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Posted on 08/01/21 09:09:05 AM
Steve Caplin
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Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
The Cambridge Museum of Technology we visited last week is also home to a gallery dedicated to electronic manufacturer Pye. Among the many fascinating exhibits was this rather beautiful model of a television outside broadcast vehicle.

Can you move it outside, so it can broadcast?

High res is here.



Posted on 08/01/21 09:24:32 AM
Mariner
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
Steve wrote
...Can you move it outside, so it can broadcast?


Oooh, I don't think so.



Posted on 08/01/21 12:35:07 PM
DavidMac
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
I shot several 'World in Action" for Granada way back in the day. But always on film so I never got to work with this kind of OB vehicle.

It's a beautiful model. Even though I never used the electronic broadcast cameras I can even identify the tripod as a Vinten.

Not much time this week but I'll try and have a go.

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Posted on 08/01/21 3:33:47 PM
lwc
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
Although I try to refrain from political commentary, I never cease to be amazed at how many lunatics can find each other in one place from either side of the aisle...



Posted on 08/01/21 5:15:14 PM
vibeke
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
lwc wrote:
Although I try to refrain from political commentary, I never cease to be amazed at how many lunatics can find each other in one place from either side of the aisle...


Don't want to be rude, but at the moment USA seems to have more than it's fair share.

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Posted on 08/01/21 5:31:04 PM
DavidMac
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
Outside Broadcast Unit One - OB 1

This is very simple and rather ordinary but it really is all I have time for this week.



As with last week this challenge has brought back a memory of the past.

How many of you remember cinema newsreel?

In the UK it was mostly Pathé and Movietone. They were in black and white but things like 'The Grand National' had colour specials. The newsreel companies would hire in extra cameraman for these events. When I was a very green young cameraman I was hired by Movietone for a day for 'The Grand National'. I was taken to a small scaffold with a sign marked "Movietone News" where I was told to set up. The driver simply dropped me off and disappeared until after the race. I was all alone. My camera position was in the centre of a very long straight stretch. I had a written briefing to start on the long end of the zoom when the horses first appeared in the distance and to use my zoom to keep them the same size filling frame as they approached panning them round to ninety degrees and letting them exit frame. So I got myself set up and prepared.

I know nothing about horse racing and had never even been to a racecourse before. Standing there on my little platform I suddenly realised I had absolutely no idea from which direction the horses would be coming! By the time I saw them in the distance it was going to be too late to catch the first part of the shot. I was in trouble.

Twenty yards down the track was another platform marked "Pathé" - my rival! In the end I had no choice but to climb down off my platform and go and ask which direction the horses would coming from. I was so embarrassed!

He was a much, much older experienced cameraman. He laughed himself silly at my predicament and my stupidity.

But, fortunately, he was a good bloke and gave me an honest reply with the right directions. I got talking to him after the race. It transpired he had done the same shot every year for sixteen years!

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Posted on 08/01/21 5:36:44 PM
DavidMac
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
lwc wrote:
Although I try to refrain from political commentary, I never cease to be amazed at how many lunatics can find each other in one place from either side of the aisle...


Yes. I hope that 2020 isn't going to turn out to be just the appetiser!

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Posted on 09/01/21 05:40:36 AM
vibeke
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
I so hope we won't ever be looking back at 2020 and missing it.

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Posted on 09/01/21 09:33:41 AM
Mariner
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
Vibeke - don't be so gloomy. "Always look on the bright side of life".

Posted on 09/01/21 6:16:18 PM
GKB
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
Neil was just as surprised as the Moonlings when they both discovered that they were not alone in the universe.





