Would broadcast videotape recorded in 1966 still be playable?

[NY]

I was watching a never-previously-broadcast *colour* version of Last Night
at the Sunday Palladium (shown a year so ago on Talking Pictures TV), made
as an experiment before PAL broadcasts began. As far as I could tell, it had
not been film-recorded.

That led me to think... if it had been originally recorded on 2" Quad tape,
would that tape still be playable today (assuming it had been stored in
ideal conditions)? I imagine at some stage it was converted from analogue
video to a modern digital video format for broadcast by TPTV, but would Quad
VT last long enough to do that during the time that digital formats have
been used, or would it have been copied to another more recent analogue
format (one of the 1" or 3/4" formats) some time in the past before the Quad
tape deteriorated?

[J. P. Gilliver]

Post by NY
I was watching a never-previously-broadcast *colour* version of Last
Night at the Sunday Palladium (shown a year so ago on Talking Pictures
TV), made as an experiment before PAL broadcasts began. As far as I
could tell, it had not been film-recorded.

Did you get the impression that it _had_ been PAL, just before actual
broadcasting began, or one of the several other schemes the Beeb tried
out? (I presume not 405, or you'd have mentioned it. I know they did do
some 405 colour trials, including a special version of NTSC!)

Post by NY
That led me to think... if it had been originally recorded on 2" Quad
tape, would that tape still be playable today (assuming it had been
stored in ideal conditions)? I imagine at some stage it was converted
from analogue video to a modern digital video format for broadcast by
TPTV, but would Quad VT last long enough to do that during the time
that digital formats have been used, or would it have been copied to
another more recent analogue format (one of the 1" or 3/4" formats)
some time in the past before the Quad tape deteriorated?

Good wonder. I suspect you're right that it went via something else.
Probably hard to tell unless someone knows a format-specific artefact to
look for: if done with professional kit, I expect a generation or two of
extra copying would not degrade it enough to tell.

[NY]

Post by J. P. Gilliver

Post by NY
I was watching a never-previously-broadcast *colour* version of Last Night
at the Sunday Palladium (shown a year so ago on Talking Pictures TV), made
as an experiment before PAL broadcasts began. As far as I could tell, it
had not been film-recorded.

Did you get the impression that it _had_ been PAL, just before actual
broadcasting began, or one of the several other schemes the Beeb tried
out? (I presume not 405, or you'd have mentioned it. I know they did do
some 405 colour trials, including a special version of NTSC!)

I wondered whether it had been PAL or NTSC. The resolution *looked* to be
625 rather 525, so if it was NTSC, it was probably 625 NTSC. Having said
that, by the time TPTV transmitted it, the horizontal resolution had been
reduced to 544x576 rather than 720x576, which may have hidden some analogue
upscaling from 405 to 625. There was a fair amount of ghosting on some of
the cameras.

What I did notice was the very poor brightness/contrast matching between
cameras showing the same scene from different angles. There was also a
catastrophe with the registration of one camera: they showed a shot from a
certain angle, cut to a shot from another angle and then back to the
original - and in that short time the R, G and B had become very widely
separated: horizontal and vertical translation, different picture size and
some picture rotation of one colour compared with another. They didn't show
any more shots from that angle (camera) for a long time, though it looked as
if a bit of hasty real-time fettling got it going before the end of the
programme.

[Laurence Taylor]

Post by J. P. Gilliver
Good wonder. I suspect you're right that it went via something else.
Probably hard to tell unless someone knows a format-specific artefact to
look for: if done with professional kit, I expect a generation or two of
extra copying would not degrade it enough to tell.

It's often possible to recognise Quad; sometimes you can see a glitch
every 15 lines, either a slight hiccup in the sync or change in colour.

[J. P. Gilliver]

Post by Laurence Taylor

Post by J. P. Gilliver
Good wonder. I suspect you're right that it went via something else.
Probably hard to tell unless someone knows a format-specific artefact to
look for: if done with professional kit, I expect a generation or two of
extra copying would not degrade it enough to tell.

It's often possible to recognise Quad; sometimes you can see a glitch
every 15 lines, either a slight hiccup in the sync or change in colour.

What I meant was - yes, those who know might well be able to tell what
it was _originally_ on, but - if done with good-quality gear by someone
who knows what they're doing - it probably _isn't_ possible to tell
whether what you're seeing is direct from the Quad (or whatever), or has
been stored on something else (1" or whatever) for most of the
intervening time.

