Kinescopes - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Sean Snow · 02-03-2002, 01:03 PM

Can anyone tell me when Kinescopes of shows were stop being made? I know that some of them were used until at least 1970 for stations that couldn't broadcast the programs correctly from the feeds.

Like I was looking at a "Dark Shadows" website (http://www.darkshadows.com/main.html I think) and they were made for that soap opera until 1970. And that since some of the original epsiodes (There were 1225 episodes) have been missing, the ones you see for some ofthem are actually from kinescope. That's the reason that if you watch the show, it goes from color to B&W back to Color. I was guessing around 1970 for the end of kinescopes since soapoperas and gameshows used kinescopes at times since their daytime programming. It also lists the end of kinescopes the reason for one of the missing episodes of that series (Which the audio track has been found and is now shown in syndication, but instead of film, there are still pictures). Also, I've read that the kinescopes demise was caused by the cheapining price of videotape.

Any help would be appreciated.

Pitooey · 02-03-2002, 09:47 PM

Hi! I love Dark Shadows and I am a big fan! I have no answers on the kinescope though........

Sean Snow · 02-03-2002, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by JennyLee22
Hi! I love Dark Shadows and I am a big fan! I have no answers on the kinescope though........

I've never seen "Dark Shadows"

I'm gonna start watching though starting tomorrow! I can't wait till they get to the Kate Jackson years, I love her work on "Charlie's Angels"

Sean Snow · 02-03-2002, 10:03 PM

Here's a little thing frmo that website I mentioned above on them:

For those of you unfamiliar with "Kinescope", it is the process of basically pointing a motion picture camera at a TV screen and filming it. Many people don't realize that in the very early days of TV there were video cameras however there was no video tape! Most early TV broadcasts don't exist today because they were done live and never recorded. Many of those that do exist are Kinescope. This means that a video camera was pointed at the actors which was used to broadcast live and a separate movie camera was pointed at a TV screen to record it. Generally most people can tell the difference between video tape and Kinescope which produces a picture of noticably poorer quality.

JT · 02-03-2002, 10:15 PM

So "The Honeymooners" episodes that have two 15 minute episodes in each half hour was kinescope?Because they really don't look clear.But can that be the fact that I am ao sleepy I'm slowly crying?LOL.

About that DS site.Why does it have 1840 and 1847 and stuff on side of the character's names?
Oh by they way Dark Shardows comes on at 9:00am and 9:30 am central........I can't watch it.

Sean Snow · 02-03-2002, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by JT

About that DS site.Why does it have 1840 and 1847 and stuff on side of the character's names?
Oh by they way Dark Shardows comes on at 9:00am and 9:30 am central........I can't watch it.

Yeah I have to tape it. Those numbers are by the character because it would have flashbacks back to certain years. I kno it went back to like 1795, etc. Those were flashbacks took place after Barnabas came. I know it went to 1795 & 1847. And often the people who played the regulars played another person in the flashbacks. These flashbacks were regulars every season. The 210 Pre-Barnabas episdoes do not have any ofthose, since it was mostly about the governess in those episodes. All this info, and I haven't even seen it lol

And yes, "The Honeymooners" that weren't part of the Classic 39 were keniscopes. Also, the "I Love Lucy" pliot that is now in existence is a keniscope

TV Guy · 02-04-2002, 06:50 PM

Kinescopes pretty much started disappearing as videotape became more common in the 1960s. Kinescopes were originally used as a method to preserve live performances in the 40s and 50s. Videotape was not yet available, and filming was expensive and complex. Kinescopes, as you pointed out, were made by just filming a video monitor. Many shows were aired live from New York, and since there was no cross-continental cable (or satellites!) at that time, the networks would air kinescopes of those live performances three hours later for the West Coast. But the advent of videotape really wiped out kinescopes, since tape was a cheap alternative to film, and provided much better quality than kinescopes.

