The ShadowMusic Web Community

drakula63 wrote:

iefje wrote:This footage includes, like many other TV and film material of the past which hasn't been released commercially, a tape/film counter through the image. Why is that? Have the ones who 'leaked' these recordings switched the tape/film counter on on purpose?

It's a Timecode which is usually there to denote the time at which the recording was made. I suspect that this master recording was made at 10 o'clock (probably a.m.). This must have been the time at which all the various elements were played 'live' as it were and the finished programme mixed together and recorded as one programme for broadcast. I think Timecodes were usually burnt into preview/review prints, with no way of removing them.

I'm sure that Ian can expand upon that or correct me if I'm wrong.

The timecode is there to aid editing. For some reason 10 o'clock is the standard start time for the clock on a recording regardless of when it was actually recorded, although I have timecoded recordings of live programmes displaying the actual time.

The timecode will be there on all broadcast quality video recordings and when copies are made, there's an option to switch it in or out. As archive programmes are usually supplied for the purpose of using clips, the viewing copies have the timecode switched on (BITC - burned-in timecode) so that researchers can supply the in and out times of the bits they need to use.

Thanks Louis. An added advantage of leaving the timecode in could be to prevent piracy, or at least draw attention to it!

Cheeseford wrote:

drakula63 wrote:

iefje wrote:This footage includes, like many other TV and film material of the past which hasn't been released commercially, a tape/film counter through the image. Why is that? Have the ones who 'leaked' these recordings switched the tape/film counter on on purpose?

It's a Timecode which is usually there to denote the time at which the recording was made. I suspect that this master recording was made at 10 o'clock (probably a.m.). This must have been the time at which all the various elements were played 'live' as it were and the finished programme mixed together and recorded as one programme for broadcast. I think Timecodes were usually burnt into preview/review prints, with no way of removing them.

I'm sure that Ian can expand upon that or correct me if I'm wrong.

The timecode is there to aid editing. For some reason 10 o'clock is the standard start time for the clock on a recording regardless of when it was actually recorded, although I have timecoded recordings of live programmes displaying the actual time.

The timecode will be there on all broadcast quality video recordings and when copies are made, there's an option to switch it in or out. As archive programmes are usually supplied for the purpose of using clips, the viewing copies have the timecode switched on (BITC - burned-in timecode) so that researchers can supply the in and out times of the bits they need to use.

There's a lot of information on the various different kinds of Timecodes on Wikipedia, although, to be honest, I didn't bother to look at this before I made my initial reply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timecode


There is some additional information here relating to Window Dubs, as such Timecoded recordings are known.

Burnt-in timecode (often abbreviated to BITC by analogy to VITC) is a human-readable on-screen version of the timecode information for a piece of material superimposed on a video image. BITC is sometimes used in conjunction with "real" machine-readable timecode, but more often used in copies of original material on to a non-broadcast format such as VHS, so that the VHS copies can be traced back to their master tape and the original time codes easily located.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnt-in_timecode

There would be no way of removing a burnt-in Timecode on a VHS tape, for example, but industry standard machines would be able to switch it off. So, all these 'pirate' copies of old programmes that we either have in our collections or are up on Youtube can be identified as coming from one source or another.

Yes, as I was trying to say above!

Slightly off the topic but TV related
i saw this on youtube .its a test shooting for the Thunderbirds puppets sketch

Jay,

ALL of the Cliff and the Shadows footage (each member on their own and the group footage) is available on the Thunderbirds Are GO! Blu-ray. So you basically get the song FIVE times! It also includes a little bit of Hank, Bruce and John miming to 'Lady Penelope'.