[NY]

Post by Laurence Taylor

Post by J. P. Gilliver
Good wonder. I suspect you're right that it went via something else.
Probably hard to tell unless someone knows a format-specific artefact to
look for: if done with professional kit, I expect a generation or two of
extra copying would not degrade it enough to tell.

It's often possible to recognise Quad; sometimes you can see a glitch
every 15 lines, either a slight hiccup in the sync or change in colour.

What I meant was - yes, those who know might well be able to tell what it
was _originally_ on, but - if done with good-quality gear by someone who
knows what they're doing - it probably _isn't_ possible to tell whether
what you're seeing is direct from the Quad (or whatever), or has been
stored on something else (1" or whatever) for most of the intervening
time.

I presume that every recording technology imprints its own "footprint" on
the signal because of restrictions of the format. The Quad banding is an
extreme example of this. Whether those footprints are visible to the viewer,
or in most cases is only detectable with an oscilloscope or vectorscope, is
another matter.

I wonder if any archive material still exists as videotape nowadays, or
whether archives have digitised everything so (barring catastrophic
corruption of DAT or HDD masters) the recording does not deteriorate any
further over time.

I have been surprised when TV news reports are included in documentaries
about historical events (even as recent as the 1980s), how poor the picture
quality is sometimes - as if the only copy in existence is a 2nd generation
VHS ;-) Of course in some cases documentary makers deliberately degrade the
quality with ageing effects, to say to the viewer "this is archive, not a
modern recording". And so you get monstrosities such as film scratches and
dirt on an ENG (and therefore video camera and videotape) report. Sometimes
the effects are even more crass - I remember a programme about the Iranian
Embassy siege in the 80s, and the often-seen footage "filmed" with video
cameras had been fed through an effects box which added film scratches, film
gamma changes, fake film grain and venetian blinds. A caption "archive"
would have been so much less intrusive.

What is the typical life of videotape as a means of long-term storage,
before the oxide starts to shed or the tape base starts to become brittle?

[J. P. Gilliver]

Post by NY

writes

Post by Laurence Taylor

Post by J. P. Gilliver
Good wonder. I suspect you're right that it went via something else.
Probably hard to tell unless someone knows a format-specific artefact to
look for: if done with professional kit, I expect a generation or two of
extra copying would not degrade it enough to tell.

It's often possible to recognise Quad; sometimes you can see a glitch
every 15 lines, either a slight hiccup in the sync or change in colour.

What I meant was - yes, those who know might well be able to tell
what it was _originally_ on, but - if done with good-quality gear by
someone who knows what they're doing - it probably _isn't_ possible
to tell whether what you're seeing is direct from the Quad (or
whatever), or has been stored on something else (1" or whatever) for
most of the intervening time.

I presume that every recording technology imprints its own "footprint"
on the signal because of restrictions of the format. The Quad banding
is an extreme example of this. Whether those footprints are visible to
the viewer, or in most cases is only detectable with an oscilloscope or
vectorscope, is another matter.

Indeed. The quad banding is indeed visible to those who know what to
look for. (Another visible effect - though not due to the recording
format - was visible on reports from the Falklands, when equipment
presumably not designed for such field strengths was used in close
proximity to ship's radar; it occurred to me at the time that this might
be giving away information about the pulse characteristics thereof which
would be of use to the enemy [it clearly wasn't just a plain beam], but
nothing such has ever been revealed.)

Post by NY
I wonder if any archive material still exists as videotape nowadays, or
whether archives have digitised everything so (barring catastrophic
corruption of DAT or HDD masters) the recording does not deteriorate
any further over time.

One would hope so, but it's an expensive business, so probably not. Plus
the oft-raised point that - for some archives, anyway - the hours of
archive material they hold exceed the remaining use hours of the
machines they have still working, so they're kept for when it's actually
required for something rather than continuous background conversion.

Post by NY
I have been surprised when TV news reports are included in
documentaries about historical events (even as recent as the 1980s),
how poor the picture quality is sometimes - as if the only copy in
existence is a 2nd generation VHS ;-) Of course in some cases

May of course be the case of course.

Post by NY
documentary makers deliberately degrade the quality with ageing
effects, to say to the viewer "this is archive, not a modern
recording". And so you get monstrosities such as film scratches and
dirt on an ENG (and therefore video camera and videotape) report.
Sometimes the effects are even more crass - I remember a programme
about the Iranian Embassy siege in the 80s, and the often-seen footage
"filmed" with video cameras had been fed through an effects box which
added film scratches, film gamma changes, fake film grain and venetian
blinds. A caption "archive" would have been so much less intrusive.

