Kinescope - The Last Years of The Kinescopes

The Last Years of The Kinescopes

The U.S. networks continued to make kinescopes of their daytime dramas (many of which still aired live into the late 1960s) available as late as 1969 for their smaller network affiliates that did not yet have videotape capability but wished to time-shift the network programming. Some of these programs aired up to two weeks after their original dates, particularly in Alaska and Hawaii. Many episodes of programs from the 1960s survive only through kinescoped copies. The last 16 mm kinescopes of television programs ended in the late 1970s, as video tape recorders became more affordable.

In Australia, kinescopes were still being made of some evening news programs as late as 1977, if they were recorded at all.

In later years, film and television producers were often reluctant to include kinescope footage in anthologies, because of the "inferior" quality. While it is true that kinescopes did look inferior to live transmissions in the 1950s, it was due to the industry's technical limitations at that time. Even the best live transmission could look contrasty or hazy by the time it reached the home viewer. Advances in broadcast technology soon allowed for a wider gray scale in black-and-white, and a fuller spectrum of colors, making kinescopes a perfectly viable commodity. This was demonstrated in the feature film Ten from Your Show of Shows, a compilation of Sid Caesar kinescopes released to theaters. Reviewers were astonished at how good the kinescoped image looked on a large screen. Kinescopes have since lost their stigma of inferiority, and are commonly consulted today for archival purposes.

In the U.K., telerecordings continued to be made after the advent of commercial broadcast videotape from 1958 as they possessed several distinct advantages, particularly for overseas program sales. Firstly, they were cheaper, easier to transport and more durable than video. Secondly, they could be used in any country regardless of the television broadcasting standard, which was not true of videotape. Thirdly, the system could be used to make black and white copies of color programs for sale to television stations who were not yet broadcasting in color.

The telerecording system could be of a very high quality, easily reproducing the full detail of the television picture. The only slight disadvantage of the system was that it removed the 'fluid' look of interlaced video and 'filmized' the picture, but this would generally not have made a great deal of difference to the viewing audiences.

The system was largely used for black and white reproduction. Although some color telerecordings were made, they were generally in the minority as by the time color programs were widely needed for sale, video standards conversion was easier and higher quality and the price of videotape had become much reduced. Before videotape became the exclusive transmission format during the early to mid-1980s, any (color) video recordings used in documentaries or filmed program inserts were usually transferred onto film.

Up until the early 1960s, much of the BBC and British television in general's output was broadcast live, and telerecordings would be used to preserve a program for repeat showings, which had previously required the entire production being performed live for a second time.

In the 1950s a home telerecording kit was introduced in Britain, allowing enthusiasts to make 16 mm film recordings of television programs. The major drawback, apart from the short duration of a 16 mm film magazine, was that a large opaque frame had to be placed in front of the TV set in order to block out any stray reflections, making it impossible to watch the set normally while filming. It is not known if any recordings made using this equipment still exist.

British broadcasters used telerecordings for domestic purposes well into the 1960s, with 35 mm being the film gauge usually used as it produced a higher quality result. For overseas sales, 16 mm film would be used, as it was cheaper. Although domestic use of telerecording in the UK for repeat broadcasts dropped off sharply after the move to color in the late 1960s, 16 mm black and white film telerecordings were still being offered for sale by British broadcasters well into the 1970s.

Telerecording was still being used internally at the BBC in the 1980s too, to preserve copies for posterity of programs which were not necessarily of the highest importance, but which nonetheless their producers wanted to be preserved. If there were no videotape machines available on a given day, then a telerecording would be made. There is evidence to suggest that the children's magazine program Blue Peter was occasionally being telerecorded as late as 1985. After this point, however, cheap domestic videotape formats such as VHS could more easily be used to keep a back-up reference copy of a program.

Another occasional use of telerecording into the late 1980s was by documentary makers working in 16 mm film who wished to include a videotape-sourced excerpt in their work, although such use was again rare.