Robin Hood starring Patrick Troughton - Live TV from 1953

1953

Robin Hood starring Patrick Troughton (BBC-tv, 1953) British Television drama. Extracts from The Abbot of St Marys , episode 2 of a 6-part serial, captured on film during a live transmission in 1953. A very rare (but incomplete) telerecording from 1953, in which the output from an electronic studio camera was captured on film, in an early BBC experiment with the process of recording a live electronic image on film for re-broadcasting later. Almost no television studio footage exists from this period. And this is the earliest known television recording of actor Patrick Troughton . It is thought to be the earliest surviving live broadcast footage from the era of live tv. A BBC technician rescued this film footage from the bin. It is the only surviving video material from this serial. The experiment was a partial failure on this occasion, as a recording fault caused the middle part of the half-hour programme to be lost, giving an incomplete recording of the episode, so that the resulting film was not suitable for repeating on tv. The few minutes of captured footage, being incomplete, was discarded. Subsequent experiments eventually led to the successful development of the so-called 'telerecording' process, and by the mid-1950s it was possible, although expensive, to save on film a tv broadcast from the output of a 405-line electronic tv camera, albeit with low definition. The 405-line picture structure is clearly visible on this early test of the process. The problem of low definition, and the system's other problems, would eventually be fixed by the many technical improvements introduced to the process during the 1960s. The BBC's system of recording live the electronic signal from a studio camera differed from ITV's usual practice of pre-filming tv drama using a standard motion picture film camera, and then broadcasting the resulting film as if it was an ordinary cinema film. ITV's process gave better results in the 1950s, since it yielded better picture definition, plus gave the opportunity to do re-takes, and to edit the film footage to remove any mistakes, as the programme was not being transmitted live. Hence, for example, ITV's 1955 film series The Adventures of Robin Hood has superior picture quality to the recordings the BBC were able to make at that period. This 1953 live footage featuring Patrick Troughton is entirely studio-bound. The BBC's early electronic cameras were not suitable for use outside a television studio, so could not record scenes on location. Even in the 1970s, much later, the BBC was still using film cameras for all location footage needed in television drama. Copyright Expired Recordings Public domain radio : The 50 year period of broadcast copyright under the UK's Copyright Acts 1956 and 1988 has expired for all items included in this collection: · Copyright Act 1956, section 14(2): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1956/74/section/14/enacted · Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, section 14(2): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/14 For broadcasts which aired AFTER the 1956 Act came into force in 1957, the 50 year duration of copyright in the broadcast begins with the date of the first broadcast, and is not extended by any re-broadcast. For broadcasts which aired BEFORE the 1956 Act was passed, the BBC has no broadcast copyright. Broadcasting was not invented until the 1920s, so no provision was made for it in the Copyright Act 1911. Accordingly, no period of broadcast copyright has ever existed in respect of any radio broadcast in the United Kingdom that aired prior to the introduction of the Copyright Act 1956.