They'd far rather do such effects than use on-screen captioning: they
seem to have a horror thereof. As another example, news reports _never_
timestamp footage that isn't immediately new, so - especially on rolling
news channels - you think you're going to get a new report, but get
shown something you've seen many times before, presented as if new.

Post by NY
What is the typical life of videotape as a means of long-term storage,
before the oxide starts to shed or the tape base starts to become brittle?

I suspect there's a strong element of "luck of the draw", even assuming
- which may well not be the case in many cases - it's been kept in
optimal conditions; certainly for audio tape, some has lasted for a very
long time. (It's actually be interesting to know what _is_ the oldest
such recording still playable. [Would it be paper? Not sure when plastic
backing came in. And of course there might still be some of the original
steel tape material - Blattnerphone was it? - though maybe nothing to
play it on, as well as earlier - something beginning with V, Valdemar
was it? - magnetic discs.])

[charles]

Post by J. P. Gilliver

Post by NY

writes

Post by Laurence Taylor

Post by J. P. Gilliver
Good wonder. I suspect you're right that it went via something else.
Probably hard to tell unless someone knows a format-specific artefact to
look for: if done with professional kit, I expect a generation or two of
extra copying would not degrade it enough to tell.

It's often possible to recognise Quad; sometimes you can see a glitch
every 15 lines, either a slight hiccup in the sync or change in colour.

What I meant was - yes, those who know might well be able to tell
what it was _originally_ on, but - if done with good-quality gear by
someone who knows what they're doing - it probably _isn't_ possible
to tell whether what you're seeing is direct from the Quad (or
whatever), or has been stored on something else (1" or whatever) for
most of the intervening time.

I presume that every recording technology imprints its own "footprint"
on the signal because of restrictions of the format. The Quad banding
is an extreme example of this. Whether those footprints are visible to
the viewer, or in most cases is only detectable with an oscilloscope or
vectorscope, is another matter.

Indeed. The quad banding is indeed visible to those who know what to
look for. (Another visible effect - though not due to the recording
format - was visible on reports from the Falklands, when equipment
presumably not designed for such field strengths was used in close
proximity to ship's radar; it occurred to me at the time that this might
be giving away information about the pulse characteristics thereof which
would be of use to the enemy [it clearly wasn't just a plain beam], but
nothing such has ever been revealed.)

Such effects were also seen on the Apollo splashdown pictures - also from
an aircraft carrier.

Post by J. P. Gilliver

Post by NY
I wonder if any archive material still exists as videotape nowadays, or
whether archives have digitised everything so (barring catastrophic
corruption of DAT or HDD masters) the recording does not deteriorate
any further over time.

One would hope so, but it's an expensive business, so probably not. Plus
the oft-raised point that - for some archives, anyway - the hours of
archive material they hold exceed the remaining use hours of the
machines they have still working, so they're kept for when it's actually
required for something rather than continuous background conversion.

I remember being involved in Standards Converting 405 material to 625 for
archive purposes.

[J. P. Gilliver]

[]

Post by charles

Post by J. P. Gilliver

Post by NY
I wonder if any archive material still exists as videotape nowadays, or
whether archives have digitised everything so (barring catastrophic
corruption of DAT or HDD masters) the recording does not deteriorate
any further over time.

One would hope so, but it's an expensive business, so probably not. Plus
the oft-raised point that - for some archives, anyway - the hours of
archive material they hold exceed the remaining use hours of the
machines they have still working, so they're kept for when it's actually
required for something rather than continuous background conversion.

I remember being involved in Standards Converting 405 material to 625 for
archive purposes.

I wasn't thinking so much of the electronics, as the heads. The skills
to repair the electronics - though I suspect increasingly rare -
probably are still findable (and the circuitry of the machines is
probably at least moderately well documented), but that to make the
heads - and the machines and materials required to do so - will be much
rarer. Perhaps other mechanical parts too.

[John Williamson]

Post by J. P. Gilliver
I wasn't thinking so much of the electronics, as the heads. The skills
to repair the electronics - though I suspect increasingly rare -
probably are still findable (and the circuitry of the machines is
probably at least moderately well documented), but that to make the
heads - and the machines and materials required to do so - will be much
rarer. Perhaps other mechanical parts too.

The heads are the only real problem. Everything else can be made using a
lathe and a milling machine if you have an old one as a pattern or the
drawings. Making heads is a different kettle of fish.