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Posted on 10/01/21 08:43:05 AM
DavidMac
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast


The high contrast lighting on the van is great

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Posted on 10/01/21 5:23:50 PM
yooser
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
Hello,
I'm not sure if it's O.K. to post on this section as I'm not actually doing the Friday challenge !
I remember seeing a later version of the BBC outside broadcast van at Astle Park Steam Rally quite a few years ago ,I spoke to an enthusiast who restored this version his name was ( I think) Steve Harris.
He informed me it was a 1960's type 2 CMCR9 North 3 which stood for Colour Mobile Camera Room , the cameras on show were EMI 2001 for the North of England and Pye PC80 for the South.
The tripods were Vinton Plover gas operated for smooth operation, which were very heavy !
I think the first outside colour broadcast was for either the trooping of the colour or Wimbledon tennis in 1967, not really sure.
The engineers who set up and run these units were truly clever dedicated professionals who really were working ' on the fly '.
Regards from Neale.





Posted on 10/01/21 5:27:04 PM
yooser
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
Here is another photograph of the BBC outside broadcast van.



Posted on 10/01/21 5:29:40 PM
yooser
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
Yet another photo of the inside of the BBC van.



Posted on 11/01/21 11:36:36 AM
Mariner
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
For those looking for the actual camera in the FC shot:

It is a Pye Mk3 and here is a link:

http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/pye/pyethumb.htm

Posted on 11/01/21 12:16:44 PM
josephine harvatt
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
yooser wrote:
Hello,
I'm not sure if it's O.K. to post on this section as I'm not actually doing the Friday challenge !
I remember seeing a later version of the BBC outside broadcast van at Astle Park Steam Rally quite a few years ago ,I spoke to an enthusiast who restored this version his name was ( I think) Steve Harris.
He informed me it was a 1960's type 2 CMCR9 North 3 which stood for Colour Mobile Camera Room , the cameras on show were EMI 2001 for the North of England and Pye PC80 for the South.
The tripods were Vinton Plover gas operated for smooth operation, which were very heavy !
I think the first outside colour broadcast was for either the trooping of the colour or Wimbledon tennis in 1967, not really sure.
The engineers who set up and run these units were truly clever dedicated professionals who really were working ' on the fly '.
Regards from Neale.





I am sure everyone will be very grateful for the extra picture sources


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Posted on 11/01/21 4:40:59 PM
DavidMac
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
yooser wrote:
The tripods were Vinton Plover gas operated for smooth operation, which were very heavy !


The tripods shown in your pictures are indeed Vinten, if memory serves me correctly, but they are not the Plover.

The Plover was a quite different beastie. It was a pedestal.



This was made for use on flat surfaces. The column gas pressure would be adjusted to exactly balance the camera weight. The large ring at the top of the column just below the head served to raise and lower the column with no more than a fingertip pressure. Rotating the ring simultaneously steered the dolly - normally in 'crab' mode where all three wheels are steered simultaneously allowing the camera to be moved in any direction without changing its orientation in terms of where it is pointing. Not very glamorous and, as you say, very heavy! ........ but truly wonderful pieces of pragmatic functional engineering.

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Posted on 12/01/21 07:39:12 AM
tooquilos
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
http://vimeo.com/499516251



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Posted on 12/01/21 10:46:42 AM
DavidMac
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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
Anna. I was amused by the opening newspaper headlines.

Scots are the inhabitants of Scotland and Scotch comes in a bottle.

A Scotch student means a drunk Scots student .......... which could well explain why he says "....... he met sea monster while motorcycling on Loch Ness shore". Well he might!

It could, of course, simply be in keeping with a reporter who also refers to Nessie, the inhabitant of a freshwater inland loch, as a 'sea monster'.

Lovely entry Anna. I just love it. Joins the almananc of "Great Missed Sightings!".

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Posted on 12/01/21 10:59:10 AM
DavidMac
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Posts: 4902

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Re: Challenge 839: Outside broadcast
yooser wrote:
I think the first outside colour broadcast was for either the trooping of the colour or Wimbledon tennis in 1967, not really sure.


Thanks for a very interesting post and photos Yooser. Should have said so in my last reply. 'Pologies.

Yes the sixties and seventies really saw a dramatic growth in outside broadcast. Here's a picture from the seventies. I don't know anything about its history ......... but I do know I definitely don't want his job!!



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