Phil Ashby has discovered a F.I.S. – Fortnightly Information Sheet – from September 1973 – which you can view here. Have a close look at the address sheet at the front – it should bring back quite a few memories, as will the description of the Hot Switch!
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.
To read the newspaper clipping with greater ease, here is an enlargement.
Pete Christy has just sent me his copy of this ‘document’ from the 1970s, which prompted Geoff Higgs to rescan the original – below.
While we’re at it, here is a little Christmas Quiz for you all to ponder over, supplied by Geoff Taylor:-
and the answers were:-
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
We have just learned from his wife, Betty, that Roy died last weekend following a short battle with cancer.
We have just learned, from his son, Martin, the sad news that Dave passed away earlier today after a short illness. More information in due course as we get it.
Martin Webster passed away in London on 27 March after a long battle with motor neuron disease. He was 56. I have added Stuart Storey’s obituary on the Sports Journalists Association website to Obituaries.
Some month’s ago, following Bob Oakley’s “Story of Film Recording”, I threw down the challenge to some of the ex Telecine Oldboys to produce a similar thing.
Bill Tucker has now come up with two excellent pieces, “Bill Tucker at the BBC”, and “Life as a TK Operator“, both of which you will find in The 1960s.
(Additional detail supplied by John Crane, Lawford Thomas and Jim Tucker)
Bill, pictured right driving TK1 at Lime Grove, covers the years from 1951 to 1988, and the story overlaps nicely with Arthur Dungate’s Direct Television from Alexandra Palace, which you can find in The 1950s.
Following Ray Johnson’s funeral today, I have now added his Obituary to Recollections. An edited version (for duration) should hopefully appear in the March edition of Prospero.
More sad news, I’m afraid. I heard last night from Mike Bunting, via Brian Woodfield, that Norman Taylor died yesterday (January 13th) of a heart attack at Southampton Station.