In the early days of digital audio, Betamax video recorders were used to
carry the digital signal on tape. The amount of tape which exists and
which people would like to archive now exceeds the expected life of all
the Betamax heads currently in existence, and it would be too hard or
expensive to rebuild the head making machinery.

[J. P. Gilliver]

Post by John Williamson

Post by J. P. Gilliver
I wasn't thinking so much of the electronics, as the heads. The skills
to repair the electronics - though I suspect increasingly rare -
probably are still findable (and the circuitry of the machines is
probably at least moderately well documented), but that to make the
heads - and the machines and materials required to do so - will be much
rarer. Perhaps other mechanical parts too.

The heads are the only real problem. Everything else can be made using
a lathe and a milling machine if you have an old one as a pattern or
the drawings. Making heads is a different kettle of fish.

That's what I suspected.

Post by John Williamson
In the early days of digital audio, Betamax video recorders were used
to carry the digital signal on tape. The amount of tape which exists

Beta might have been the choice, but it was my understanding that they
created standard video signals (and reasonably low bandwidth at that),
so presumably they could have been recorded on VHS or V2000 too.

IIRR, it's also why we have the rather odd sampling rate of 44100 hertz
- it sort of fell out of the pseudo-video waveform creation, and the
SECAM and "PAL" (yes I know) standards.

Post by John Williamson
and which people would like to archive now exceeds the expected life of
all the Betamax heads currently in existence, and it would be too hard
or expensive to rebuild the head making machinery.

Will we see a raiding-of-attics-and-sheds like we did for old Doctor Who
(and other) video recordings, this time for machines (even ones that
don't work, provided the heads are OK)!

[John Williamson]

Post by J. P. Gilliver
Beta might have been the choice, but it was my understanding that they
created standard video signals (and reasonably low bandwidth at that),
so presumably they could have been recorded on VHS or V2000 too.

Betamax had a sightly better HF response than other systems at the time,
due to a higher speed of the heads across the tape, so the tapes were
easier to decode accurately. Betamax recorders were also better built
than almost all VHS recorders of the period. V2000 was later,and also
had a problem in that the cassette could hold two programmes, depending
on which way up it was, because it only used half the tape width at a
time. It never really caught on, especially as the two major
manufacturers initially made recorders which were not completely
compatible with each other's tapes.

Post by J. P. Gilliver
IIRR, it's also why we have the rather odd sampling rate of 44100 hertz
- it sort of fell out of the pseudo-video waveform creation, and the
SECAM and "PAL" (yes I know) standards.

It let them use the same crystals for sample timing as for the PAL
colour sub carrier, if I remember correctly. Meant they cost pennies
instead of pounds when the first CD players came out.

Post by J. P. Gilliver
Will we see a raiding-of-attics-and-sheds like we did for old Doctor Who
(and other) video recordings, this time for machines (even ones that
don't work, provided the heads are OK)!

Possibly, they are already searching repair shop storerooms for new old
stock heads that never got used to repair machines.

[J. P. Gilliver]

Post by John Williamson

Post by J. P. Gilliver
Beta might have been the choice, but it was my understanding that they
created standard video signals (and reasonably low bandwidth at that),
so presumably they could have been recorded on VHS or V2000 too.

Betamax had a sightly better HF response than other systems at the
time, due to a higher speed of the heads across the tape, so the tapes
were easier to decode accurately. Betamax recorders were also better

I _thought_ the pseudo-video was sufficiently undemanding that either
system was quite capable of recording it, though indeed Beta had a
higher bandwidth (IIRR, Beta - and later V2000 - 3 MHz, VHS 2½).

Post by John Williamson
built than almost all VHS recorders of the period. V2000 was later,and
also had a problem in that the cassette could hold two programmes,
depending on which way up it was, because it only used half the tape

I don't see that as a problem - advantage, if anything!

Post by John Williamson
width at a time. It never really caught on, especially as the two major
manufacturers initially made recorders which were not completely
compatible with each other's tapes.

Philips and Grundig? I didn't know that. (If there was any such initial
problem, I think it had disappeared by the time I had the V2000.)

Post by John Williamson

Post by J. P. Gilliver
IIRR, it's also why we have the rather odd sampling rate of 44100 hertz
- it sort of fell out of the pseudo-video waveform creation, and the
SECAM and "PAL" (yes I know) standards.

It let them use the same crystals for sample timing as for the PAL
colour sub carrier, if I remember correctly. Meant they cost pennies
instead of pounds when the first CD players came out.

