31st) – where did the time go?

A couple of pictures to start off 2013. The first is of a place you may recall – the Effects Workshop, with Robin Lobb (we believe) in the background.

vfxwshop

 

And, a hang-over from last Autumn, taken on our way back from Telford – who nicked the gates to Wood Norton?

etdgates

 

August 11th 2012

John Martin RIP

More sad news I’m afraid – this time from Dennis Collett.
John died yesterday (August 10th) at the age of 90. Many of us wil lremember with affection all the hard work he & Audrey put in over the years on the Christmas Lunches, initially at Motspur and more recently at Surbiton.
I’m sure all of the Oldboys thoughs will be with Audrey at this sad time.
Further details as we learn of them.

August 10th 2012

Malcolm Robertson RIP

Bob Tolson has just contacted us:-

I’m sorry to be the bearer of sad news but Malcolm Robertson’s wife Cynthia has rung me to tell me that he died this morning at 4am. He had collapsed at home and was taken to hospital where at first he seemed to have recovered. He was taken for a scan as he had caught his head when he fell and during that his heart stopped beating. Although they were able to get it going it stopped again soon after and that was it. Due to the circumstances there will be a post mortem so that will delay the funeral arrangements.

November 25th 2011

Along with the VT Block Diagram (November 24th entry), Geoff also sent me another document concerning the’infamous’ erasure of Handel’s Messiah around the same time. Apparently the department thought that it had been electronically edited (producing a /ED), and that these were the masters. But it had been cut edited by Roger White and, although edited, they were all that there was.

MessiahRelease
To read the newspaper clipping with greater ease, here is an enlargement.

messiahclip

September 23rd 2011

At yesterday’s Oldboys Lunch, Dave Bancroft asked the following question:-

“I am engaged in a research project and I have a fundamental question:

When was the term “video” first coined or used? (and where, why and by whom?)

The small print is:

I’m referring only to the use of the word to mean the electrical signal that combines picture (brightness, etc.) information with sync and blanking.

Since this is an historical investigation, I’m referring only to an analogue signal.

To explain why I want to know the reason why the term came into being, I am particularly interested in its replacement for earlier or alternative terms such as: the “television signal,” the “picture signal” or the “vision signal.”

I have my suspicions: I suspect the term of being American in origin, we Brits clinging on to “vision” for as long as we could, as in “vision mixer,” and “vision control supervisor.”

The Wikipedia entry associates “video” exclusively with recording; I’m pretty sure that’s wrong. For example, my Amos and Birkinshaw “Television Engineering,” Vol. 1, defines the “video signal” on page 5; the book was first published in 1953, well before the video tape era.

The OED apparently says the first usage appeared in 1951 in the New York Times, but Webster’s dictionary says 1937 (So, were Zworykin, Blumlein, et al using “video” in the 1930’s? Did Baird use the term before that, or did it not come into existence until electronic scanning displaced mechanical scanning?).

The most convincing answers will be those that involve human folly, greed, impatience, or some other weakness!

This is not a quiz! I really don’t know the answer!

 

Thoughts, answers etc to Dave Bancroft