Re: Metallikats... where does ted keep these sk tapes anyway?

From: chance <chance_at_unix.infoserve.net>
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 19:50:39 -0700

> I noticed that when it got back from the commercial on TCN and
>showed the "Relentless Missile" chasing after them, the characters and
>sound became a little blurred/fuzzy. Is this just my cable provider, or
>did everyone else experience it too? Does ted keep these tapes outside
>without a box in the mud? The old huckleberry hounds, etc. tapes are in
>better condition than the SWAT Kat ones.

I wrote the Powers-That-Be on this, but didn't get a response yet. Thing is, if
the other TCN fare is clear as a bell on your tube, but the Kats aren't, then
the problem is obviously at their end. I don't know if things have changed since
I was last in a broadcast center, but the toons are normally shot on 35mm
ECNII filmstock and then transferred to, I think, 1" videotape. There
was a move awhile ago have videotape information stored on something like
a giant hard-drive and *then* broadcast, but the last I'd read had that particular
technology confined to newsbroadcasts (CNN uses it, I think). So, chances
are that they're still running 1" tape, and likely the same ones over-and-over.

If they were smart, they've archived the original 35mm filmstock from which to
make new masters, but with Tedco's management, who knows?

(Also, EastmanColorII film has been found to be, um, somewhat less long-lived
 than claimed by Kodak-Eastman. Even films like 1977's "Star Wars" had
 degraded in storage to the point where poor Lucas had to scour the planet
 for undamaged prints to re-create another master. Just think of all those
 cartoons shot on the same film stock languishing deep in some vault
 somewhere. Anyone remember what happened with nitrate film stock?)
_____________________________________________________
"Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed
 antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters,
 through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in
 the winter of 1925. Endurance, Fidelity, Intelligence." -- "Balto"
_____________________________________________________

Received on Mon Apr 29 1996 - 23:52:47 PDT