Oh, I thought it was because of the two different video standards
(625/25 and 525/30) and the need to find a rate that could be converted
to both of those.

Post by John Williamson

Post by J. P. Gilliver
Will we see a raiding-of-attics-and-sheds like we did for old Doctor Who
(and other) video recordings, this time for machines (even ones that
don't work, provided the heads are OK)!

Possibly, they are already searching repair shop storerooms for new old
stock heads that never got used to repair machines.

(-:

[John Williamson]

Post by J. P. Gilliver

Post by John Williamson
built than almost all VHS recorders of the period. V2000 was later,and
also had a problem in that the cassette could hold two programmes,
depending on which way up it was, because it only used half the tape

I don't see that as a problem - advantage, if anything!

Until the studio intern put the tape in downside up and overwrote the
master you wanted to keep.

[NY]

Post by J. P. Gilliver

Post by John Williamson
It let them use the same crystals for sample timing as for the PAL
colour sub carrier, if I remember correctly. Meant they cost pennies
instead of pounds when the first CD players came out.

Oh, I thought it was because of the two different video standards
(625/25 and 525/30) and the need to find a rate that could be converted
to both of those.

Yes I thought it was a frequency that was usable on both TV systems.

I hadn't realised that recording sound digitally on videotape pre-dated
the CD standard and therefore determined the CD sampling rate. I'd
always thought that sound-on-videotape came after CDs.

[charles]

Post by NY

Post by J. P. Gilliver

Post by John Williamson
It let them use the same crystals for sample timing as for the PAL
colour sub carrier, if I remember correctly. Meant they cost pennies
instead of pounds when the first CD players came out.

Oh, I thought it was because of the two different video standards
(625/25 and 525/30) and the need to find a rate that could be converted
to both of those.

Yes I thought it was a frequency that was usable on both TV systems.
I hadn't realised that recording sound digitally on videotape pre-dated
the CD standard and therefore determined the CD sampling rate. I'd
always thought that sound-on-videotape came after CDs.

Certianly BBC Radio Outside Broadcasts used Beta for recording. After a
number of recording failures, they learned not to smoke over the machine!

[J. P. Gilliver]

Post by NY

Post by J. P. Gilliver

Post by John Williamson
It let them use the same crystals for sample timing as for the PAL
colour sub carrier, if I remember correctly. Meant they cost pennies
instead of pounds when the first CD players came out.

Oh, I thought it was because of the two different video standards
(625/25 and 525/30) and the need to find a rate that could be
converted to both of those.

Yes I thought it was a frequency that was usable on both TV systems.
I hadn't realised that recording sound digitally on videotape pre-dated
the CD standard and therefore determined the CD sampling rate. I'd
always thought that sound-on-videotape came after CDs.

There was an excellent series - ran over about 26 months, I think - in
Wireless World, that explained everything about the Compact Disc system,
in a manner I found both interesting and comprehensible.

[Bill Posters]

Post by NY

Post by J. P. Gilliver

Post by John Williamson
It let them use the same crystals for sample timing as for the PAL
colour sub carrier, if I remember correctly. Meant they cost pennies
instead of pounds when the first CD players came out.

Oh, I thought it was because of the two different video standards
(625/25 and 525/30) and the need to find a rate that could be converted
to both of those.

Yes I thought it was a frequency that was usable on both TV systems.
I hadn't realised that recording sound digitally on videotape pre-dated
the CD standard and therefore determined the CD sampling rate. I'd
always thought that sound-on-videotape came after CDs.

The length of early CD's appears to be dictated by the longest U-Matic available, which was 74 minutes and made by BASF

[NY]

Post by Bill Posters
The length of early CD's appears to be dictated by the longest U-Matic available, which was 74 minutes and made by BASF

I thought that apocryphally it was based on a requirement by someone who
influenced the spec, that the whole of a certain orchestral symphony had
to fit on one disc.

[Max Demian]

Post by NY

Post by Bill Posters
The length of early CD's appears to be dictated by the longest U-Matic
available, which was 74 minutes and made by BASF

I thought that apocryphally it was based on a requirement by someone who
influenced the spec, that the whole of a certain orchestral symphony had
to fit on one disc.

I think it was Beethoven's Ninth.

(It might as well be The Who's Tommy, the double album of which will
just about fit on a single 5" CD.)

[NY]

Post by John Williamson
V2000 was later,and also
had a problem in that the cassette could hold two programmes, depending
on which way up it was, because it only used half the tape width at a
time.

