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James[_7_] James[_7_] is offline
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how it wasrecorded or something else in the production pipeline?

For example - the Batman series Blu-Ray release which I gather was given the royal treatment - the original films were scanned and then digitally massaged. While the release looks amazing the mono audio is decent but not as good as the mono hi-fi that had existed for some time as heard on numerous LP's. Presumably they used the best version available for the release.

Another example is the Green Hornet theme where there's no comparison between the theme song heard on the show vs a re-recording of it done for the album "The Horn Meets The Hornet" - which is the recording that was used many years later in the movie "Kill Bill", not the tv series recording which is clearly a different arrangement.

Of course the intended playback devices were small, very limited-range speakers on tv's of the era, but I'm wondering about what happened to it between the musicians in the studio and broadcast.

Was the gear used in the recording sessions any different than that used for album releases or is it a function of how it was subsequently treated/stored?
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John Williamson John Williamson is offline
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how it was recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

On 14/07/2020 18:36, James wrote:
For example - the Batman series Blu-Ray release which I gather was given the royal treatment - the original films were scanned and then digitally massaged. While the release looks amazing the mono audio is decent but not as good as the mono hi-fi that had existed for some time as heard on numerous LP's. Presumably they used the best version available for the release.

A common way to distribute TV shows to stations at the period was to use
16mm film with an optical sound track. If the original sound recordings
made on set are not available, there is no easy way to transfer voice
and effects independently of the music, and reconstructing dialogue sync
would be a nightmare anyway. While good enough for the broadcasting
chain at the time, modern equipment shows up the problems.

With care, well shot 16mm film can be scanned to produce better than
normal HD images, and if they used 35mm film, with care, 4K could easily
be achieved for image resolution.

Optical sound has a sound frequency range not much better than a
telephone, and has, by modern standards, a truly awful distortion spectrum.

For UK releases, it doesn't help that American TV film for broadcast was
shot at 24 fps, not the 25 fps used in the UK, so the pitch of the sound
is normally 4% higher than it should be, as the audio artifacts produced
by shift pitching are easily noticeable.

As a result, it is far easier to get good quality images on re-releases
from 16mm film than even barely acceptable sound. If they exist, better
sound can be got from magnetic sound tracks, but they cost more to copy,
so were very rarely used for TV show distribution until later on.

The LP producers would have had access to the original tape recordings
of the music sessions.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.
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Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how it wasrecorded or something else in the production pipeline?

James wrote:
For example - the Batman series Blu-Ray release which I gather was given th=
e royal treatment - the original films were scanned and then digitally mass=
aged. While the release looks amazing the mono audio is decent but not as g=
ood as the mono hi-fi that had existed for some time as heard on numerous L=
P's. Presumably they used the best version available for the release.=20


What you heard was the original cues recorded on 1/4" tape, dubbed to magfilm
(probably 16mm magfilm, which runs a little slower than 7.5ips tape), mixed
with the dialogue and effects to a second magfilm generation. If you were
lucky.

If you weren't lucky, you heard a third generation mixed from second generation
stems.

If you were really unlucky, you heard an optical sound track cut from the
second or third generation mag track. IN a lot of cases, that is the only
thing left, the final optical release. 35mm optical sounds kind of crappy
but 16mm optical is awful.

Still, nobody cared because the end customer was listening to it on a 3"
TV speaker. In many cases, it was standard to just aggressively high pass
and low pass everything at every step in the mixing process in order to
make it come across better on a 3" speaker.

Was the gear used in the recording sessions any different than that used fo=
r album releases or is it a function of how it was subsequently treated/sto=
red?


The album release was often a totally different arrangement, recorded with
a different orchestra, with different recording procedures. In some cases
(like the Poseidon Adventure soundtrack album) even the vocal tracks were
sung by totally different performers with different styles.

But in general the whole production process was not hi-fi because it was
not necessary for it to be.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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Robert Orban[_3_] Robert Orban[_3_] is offline
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how it wasrecorded or something else in the production pipeline?

In article ,
says...
For example - the Batman series Blu-Ray release which I gather was given

the
royal treatment - the original films were scanned and then digitally

massaged.
While the release looks amazing the mono audio is decent but not as good

as the
mono hi-fi that had existed for some time as heard on numerous LP's.

Presumably
they used the best version available for the release.

Another example is the Green Hornet theme where there's no comparison

between
the theme song heard on the show vs a re-recording of it done for the

album "The
Horn Meets The Hornet" - which is the recording that was used many years

later
in the movie "Kill Bill", not the tv series recording which is clearly a
different arrangement.

Of course the intended playback devices were small, very limited-range

speakers
on tv's of the era, but I'm wondering about what happened to it between

the
musicians in the studio and broadcast.


One reason for the mixing style of the '60s was that at the time, the AT&T
network connections from the networks' production centers to their
affiliates limited audio bandwidth to 5 kHz, so network affiliates except
in the originating cities (New York and Los Angeles) suffered from very
low-fi audio.

If I recall correctly, this changed in the '80s with the advent of BTSC
stereo audio.

--Bob Orban

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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how itwas recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

TV audio was amplitude-modulation-based until the
aforementioned switch to stereo broadcasts(U.S. early
'80s). Europe and Asia had stereo OTA TV several
years before us - while America as usual was figuring
out which war it could get itself into...


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None None is offline
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how it was recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

Theckmah, the retarded dumb-****, gibbered in message
...

TV audio was amplitude-modulation-based until the
aforementioned switch to stereo broadcasts(U.S. early
'80s).


As always, the village idiot has no idea what he's on about. NTSC audio was
FM, not AM.