"I Love Lucy" was one of the first sitcoms to be filmed, rather than kinescoped, because Lucy and Desi didn't want to move to New York to do the show, and CBS didn't want poor quality kinescopes aired for the East Coast audience, which was much larger than the West Coast audience at that time. So Lucy and Desi and their staff worked out a way to film the show, and no one had to watch it on a grainy kinescope. CBS wasn't thrilled about the cost of filming the show, so Lucy and Desi lowered their salaries in exchange for owning the negatives of the shows -- in other words, the reruns! Pretty good deal for them. They wound up selling those negatives back to CBS, and used the money to finance the purchase of a new studio for Desilu.

By the early 1960s, the era of live television was winding down, and non-flmed shows, like variety programs, were switching to videotape. The last shows to be preserved on kinescope were soap operas, game shows, and talk shows. But by the end of the 1960s, those shows were largely being preserved on videotape as well.

"Dark Shadows" is an interesting case. It was one of the first daytime soaps to be videotaped, and one of the very few soaps from the 60s where almost all the episodes have survived. "DS" used to air on ABC weekdays at 4:00 pm, but when it first started, a lot of ABC affiliates used to delay it and show it at all kinds of weird times. A lot of these same affiliates didn't yet have videotape machines, which would have allowed them to record the live feed and play it back at a different time. So, because "DS" was becoming so popular, ABC used to provide kinescopes to those stations which delayed it. It is these kinescopes which are used in the "DS" rerun rotation when master videotapes of certain episodes can't be located. ABC stopped distributing the "DS" kinescopes in 1970, and there's one episode after that where the master tape is missing. The episode was "reconstructed" using still photographs and the audio soundtrack, which survived.

Sean Snow · 02-04-2002, 07:50 PM

Thanks for the explanation TV Guy! I knew someone had an answer lol

I just watched "Dark Shadows"...one episode was a kinescope, one was in color. The kinescope looked weird...like at certain times, the film would start turning darker, and then get a lot lighter. I can see now why most studios got rid of the kinescopes. It's harder to see the difference if it's originally filmed in B&W, but it has a weird look to it when it's in B&W when it's supposed to be Color.

02-03-2002, 01:03 PM	#1
Sean Snow moo Forum Fanatic Join Date: May 06, 2001 Location: Georgia Posts: 10,408	Kinescopes Can anyone tell me when Kinescopes of shows were stop being made? I know that some of them were used until at least 1970 for stations that couldn't broadcast the programs correctly from the feeds. Like I was looking at a "Dark Shadows" website (http://www.darkshadows.com/main.html I think) and they were made for that soap opera until 1970. And that since some of the original epsiodes (There were 1225 episodes) have been missing, the ones you see for some ofthem are actually from kinescope. That's the reason that if you watch the show, it goes from color to B&W back to Color. I was guessing around 1970 for the end of kinescopes since soapoperas and gameshows used kinescopes at times since their daytime programming. It also lists the end of kinescopes the reason for one of the missing episodes of that series (Which the audio track has been found and is now shown in syndication, but instead of film, there are still pictures). Also, I've read that the kinescopes demise was caused by the cheapining price of videotape. Any help would be appreciated.
	Last edited by Sean Snow; 02-03-2002 at 01:04 PM.

02-03-2002, 09:47 PM	#2
Pitooey Member Forum Star Join Date: Feb 15, 2001 Location: Rocking in Transylvania. Posts: 15,042	Hi! I love Dark Shadows and I am a big fan! I have no answers on the kinescope though........
	__________________ Pitooey... AKA JennyLee - I love the Monkees all over again! *SAY NO TO DRUGS* Jesus saves...