I never knew that any of the VCR formats allowed the tape to be turned
over and only used half the track. I've learned something.

I remember turning the tape upside down in a VHS cassette that had a
badly mangled tape in one part and so could never be used in it entirety
and was too much of a risk of the bad bit being played/recorded on by
accident, clogging the heads. So I had a play. I wound the tape all onto
one spool, cut the tape and reattached the empty takeup spool upside
down, then wound the tape completely onto that, and then turned the
now-empty spool upside down. With the reels the correct way up in the
cassette, the tape was now upside down.

And it played! Very noisy picture, monochrome only, motion in reverse,
picture upside down. I was gobsmacked that it worked at all. I suppose
the line-sync pulses now applied to the previous line (the end of one
line becomes the beginning of a neighbouring one.

[J. P. Gilliver]

Post by NY

V2000 was later,and also had a problem in that the cassette could
hold two programmes, depending on which way up it was, because it
only used half the tape width at a time.

I never knew that any of the VCR formats allowed the tape to be turned
over and only used half the track. I've learned something.

The V2000 cassette looked a bit like a giant audio cassette!

It was the only (domestic) format that had dynamic track following - the
heads were mounted on little piezoelectric mounts, and the system
included extra carrier tones, the differences between successive tracks
being picked up and used in servo loops to keep the heads on track -
from the start; I presume that was made necessary by it only using half
the tape width (the tape was about the same width as Beta and VHS),
though it also had the effect of making the system have excellent
tracking ability - a machine in good condition could play at still frame
or at a range of speeds other than just nominal, without even colour
loss, let alone no noise bars. I believe the VHS format may have gained
DTF towards the end of its (and thus towards the end of home VCRs in
general) reign.

Post by NY
I remember turning the tape upside down in a VHS cassette that had a
badly mangled tape in one part and so could never be used in it
entirety and was too much of a risk of the bad bit being
played/recorded on by accident, clogging the heads. So I had a play. I
wound the tape all onto one spool, cut the tape and reattached the
empty takeup spool upside down, then wound the tape completely onto
that, and then turned the now-empty spool upside down. With the reels
the correct way up in the cassette, the tape was now upside down.
And it played! Very noisy picture, monochrome only, motion in reverse,
picture upside down. I was gobsmacked that it worked at all. I suppose
the line-sync pulses now applied to the previous line (the end of one
line becomes the beginning of a neighbouring one.

I had a Philips reel-to-reel VTR, and once experimented; as I'd
expected, it did indeed produce an upside-down backwards picture. I
don't remember it being noisy, and the machine was monochrome only: IIRR
the picture was very jumpy, I presumed because it didn't have the
control track (that machine used IIRR audio and cue track on opposite
edges of the tape).

(Actually, I've still got a couple of the machines: non-functional.
Anyone interested [I'm in mid-Kent]? They look rather like the domestic
audio machines of the era - piano-key controls, knobs for audio and
video level with meters.)

[Graham.]

I was watching a never-previously-broadcast *colour* version of Last Night at the Sunday Palladium

Was that a real show, a Mollyprop/Spooner joke, or just a typo on
your part?

I've only heard of "Sunday Night at the London Palladium"

[NY]

Post by Graham.

Post by NY
I was watching a never-previously-broadcast *colour* version of Last
Night at the Sunday Palladium

Was that a real show, a Mollyprop/Spooner joke, or just a typo on
your part?
I've only heard of "Sunday Night at the London Palladium"

A typo or brain-on-reduced-power problem ;-) I knew what I *meant* ;-)

[Bill Posters]

Post by NY
I was watching a never-previously-broadcast *colour* version of Last Night
at the Sunday Palladium (shown a year so ago on Talking Pictures TV), made
as an experiment before PAL broadcasts began. As far as I could tell, it had
not been film-recorded.
That led me to think... if it had been originally recorded on 2" Quad tape,
would that tape still be playable today (assuming it had been stored in
ideal conditions)? I imagine at some stage it was converted from analogue
video to a modern digital video format for broadcast by TPTV, but would Quad
VT last long enough to do that during the time that digital formats have
been used, or would it have been copied to another more recent analogue
format (one of the 1" or 3/4" formats) some time in the past before the Quad
tape deteriorated?

Yes, CSC has been recovered from the dot patterns on FR material (provided that it wasn't suppressed on recording).

The problem isn't that early Quad tapes won't be playable, it's that there may be no heads with which to recover them.