Coming soon on Freeview Channels

[fatcat]

Just a heads up for The Invisible Man (ITC) which starts a run on Talking Pictures May 28th 17.30

[prisoner5]

This had a run recently, was it on tptv? or another channel.

[Brian F]

Yes TPTV ran it.

[fatcat]

Ah yes I have only been able to get TP since sometime this year so it's all a bit new to me ...actually 'kid with the keys to the candy store' describes it LOL

[Mark]

The TV Movie "The Night Strangler", Is about to start at 9.10 pm on TPTV ( don't know if they have shown the first one or not, and no sign of the "Kolchak TV series yet either).

Would also be nice if they started showing some of the classic TV Movies from that period as well.

[fatcat]

The TV Movie "The Night Strangler", Is about to start at 9.10 pm on TPTV ( don't know if they have shown the first one or not, and no sign of the "Kolchak TV series yet either).

Would also be nice if they started showing some of the classic TV Movies from that period as well.

Perhaps more Horror tv's department but the US was churning out a load of creepy tv movies in that era that now have not be seen for sometime and not forgetting Night Gallery of course.I thought poor ole Roy Thinnes was set for a comeback after The Norless Tapes.

[Mark]

There was the Sebastian Cabot series as well, "Circle Of Fear", I think it was that one or "NIght Gallery" which had a very creepy episode I recall, featuring a creature let loose in a cinema.

It was great to see "The Night Strangler" again, got me in the mood for the old "Mystery Movie" series ( had a listen to Mancini's brilliant theme).

A channel devoted to them, and all the old TV Movies of that period would be great.

[prisoner5]

There are some nice little gems to be found on T.P but there is also alot of very mediocre and poor stuff as well, its a case of sifting thru the listings to find the, seen a few of the "Hawkeye" episodes to satisfy my nostalgia cravings, like "Gideons way"alot, wouldnt mind seeing a few of the early itv swashbuckler series Bucaneers, Robin hood, William tell, Lancealot.
Anyone seen the other classic movie channel called Retro movies, very similar to tp and close to it on the Sky guide?

[Ian Fryer]

Retro Movies is a slightly different kettle of fish, but nontheless welcome. It shows movies which have fallen out of copyright, but has at least got hold of a wider range of material than the usual five or six filmsfilms of this sort that always turn up.

Basically, anything Retro Movies shows can be found on YouTube.

[Mark]

What's the betting, Retro will pick up those public domain episodes of "Beverley Hillbillies", sometime soon.?

Forces TV are showing "Mannix" (as well as "Buck Rodgers/25th Century") at the moment.

[Andy Marriott]

There was the Sebastian Cabot series as well, "Circle Of Fear", I think it was.

It became Circle of fear after the revamp (which removed Sebastian Cabot). It was originally called "Ghost story"

[Ian Fryer]

What's the betting, Retro will pick up those public domain episodes of "Beverley Hillbillies", sometime soon.?

Forces TV are showing "Mannix" (as well as "Buck Rodgers/25th Century") at the moment.

Forces TV get really nice quality prints, too. I'd never seen episodes from series one of Mannix with a different format.

I've noticed that Retro TV is terrible at keeping to its schedule. Whenever I put it on a different film is on to the one on the EPG.

[Mark]

There was the Sebastian Cabot series as well, "Circle Of Fear", I think it was.

It became Circle of fear after the revamp (which removed Sebastian Cabot). It was originally called "Ghost story"

Ah right, must have seen them both then, as I remember the "COF" title, and certainly Cabot's intros, could have been a "Ghost Story" episode, with the creature in the cinema I recall, think it was some sort of white Ape or something.

[Mark]

What's the betting, Retro will pick up those public domain episodes of "Beverley Hillbillies", sometime soon.?

Forces TV are showing "Mannix" (as well as "Buck Rodgers/25th Century") at the moment.

Forces TV get really nice quality prints, too. I'd never seen episodes from series one of Mannix with a different format.

