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Old 31-07-2011, 20:03
howardl
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Anyone old enough to remember pre-colour days?

Pot Black was a bugger to watch.
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Old 31-07-2011, 20:31
jasonjimbob
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I was born in 1975, so black and white programmes were few and far between.
I still own a 1970's 12 volt battery/240 volt mains B&W 12inch portable TV with 4 tunable channels. which still works today.
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Old 31-07-2011, 20:53
Charcole911
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Yep. No colour 3D, HD, Stereo etc just captivating television. Now we have cameras following Jordan and Coronation Street trying to be like a bond movie.
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Old 31-07-2011, 21:06
Mike_1101
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I remember it very well, not forgetting the continental interference that wiped out BBC1 every summer.

My parents rented a 23" Pye set in the early 70s with an annoying picture fault on 625 that made watching BBC2 very unpleasant. We had to watch most programmes on 405 lines for a few years, not nice on a 23" screen.

I agree with the comment about the programmes though.
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Old 31-07-2011, 21:07
Soundbox
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I think it tells you something when the TV companies only keep telling you about digital, HD and other fluff instead of producing first class shows. I was born in the early 70's and whether it is black and white or colour, content is everything. We did not have colour until the early 80's in fact. Look at the Jeremy Brett episodes of Sherlock Holmes as an example - almost painfully made on gritty tape but after a few minutes that is forgotten and the plot and acting takes over.
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Old 01-08-2011, 01:09
SimonSmith42
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Anyone old enough to remember pre-colour days?

Pot Black was a bugger to watch.
Famous quote from early colour snooker commentry :-
"For those of you watching in Black & White, the pink is the ball behind the yellow" (or something close to that)
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Old 01-08-2011, 09:34
call100
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Famous quote from early colour snooker commentry :-
"For those of you watching in Black & White, the pink is the ball behind the yellow" (or something close to that)
If my memory serves me well it was Yellow behind the Blue. Whispered beautifully by the late Ted Lowe.
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Old 01-08-2011, 13:30
cnbcwatcher
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I was born in 1990 but we had an old black and white TV as well as a colour one and when the colour TV went in for repair we would use the black and white as a spare. I didn't like watching stuff on it though, I much preferred our colour TV. Eventually got rid of that old TV when I was 10 (gave it to a charity shop). It was an old Matsui portable with an aerial on top.
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Old 01-08-2011, 13:50
PsychoTherapist
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I had a 14" PYE black and white TV when I was a kid in the late 80s / early 90s. I wanted a TV in my bedroom and it was all that my parents could afford then. It was even used as our main TV for some months, when the main colour set broke down.

Didn't mind watching stuff in black and white and thus I don't mind old black + white TV shows and movies. Some TV shows that made the transition to colour in those early days, looked all the worse for it.
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Old 01-08-2011, 14:08
bobcar
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If my memory serves me well it was Yellow behind the Blue. Whispered beautifully by the late Ted Lowe.
I remember hearing this but although it sounds ridiculous depending on the position of the balls it actually makes sense. Providing the blue was on it's spot then any snooker aficionado would understand immediately which was the yellow ball.
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Old 01-08-2011, 14:38
Nigel Goodwin
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I remember hearing this but although it sounds ridiculous depending on the position of the balls it actually makes sense. Providing the blue was on it's spot then any snooker aficionado would understand immediately which was the yellow ball.
It wasn't on it's spot - it was a classic goof, and has been mentioned (and shown) endlessly on snooker programmes. I think it was from Pot Black?.
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Old 01-08-2011, 15:22
Peter the Great
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Yep. No colour 3D, HD, Stereo etc just captivating television. Now we have cameras following Jordan and Coronation Street trying to be like a bond movie.
Yeah right. Television that was hardly on air and a lot of it very dull. It's all well and good picking out trash like the Jordan shows but there is still a lot of good tv out there. At least now the BBC commissions new Drama even in the Summer months. Back then very few new programmes would be commissioned in the Summer months.
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Old 01-08-2011, 17:54
Rowieboy
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We got our first colour telly in 1971. It arrived on a Friday afternoon and the whole family were glued to it all weekend. We would watch anything that was on and in colour! Farming,gardening programmes on Sunday etc.
I do have a fondness for the B&W era and remember clearly at the age of 2 not being able to watch Play School in 1964 as we didn't have a UHF aerial or television so it was the test card on BBC1 or nothing...
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Old 01-08-2011, 18:34
uggla
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We didnt own a colour tv until about 1980 think it was a Ferguson it had horrid touch buttons that when damp you couldnt change channels, and we had an old b+w portable with the dial tuner remember them.
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Old 02-08-2011, 08:49
Nigel Goodwin
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We didnt own a colour tv until about 1980 think it was a Ferguson it had horrid touch buttons that when damp you couldnt change channels, and we had an old b+w portable with the dial tuner remember them.
Did Ferguson ever do touch buttons? - for the sets that did (GEC was a major offender), the technique was to touch the button and jump in the air (and I'm not joking!).
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Old 02-08-2011, 09:34
ianradioian
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We had a B/W tv set until 1976, when we got a 19" colour one s/hand. We also had a Teleton portable so I was well used to B/W, and lots of stuff then was still in B/W, including news outside reports etc. then it would be colour again back in the studio!
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Old 02-08-2011, 11:23
Nigel Goodwin
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We also had a Teleton portable so I was well used to B/W!
We sold a LOT of those Telton portables, they were amazing sets, even now hardly any have ever come back for repair.