02-03-2002, 10:15 PM	#5
JT Member Forum Veteran Join Date: Apr 29, 2001 Location: USA Posts: 7,223	So "The Honeymooners" episodes that have two 15 minute episodes in each half hour was kinescope?Because they really don't look clear.But can that be the fact that I am ao sleepy I'm slowly crying?LOL. About that DS site.Why does it have 1840 and 1847 and stuff on side of the character's names? Oh by they way Dark Shardows comes on at 9:00am and 9:30 am central........I can't watch it.
	__________________ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrEbJBFWIPk

02-03-2002, 10:03 PM	#4
Sean Snow moo Forum Fanatic Join Date: May 06, 2001 Location: Georgia Posts: 10,408	Here's a little thing frmo that website I mentioned above on them: For those of you unfamiliar with "Kinescope", it is the process of basically pointing a motion picture camera at a TV screen and filming it. Many people don't realize that in the very early days of TV there were video cameras however there was no video tape! Most early TV broadcasts don't exist today because they were done live and never recorded. Many of those that do exist are Kinescope. This means that a video camera was pointed at the actors which was used to broadcast live and a separate movie camera was pointed at a TV screen to record it. Generally most people can tell the difference between video tape and Kinescope which produces a picture of noticably poorer quality.

02-04-2002, 06:50 PM	#7
TV Guy Member Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Jun 25, 2001 Location: Boston, MA, USA Posts: 3,419	Kinescopes pretty much started disappearing as videotape became more common in the 1960s. Kinescopes were originally used as a method to preserve live performances in the 40s and 50s. Videotape was not yet available, and filming was expensive and complex. Kinescopes, as you pointed out, were made by just filming a video monitor. Many shows were aired live from New York, and since there was no cross-continental cable (or satellites!) at that time, the networks would air kinescopes of those live performances three hours later for the West Coast. But the advent of videotape really wiped out kinescopes, since tape was a cheap alternative to film, and provided much better quality than kinescopes. "I Love Lucy" was one of the first sitcoms to be filmed, rather than kinescoped, because Lucy and Desi didn't want to move to New York to do the show, and CBS didn't want poor quality kinescopes aired for the East Coast audience, which was much larger than the West Coast audience at that time. So Lucy and Desi and their staff worked out a way to film the show, and no one had to watch it on a grainy kinescope. CBS wasn't thrilled about the cost of filming the show, so Lucy and Desi lowered their salaries in exchange for owning the negatives of the shows -- in other words, the reruns! Pretty good deal for them. They wound up selling those negatives back to CBS, and used the money to finance the purchase of a new studio for Desilu. By the early 1960s, the era of live television was winding down, and non-flmed shows, like variety programs, were switching to videotape. The last shows to be preserved on kinescope were soap operas, game shows, and talk shows. But by the end of the 1960s, those shows were largely being preserved on videotape as well. "Dark Shadows" is an interesting case. It was one of the first daytime soaps to be videotaped, and one of the very few soaps from the 60s where almost all the episodes have survived. "DS" used to air on ABC weekdays at 4:00 pm, but when it first started, a lot of ABC affiliates used to delay it and show it at all kinds of weird times. A lot of these same affiliates didn't yet have videotape machines, which would have allowed them to record the live feed and play it back at a different time. So, because "DS" was becoming so popular, ABC used to provide kinescopes to those stations which delayed it. It is these kinescopes which are used in the "DS" rerun rotation when master videotapes of certain episodes can't be located. ABC stopped distributing the "DS" kinescopes in 1970, and there's one episode after that where the master tape is missing. The episode was "reconstructed" using still photographs and the audio soundtrack, which survived.

02-04-2002, 07:50 PM	#8
Sean Snow moo Forum Fanatic Join Date: May 06, 2001 Location: Georgia Posts: 10,408	Thanks for the explanation TV Guy! I knew someone had an answer lol I just watched "Dark Shadows"...one episode was a kinescope, one was in color. The kinescope looked weird...like at certain times, the film would start turning darker, and then get a lot lighter. I can see now why most studios got rid of the kinescopes. It's harder to see the difference if it's originally filmed in B&W, but it has a weird look to it when it's in B&W when it's supposed to be Color.