I've noticed that Retro TV is terrible at keeping to its schedule. Whenever I put it on a different film is on to the one on the EPG.

Yes, Forces TV are very good, some great shows on there, not got round to checking out Retro yet.

[fatcat]

Yes, Forces TV are very good, some great shows on there, not got round to checking out Retro yet.

Caught I Dream of Jeannie on Forces TV .

[fatcat]

June 30 Sat TP are showing the lost for many years B movie "where has poor Mickey gone' with Warren Mitchell.

Warren I believe, was giving some young film makers a break when he got involved in this and of course risking his own rep by having his name on the billing.

[prisoner5]

Yes they aired it some time ago, i recorded and saved it,is always worthwhile scanning the listings for TP, but there is a lot of very mediocre stuff on the channel.

[fatcat]

Heads up TP is showing 'Night of the Demon' on the 17th August

[Kieran Seymour]

Heads up TP is showing 'Night of the Demon' next week

It's meant to be out on Blu-ray from Indicator before the end of the year, so people might want to forego TP and start anticipating a significant upgrade.

[Mark]

Tru Ent start "The New Avengers" tonight 8pm.

[Mark]

It's great that Tru Ent are showing "The New Avengers", but it would be even better if they showed it in the right ratio from the next one, I don't remember Mercedes cars ever being that long!

[Brian F]

It's great that Tru Ent are showing "The New Avengers", but it would be even better if they showed it in the right ratio from the next one, I don't remember Mercedes cars ever being that long!

Could be they just didn't sent the signal to switch your set to 4:3 mode (I don't think it's on an HD Mux). Try setting manually to 4:3 next time.

[fatcat]

It's great that Tru Ent are showing "The New Avengers", but it would be even better if they showed it in the right ratio from the next one, I don't remember Mercedes cars ever being that long!

I thought The Pursuaders looked very good indeed (obviously would have been absolutely astounding in the right ratio) on True Ent and M4M.

OT.. but The New Avengers and (Network now reviving) stuff like The Zoo Gang represented to me a rather shoddy swansong era to the UK action film series.. they looked grubby & ghastly IMHO for a 35mm series and not surprised they have very long Mercedeses LOL. Repeats of Randall &Hopkirk etc in the 70s always looked 10 times better.

I suppose the 70s was the time when money was running out and would suspect (after reading Network's ZG restoration blog) that they used 'cheap' newsfilm grade for distribution prints in those days.
The audience quickly went off The Zoo Gang as perhaps they expected something a bit more glossy from the French Riviera and maybe Network's new release is going to prove what a show it could have been?
Which brings me onto Rediffusion's location action series Riviera Police..er I'll stop waffling on..LOL

[Mark]

It's great that Tru Ent are showing "The New Avengers", but it would be even better if they showed it in the right ratio from the next one, I don't remember Mercedes cars ever being that long!

Could be they just didn't sent the signal to switch your set to 4:3 mode (I don't think it's on an HD Mux). Try setting manually to 4:3 next time.

Second episode was correct ratio, so hopefully it will stay that way.

[Mark]

It's great that Tru Ent are showing "The New Avengers", but it would be even better if they showed it in the right ratio from the next one, I don't remember Mercedes cars ever being that long!

I thought The Pursuaders looked very good indeed (obviously would have been absolutely astounding in the right ratio) on True Ent and M4M.

OT.. but The New Avengers and (Network now reviving) stuff like The Zoo Gang represented to me a rather shoddy swansong era to the UK action film series.. they looked grubby & ghastly IMHO for a 35mm series and not surprised they have very long Mercedeses LOL. Repeats of Randall &Hopkirk etc in the 70s always looked 10 times better.

I suppose the 70s was the time when money was running out and would suspect (after reading Network's ZG restoration blog) that they used 'cheap' newsfilm grade for distribution prints in those days.
The audience quickly went off The Zoo Gang as perhaps they expected something a bit more glossy from the French Riviera and maybe Network's new release is going to prove what a show it could have been?
Which brings me onto Rediffusion's location action series Riviera Police..er I'll stop waffling on..LOL

I know what you mean, some of the shows did look a bit grotty, "Jason King" for instance, although I always thought picture quality on "The New Avengers" was excellent at the time and as it should be for 35mm, but the prints knocking about now are very poor in comparison.