We have had a couple in the last year or two come back for disposal (having had a new TV), both were 100% working and a perfect picture - we placed them in our 'museum' room.
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Old 02-08-2011, 14:23
webbie
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Our b/w tv was a bit of wooden furniture with a tube in the middle. It had a slatted wooden door that covered the screen when not in use. The channel dial was at the back - you had to grope behind the set to feel the dial and then turn it. So it was mostly left on BBC1.
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Old 02-08-2011, 15:10
spiney2
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Yep, very well!

I also remember listening to BBC2 sound only,, on a dual standard Radio Rentals Baird tv with UHF tuner, before the 625 lines timebase conversion kit was added ..........
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Old 02-08-2011, 23:10
itvproducer
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Famous quote from early colour snooker commentry :-
"For those of you watching in Black & White, the pink is the ball behind the yellow" (or something close to that)
I think the footage of that is fake.
While I assume Ted Lowe did use the line in Pot Black it would have been edited out before broadcast .

When the footage was replayed on It'll Be Alright on the Night the voiceover sounds rehearsed and pre-recorded rather than being what was actually done at the time.

If it did go out its like the original was wiped anyway and they got Ted Lowe to redo it.

A similar IBAOTN fake happened with an Anglia weatherman presenting a blank forecast map.
I know that because I saw the original when it went out
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Old 03-08-2011, 01:18
cnbcwatcher
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Our b/w tv was a bit of wooden furniture with a tube in the middle. It had a slatted wooden door that covered the screen when not in use. The channel dial was at the back - you had to grope behind the set to feel the dial and then turn it. So it was mostly left on BBC1.
Oh I don't like the sound of that
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Old 03-08-2011, 08:51
Nigel Goodwin
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I think the footage of that is fake.
While I assume Ted Lowe did use the line in Pot Black it would have been edited out before broadcast .
As far as I'm aware Pot Black (like most snooker) was a live broadcast.
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Old 03-08-2011, 09:23
call100
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As far as I'm aware Pot Black (like most snooker) was a live broadcast.
Apparently the BBC recorded the series in a single day and released it as a half hour programme weekly. The results being kept secret until transmission was over.
However the commentary was not dubbed over.
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Old 03-08-2011, 10:43
soulboy77
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One memory was watching Tomorrow's World doing an experiment which made colour appear on a black & white TV. Sounds impossible but apparently they were using what is called the Fechner color effect where rapidly moving black & white images gives the illusion of colour.
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Old 03-08-2011, 10:56
Nigel Goodwin
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Apparently the BBC recorded the series in a single day and released it as a half hour programme weekly. The results being kept secret until transmission was over.
However the commentary was not dubbed over.
Presumably, as with most older TV programmes (and certainly back then) programmes were recorded and mixed 'live' - no second chances, no retakes - it went on the master tape as it happened, if something happened on a camera feed not recording to tape at that instant then it was lost for ever.

I don't know if Pot Black used more than a single camera or not? - possibly not? - it's a LONG time ago
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