How many prints were floating round in the 1960s...?

[Candlelight]

...well I've taken a stab at it:

http://missingepisodes.blogspot.co.nz/p/howmanyprints.html

Please read the disclaimer. It's not finished. It's not perfect.

Please feel free to pull it apart and stomp on it.

If stuff is missing or incorrect it's likely I've just missed it. Some stories I focused on more than others.

 

[diankra]

Will check that through. I started working this out last year, after the info about the Sierra Leone almost-copies came through and suggested it might be solvable (those blank boxes in Missing suddenly seemed very intriguing), but got stuck. Hope you've got further!

One first thought: I suspect that it would make good sense to consider the surviving episodes as well. For instance, Missing lists the 'junking dates' for the missing stories.. but not the surviving stories. But if the surviving stories had been junked, and then copies came back from abroad after they'd been junked, but were saved by Levine and the archives before they could be junked again... you see what I mean, I hope. If nothing else, tracing surviving episodes could provide a clue as to the fate of missing ones. Or at least rule out false leads.

And finally, if you have a solid list of which episodes are suppressed field copies, I'd love to see it. I currently make it Reign of Terror 1,2,3 and one copy of 6, plus all the episodes transmitted from film before 1966 (Daleks 4, Planet of Giants 3, Dalek Invasion of Earth 5, and just possibly Gunfighters 4). But I suspect that might not be a complete list.

Ps: finished. First read, very good. Few maybes, mainly about Ethiopia... But now need sources to dblchk!

 

[Mr Awe]

What's a suppressed field copy? Thanks!

 

[diankra]

What's a suppressed field copy? Thanks!

Suppressed Field was the early way of making film copies of programmes made on video tape: it only captured them at half of the original resolution (as it only got lines 1,3,5 etc, not 2,4,etc). Sometime in 1966 (two years into Doctor Who) the improved Stored Field technique came in (which got 1,2,3, etc) took over, and new Stored Field prints were made of all the preceding episodes (as the original videotapes still existed at that point).
The original suppressed field copies were then junked. But as the stored field copies were also later junked, there's a few cases were the only surviving copies of early episodes are surviving copies of the earlier suppressed field versions that came back from countries who'd bought them very early on.

 

[Candlelight]

Will check that through. I started working this out last year, after the info about the Sierra Leone almost-copies came through and suggested it might be solvable (those blank boxes in Missing suddenly seemed very intriguing), but got stuck. Hope you've got further!

One first thought: I suspect that it would make good sense to consider the surviving episodes as well. For instance, Missing lists the 'junking dates' for the missing stories.. but not the surviving stories. But if the surviving stories had been junked, and then copies came back from abroad after they'd been junked, but were saved by Levine and the archives before they could be junked again... you see what I mean, I hope. If nothing else, tracing surviving episodes could provide a clue as to the fate of missing ones. Or at least rule out false leads.

And finally, if you have a solid list of which episodes are suppressed field copies, I'd love to see it. I currently make it Reign of Terror 1,2,3 and one copy of 6, plus all the episodes transmitted from film before 1966 (Daleks 4, Planet of Giants 3, Dalek Invasion of Earth 5, and just possibly Gunfighters 4). But I suspect that might not be a complete list.

Ps: finished. First read, very good. Few maybes, mainly about Ethiopia... But now need sources to dblchk!

Cheers for that. The page is currently in flux as I get feedback from those higher up in the Who food chain, and I'm also good friends with Jon Preddle (a fellow Kiwi) who runs the BroaDWcast website. I don't know if you visit the Proboards missing episode forum but Jon and I have been bouncing a conversation for over four pages now!

Regarding the Suppressed Field prints, I know of The Daleks 5 & 7, the last five minutes of The Edge of Destruction 2, The Reign of Terror 1 2 3 6, The Crusade 1, The Chase 1 (bold indicates the only existing copy).

Thre are no Suppressed Field copies known to exist after The Chase 1, so The Gunfighters wouldn't be on that list. Planet of Giants 3 and The Daleks 4 both have Stored Field copies in existence, although they may have Suppressed Field copies existing. The Dalek Invasion of Earth 5 is an interesting one as it's the original broadcast 35mm film - which I guess at the time would've been created Suppressed Field. Need to check up on that.

http://missingepisodes.blogspot.co.nz/p/what-is-missing.html

Near the bottom is a small section on Suppressed Field.

 

[Candlelight]

There's actually a lot of suppressed field prints in existence. Might try to add them to my site this weekend.

 

[diankra]

There are no Suppressed Field copies known to exist after The Chase 1, so The Gunfighters wouldn't be on that list. Planet of Giants 3 and The Daleks 4 both have Stored Field copies in existence, although they may have Suppressed Field copies existing. The Dalek Invasion of Earth 5 is an interesting one as it's the original broadcast 35mm film - which I guess at the time would've been created Suppressed Field. Need to check up on that.

I'd been working on the old belief that stored field came in towards the end of season three, so that Gunfighters 4 might have been sup-field if the questionable records that it might have been transmitted from film were correct. But as that doesn't seem to be the case, that clears up that possibility.

Planet of Giants 3 is a curious one: if the transmitted version was produced by editing telerecordings of the original 3&4, then you'd think they'd have to be suppressed field copies at that point. Unless stored field was around even earlier than the end of season 2, but was only used for transmission prints due to shortage of equipment during the switchover?

 

[Candlelight]

The 35mm prints were made a different way, so Planet of Giants 3 was still considered a master tape as opposed to a basic 16mm overseas print.

 

[diankra]

That's interesting: I'm trying to work out how using a larger film stock got round the practical problem that led to the suppressed field technique being used as a stop-gap (it takes time to move on the film, so the second field couldn't be shot as that was being displayed while the film was advanced).

 

[Candlelight]

Yeah, for most of the 35mm prints they were output direct from the cameras. Don't ask me how it differed from the 16mm telerecordings, or how Planet of Giants 3 was made (which the video off the quad tapes was transferred to 35mm).

Might ask the RT.

 

[Candlelight]

http://missingepisodes.blogspot.co.nz/p/what-is-missing.html

Have added the 'full' list of Suppressed Field episodes I'm aware of.

Forgive the formatting issues, Blogger seems to hate my Mac. Will correct from my Windows machine when I'm at work on Monday.