Reel blemishes in old TV broadcasts

[techmot]

Not sure if this belongs in this thread or even relevant to this particular forum, but I'm sure someone will help.

I was going through a few old recordings from the 80s which I taped onto Betamax from the TV (in the UK). I noticed on some of the films and TV series there often appeared those film reel scratches or blemishes and the circular ring effect that you often saw at the cinema or on old cine film, and these always appeared at the top right hand corner of the screen seconds before the cut to the next scene or just before the ad break. When I watched the DVD version or any recent TV broadcast the picture doesn't show anything like that. Does anyone know why some old broadcast had this? where they broadcasting the film or show from a projection or where they using a master tape?. Sorry if that doesn't explain much.

[dellsam34]

Back in the day broadcasters have their own film copies to run in the telecine machine for broadcasting and the repeated runs wears out the film. But when archivists want to migrate the contents to a new format they often go for the master copy that has less wear and tear or use multiple copies and select the best scenes from them.

[techmot]

[Attachment 65875 - Click to enlarge]

[Attachment 65876 - Click to enlarge]

This will explain what I mean. A repeat broadcast of an episode of Minder from August 1987. I've noticed this on films broadcast on TV from this time period also.

[techmot]

Back in the day broadcasters have their own film copies to run in the telecine machine for broadcasting and the repeated runs wears out the film. But when archivists want to migrate the contents to a new format they often go for the master copy that has less wear and tear or use multiple copies and select the best scenes from them.

Thanks for that, I think you're right there, forgot to mention telecine. As you say they were probably using a worn copy of the film or programme rather than an archived prestine copy. It explains why alot of old shows and gameshows from the 70s and 80s that are shown on some of the freeview channels in the UK look like they were filmed yesterday, almost HD, likely they are using an immaculate copy and not the original tape or film.

[Cornucopia]

Unless I am mistaken, those were telecined from distribution/projection reels. That is the cue blip telling the projectionist to change reels. Doesn't occur on studio master reels.

Scott

[techmot]

Unless I am mistaken, those were telecined from distribution/projection reels. That is the cue blip telling the projectionist to change reels. Doesn't occur on studio master reels.

Scott

I wonder why they using projection reels for as they don't do that now, well as far as I know anyway. The blips used to be noticeable at the cinema alot back in the day.

[betwixt]

Also used in the UK to alert individual companies broadcasting a networked program that a commercial break or program change was about to happen so they could switch to regional commercial breaks. Not used these days because time codes are embedded in the data stream but in the old days the broadcaster had to watch for the markers to roll their advert tapes.

Brian.

[techmot]

Also used in the UK to alert individual companies broadcasting a networked program that a commercial break or program change was about to happen so they could switch to regional commercial breaks. Not used these days because time codes are embedded in the data stream but in the old days the broadcaster had to watch for the markers to roll their advert tapes.

Brian.

Thanks for that, that's interesting. I thought the ad break cues were those zebra striped marks at the very top right hand corner?. I noticed that not always they were used just before the ad break.

[Cornucopia]

Many/most cinemas are DCI now, so those files have master playlists to facilitate seamless, uninterrupted playback by the servers, with no need for physical markers.

Scott

[lingyi]

Unless I am mistaken, those were telecined from distribution/projection reels. That is the cue blip telling the projectionist to change reels. Doesn't occur on studio master reels.

Scott

Correct, my cousin pointed this out to me in the 70's. Been subconsciously aware of it since.

Appearance

Most cue marks appear as either a black circle (if the physical hole is punched out on the negative used to make the projection print of the film), or a white circle (if the mark is made by punching a hole or scraping the emulsion on the positive film print). They will also appear as an oval if the print is projected through an anamorphic lens.

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

Edit:

Other

Cue dots in television

In television, a similar idea is used to signal to a control room that a transition of some sort is about to occur on the broadcast (such as a commercial break). The most common type of television cue dot is the IBA style, used only in the United Kingdom, which consists of a small square in the top right corner of the screen, with black and white moving stripes. The other is a proprietary system used principally by the BBC (who do not air commercials). This version is a static square in the top left corner with a white-black-white pattern.

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

[techmot]

Speaking of the black and white pattern cue marks, but anyone know why some DVD versions also included them?. You would think being a home video release these wouldnt be needed or included. Is it just a case that the studio or DVD distributor couldn't be bothered to remove them or was it that they only had access to the copy with them?. Also, recent broadcasts shown on TV don't include them, but that's likely because the ad break bumpers aren't in their original place, and also episodes on streaming sites won't include them either, but home video releases do for some reason.

[Cornucopia]

It varies.

For most modern home video release (DVD, BD, UHDBD), the masters used would/should be either an inter-negative (with inverted density scanning) or an inter-positive (with standard scanning), neither of which would be projection-destined distribution copies. Or for more recent titles, it would be a straight file conversion from the DCI master files. Or if shot video-centric style, a file conversion from the raw studio "to air" edit masters.
But there are plenty of older releases, and 3rd party releases, and international releases, and releases with Questionable authority, or studios with little quality incentive, where the only copy easily available was a projection-destined release print (always a positive-developed one).
There are standards and best practices, but these rules are made by the same folks, so they can bend (break?) them, and there are enough exceptions that it's hard to say there is a hard & fast governing rule.

Scott

[jagabo]

Even worse, many DVDs are made from old video tapes that were made many years ago from worn projection prints. With no cleanup at all.

[rrats]

I mean, that is the cheapest way of doing it, right?

[jagabo]

Exactly. And sometimes the old video tape is all that's available.