I was never a big fan of Euston at the time, they really were grotty looking and grainy, some good shows though.

Don't stop!, what about "Riviera Police"?...it was good series, seen a few episodes, multi-cam show, wish some more would turn up.

[prisoner5]

Please explain about picture quality, is it because the prints have not aged well or the film stock they originally used ? All the broadcast shows ive seen, i havent noticed any difference albeit i wasnt looking in the first place.
Talking of picture quality i did pick up the "high budget" feel to C4s noel edmonds show "cheap cheap cheap" didnt care for the show but noticed there was something different about the picture, apologies for my ignorance.

[fatcat]

Please explain about picture quality, is it because the prints have not aged well or the film stock they originally used ? All the broadcast shows ive seen, i havent noticed any difference albeit i wasnt looking in the first place.
Talking of picture quality i did pick up the "high budget" feel to C4s noel edmonds show "cheap cheap cheap" didnt care for the show but noticed there was something different about the picture, apologies for my ignorance.

Well it's all a matter of opinion of course- but perhaps it's more a matter of 'the look' rather than picture quality .For example as people changed over to colour television, all those colour series shot in the 60s looked astonishingly good..for example 'The Avengers' ..however by the time 'The New Avengers' had come along it all looked a bit flat and dull..I thought anyway. The same could be said of VT series..looking great in the 70s but not so good in the 80s..but that is just me.

However things can said about digitization is that is duplicates without loss,in the analogue days the picture you saw on the screen was probably several generations down from the master (as effects were added, mistakes corrected etc) and each generation took away some of the original quality and maybe added grain,dirt( on film) visual noise (on tape),more instability etc. 16mm film is actually a good HD format, however because of it's smaller picture area it cannot take many analogue generations before it looks quite grotty - comparing something from the old days this might explain why 'Jason King' looked cheap and grotty (complicated shooting using many generations of film to grade, match stock shots,effects etc) and 'Catweazle' (simpler one location shooting,very few effects-hence less generations) has always looked miles better than Jason King.
With VT it was the move from 2' to 1' which enabled much more versatile editing and special effects, but that suffered the analogue generation thing where if you copied it over too much the quality would suffer and arguably it never looked as good as 2' in the first place.

These days as in something like 'Cheap,Cheap,Cheap' it's probably the now relatively cheap cameras and their continuing development that is making the quality improvements you have noticed.

[Mark]

I thought you meant print quality.

I have to say I agree with Fatcat there, about the 'look', although "The New Avengers" picture quality was excellent, I much preferred the 'look' of the 60's episodes.

"The New Avengers" was done at Pinewood, and you can see the same with the Carry On's, the 60's ones looked better than the 70's films.

VT did seem better on 2", OB looked much better than it did later on, "Survivors" for instance, but by the 80's, it did look quite flat and dull.

That said, today's look is really poor, I think, just compare the difference between the early filmed "Midsomer Murders" and now, the early ones look bright and seem to have more colour to them, a more vibrant look.

The masters for "The New Avengers" are lost aren't they?, along with "The Professionals" and "Terrahawks".

[prisoner5]

Thanks guys for explaining to me i get the point of it all now, cant really comment on some of the series you mentioned but i know some of what i call 2nd unit or stock footage inserts to establish locations do look differenton the whole.
One series i did notice the lovely picture quality or feel was "Darling buds of may",life seemed like an eternal summer.

[Brian F]

The Professionals negatives were found for the Blu-ray release by Network and gave excellent results. I don't know about the New Avengers but the prints used for the DVDs were not the best. The one shown at the Avengers Weekend at the NFT a good few years ago was much better than those, it made the colour prints shown of the original series look a step down too.