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Sesame Street Videotape Question

L

lurker77

Hi, this is my first ever post after a few years or lurking; this is a great site for information.

This may be too technical of a question, but it's been bugging me for years.

As a kid in the 80s, I used to watch Sesame Street and noticed that the quality of certain videotaped segments looked "foggier" than others. After watching Youtube clips of these classic bits, it appears that the clips from between 1969-1973 had this unclear look, while clips recorded after 1973 had the clearer look that I'm familiar with. Of course this is the case for other videotaped shows of the era and I'm wondering what specifically changed in video recording technology in the early-mid 70s to prompt a clearer image. To clarify, I'm not referring to home recording (VHS/Beta etc), but how TV studios recorded shows.
 
I'm sure we'll get a better answer from some of the techies on the board, but wasn't it around the mid-70's that broadcast production had a major shift from the old 2" Quad format (which was 20-year old technology at the time) to the 1" "Type C" tape? Could be that some of the older archived segments were shifted over and lost a little quality in the (analog) transfer/dubbing process.
 
Until the early 1980's, broadcast studios and TV stations used quadruplex videotape, and the machines used had changed over the years. At the time of Sesame's 1969 debut, the chief VTR's were Ampex VR-2000 and VR-1200, and RCA's TR-70 and TR-70B. It's possible the earlier machines may've elicited a "foggier" look than subsequent VTR's (the AVR- series from Ampex, for example - AVR-1 was introduced in 1971, AVR-2 in 1974). While post-1964 transistor-based VTR's had high-band, the color and picture accuracy wasn't as great as it would be in later years.

Then there's the matter of what generation copies of the videotape segments were used. That might be a part of the fogginess.

And of course, in the first decade of Sesame, the venerable RCA TK-44A camera was employed.

So yes, I understand that you don't mean Beta or VHS.
 
I have worked with Ampex 1200's, 2000's & AVR-2's as well as RCA 70's. In my opinion anything recorded on those machines (if set up right) would play back in very high quality today. I bet those early Sesame Street shows were recorded on Ampex 1000's. And don't forget, a lot of improvements were made to color cameras in the late 60's and early 70's.
 
Judging by your answers, it probably wasn't a tape issue, but likely a camera issue.

So I'll ask yet another techie question, what changed with TV camera technology from 1971 to say 1973 because there is a significant difference.

Here's a Bert/Ernie youtube clip from 1971:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToE43qE9ZSQ

And here's one from 1973 (notice the difference in clarity?) Note: this isn't due to differing youtube vid quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trpcWyfkFAs
 
Could've been the lighting. I seem to recall that scenes set at Mr. Hooper's malt shop were slightly darker (but not in the CSI sense) than regular Ernie/Bert segments.
 
Definitely not a lightning thing, I just used that clip as a random example.

Another example would be watching an Ed Sullivan clip from the late 60s and comparing it to the clarity of a variety show that was recorded say in...1975 for example. Sesame street is just the best comparison that I could immediately come up with.
 
Could've been a host of factors. I know that when Jackie Gleason's show was based in Florida, then-CBS affiliate WTVJ used rebuilt VR-1000's (added with high-band components and other modifications to record and edit in color, but not play back in color) to record his show. Even with that, there was a very slight difference in picture quality between his first color shows in 1966 and his last in 1970.

Perhaps Reeves' studios (where Sesame was taped until the early '80's) had RCA TR-22's pre-1973? (I know Reeves used RCA color cameras over the years, from TK-41's to TK-44A's.)

I'd check 1971-73 Electric Company segments vs. post-1973 bits to see if the same variance in video picture quality applies. That show was taped in the same studios.
 
Perhaps Reeves' studios (where Sesame was taped until the early '80's) had RCA TR-22's pre-1973? (I know Reeves used RCA color cameras over the years, from TK-41's to TK-44A's.)

Bingo! After doing some google searching. I'm pretty sure this best explains what I was referring to. Thanks
 
If you had said "grainier" instead of "foggier" for the earlier shows,
then I would have speculated on the cameras.

In the Dean Martin Show infomercials, you can tell older clips
from newer ones as the earlier seasons scream "TK-41" from their
grainy and darker picture, and an "older" look to the color.

I don't know if they went to TK-42s in-between, but by the later
seasons the cameras were probably TK-44s.
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
In the Dean Martin Show infomercials, you can tell older clips from newer ones as the earlier seasons scream "TK-41" from their grainy and darker picture, and an "older" look to the color.

I don't know if they went to TK-42s in-between, but by the later seasons the cameras were probably TK-44s.
Click to expand...
NBC never used TK-42's in any of their major studios. The transition from TK-41's to TK-44A's took place during 1969.
 
Well, I just happen to be a die-hard fan of Sesame Street, I can't believe I missed this thread.

I remember noticing that too about early clips from the early 70s. However, during the time that old episodes were playing on Noggin, I remember seeing sketches on early episodes that I never would have guessed were that old. But also, if you can believe it, on current episodes of Sesame Street, they actually used a lot of very old material as late as 1998 or so. It was basically like they never cared out material being "outdated." Apparently, a lot of parents thought their kids were watching an old show. I personally don't care about that sort of thing, but a lot of narrow-minded people seem to have this opinion that "if something's old, it's no good."

There was actually this one episode from the 1998-99 season where it was "V" day on Sesame Street, with people doing all sorts of activities that started with V, such as vacuuming. In this one scene, where Snuffy was pretending to be a vacuum cleaner and cleaning up Sesame Street, the camera zoomed into the window of Bert & Ernie's apartment. I thought it was going to be a brand-spankin'-new Bert & Ernie sketch, but...

It was actually a VERY EARLY sketch from Season One! And you can CLEARLY tell that it's outdated just by looking at it. Here it is:

http://www.sesamestreet.org/video_p...&p_p_uid=c32c7a44-154d-11dd-8ea8-a3d2ac25b65b

They actually did that quite a bit then. It was like they were trying to make old material seem like it was new. Apparently, it wasn't very effective.
 
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