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John Williamson John Williamson is offline
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how itwas recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

On 28/07/2020 12:25, None wrote:
As always, the village idiot has no idea what he's on about. NTSC audio
was FM, not AM.


In PAL land, I have a memory that the audio was FM on a sub carrier and
the video was inverse modulated AM, so interference tended to show as
black spots.

Before PAL, we used 405 lines where more signal gave a brighter spot, so
you noticed when a car drove past or someone turned a light off and the
switch sparked.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how it was recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 13:21:04 +0100, John Williamson
wrote:

On 28/07/2020 12:25, None wrote:
As always, the village idiot has no idea what he's on about. NTSC audio
was FM, not AM.


In PAL land, I have a memory that the audio was FM on a sub carrier and
the video was inverse modulated AM, so interference tended to show as
black spots.

Before PAL, we used 405 lines where more signal gave a brighter spot, so
you noticed when a car drove past or someone turned a light off and the
switch sparked.


The worst thing with white-up was that the signal amplitude was
proportion to brightness, so it was impossible to find the black
level. Sync would start to roll on bright scenes and the brightness
would breathe in and out as the scene's peak brightness changed.

Once we changed to black-up, every frame had the same amplitude, black
level was always the same so you could use a simple diode clamp, and a
simple level sampler would pull the sync off. Happy days.

d

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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how it was recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

Don Pearce wrote:
The worst thing with white-up was that the signal amplitude was
proportion to brightness, so it was impossible to find the black
level. Sync would start to roll on bright scenes and the brightness
would breathe in and out as the scene's peak brightness changed.


For audio people, the first thing is that if the peak brightness was too
high, the thing would overmodulate and the splatter would cause buzzing in
the audio. This was most common with character generators set to make bright
white titles... the buzzing continued as long as the titles were on the
screen and of course the audio people were blamed.

Video is evil.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how itwas recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 7:26:04 AM UTC-4, None wrote:
Theckmah, the retarded dumb-****, gibbered in message
...

TV audio was amplitude-modulation-based until the
aforementioned switch to stereo broadcasts(U.S. early
'80s).


As always, the village idiot has no idea what he's on about. NTSC audio was
FM, not AM.


Thank you.



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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how itwas recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

Ty Ford:

By AM I meant not the AM Band but the format. I read such,
in print, over thirty years ago before the internet took off.
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how itwas recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

Peter Irwin:

Then what the hell did I read back in 1980-something?

MTS stereo was an improvement in broadcast TV sound, not just spatially, but in the
way it was carried on the broadcast channel. I could have sworn the documentation
I was reading mentioned AM modulation prior to the MTS transition.

And I'm not referring back to the pre-war days, when program audio was simulcast over a
local AM radio station either.
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how itwas recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

On 29/07/2020 5:12 am, wrote:
Ty Ford:

By AM I meant not the AM Band but the format. I read such,
in print, over thirty years ago before the internet took off.


Morning ?

geoff


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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how itwas recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

geoff:

"Morning"?

What does time of day have to do with anything?
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wrote:
Peter Irwin:

Then what the hell did I read back in 1980-something?


I don't know.

You can tell the pix carrier is AM and the sound carrier is FM by the way
they degrade as the signal strength drops. You'll have a good sound carrier
as the pixture gets worse and worse and then all of a sudden the sound drops
out of full FM quieting. The effect is sudden, unlike the effect on the
picture.

There were some folks who were arguing in favor of FM encoding of the video
signal too, but that was too much bandwidth for consumer grade detectors
in 1939. So instead we got vestigial sideband AM.

MTS stereo was an improvement in broadcast TV sound, not just spatially, but in the
way it was carried on the broadcast channel. I could have sworn the documentation
I was reading mentioned AM modulation prior to the MTS transition.


Nobody actually used MTS in the US, sadly. Some stations broadcast it, but
hardly anyone was set up to receive it. It still didn't fix the central issue
which is that video people don't care about sound.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how itwas recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Nobody actually used MTS in the US, sadly.

_________
Then how was I getting stereo sound OTA broadcast from '84-85 -
after which my family started subscribing to cable?
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how it was recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

Scott Dorsey wrote:
Don Pearce wrote:
The worst thing with white-up was that the signal amplitude was
proportion to brightness, so it was impossible to find the black
level. Sync would start to roll on bright scenes and the brightness
would breathe in and out as the scene's peak brightness changed.


For audio people, the first thing is that if the peak brightness was too
high, the thing would overmodulate and the splatter would cause buzzing in
the audio. This was most common with character generators set to make bright
white titles... the buzzing continued as long as the titles were on the
screen and of course the audio people were blamed.

Video is evil.
--scott



There's a comedy show "Tim & Eric: Awesome Show Great Job!", and
they used those old character generators ( some of the show was
intentionally built around a public access channel aesthetic ).

The sound wasn't done with the old equipment, but they'd still have the
noise.

--
Les Cargill
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how itwas recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:

Nobody actually used MTS in the US, sadly.

_________
Then how was I getting stereo sound OTA broadcast from '84-85 -
after which my family started subscribing to cable?


MTS sets existed... but not many people bought them. And there were not
many broadcasts distributed in stereo.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how itwas recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

Scott Dorsey:

MTS sets: I heard Miami Vice in stereo the first time it was broadcast as such.
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Default Was lowered fidelity of 60's tv show music a function of how it was recorded or something else in the production pipeline?

Theckmah, the 'tarded dumb-****, wrote in message
...

By AM I meant not the AM Band but the format.


Still wrong, li'l buddy, whatever the **** you think you meant.

I read such, in print, over thirty years ago before the internet took
off.


You can't even remember what you read yesterday, dumb ****.

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