MAKING A TELEVISION OUTSIDE BROADCAST IN THE 1960'S

Описание: Tom Salmon the manager at BBC Plymouth hosts an explanation of how a TV OB was put together for the 1966 Devon County Show. The BBC West Region had an OB base and provided facilities for the region. This is a facinating insight into the technology and planning of the time.
NOW FOR SOME TECH HISTORY STUFF
One of the major challenges of that era was synchronising pictures from OB's into studio productions. For those black & white 1960's times a non-synchronous cut was often made which caused a picture jump to be seen on the viewers TV sets. With the arrival of colour TV in the regions a new procedure and sync system was introduced called Genlock . Each studio centre had a master 'sync pulse generator' (SPG) this was generally free running during the day. When the regions opted out from the sustaining feed from London (the national BBC1 or 2 Networks) they would 'genlock' to the network before 'opting out'. This could only be done if the sensitive equipment like Video Tape Machines locally were not doing anything active. Then when the local programme was on-air this 'genlock' could be disconnected. If an outside contribution (an OB for instance) was taken it was necessary to 'genlock' to this source before taking it on-air. At Plymouth this could be done when a local studio camera was on-air because they were robust to sync disturbances. Similarly at the end of the local programme the station was 'genlocked' back to the network before opting back. For this reason it was always necessary to finish the show with a camera shot from the studio. From about 1990 'digital frame stores' were available which enabled any source to be syncronised to the studio making life so much easier.

Follow the restoration of an important historic OB truck at https://mcr21.org.uk/