Older Rose Bowls in color on ESPN Classic
 

Get your recorders ready. Beginning at noon Eastern on Saturday, Dec. 31, ESPN Classic will re-broadcast some older Rose Bowls. They are starting with 1978 at noon and 1979 at 2pm EST and every two hours until 1989 at 10pm EST skipping over a few years.

While not as old as I would want, it will be a chance to see some older color production from the day. In 1978, the broadcast was still on NBC and I am not sure what vintage cameras they were using. Probably TK-44's, but if we are lucky, it may have been the end of the TK-41 era. NBC refused to buy the 4 tube TK-42, skipping over to the TK-44 and later cameras with plumbicons as they came around.

Of course, the early ones could be film. Drat.

The re-broadcast will be filled with modern logos, crawls and all of the other junk, but maybe my CTC-9 will cut all of it off.

And maybe Curt Gowdy too!

Dave A

Would find it very hard to believe they would still be using TK-41s then (?), especially for something outdoors like that where they would not want to mess with old heavy equipment.

Hey Dave,

Currently watching the 1978 Rose Bowl game on ESPN Classic. I can't believe how blurry the picture is. I know tape was capable
of providing a much better image even in 1978.

And Frenchy,
We hauled those huge cumbersome TK-41's all over the place in the 60's & 70's. Football, baseball, parades, you name it. They were all we had color wise for many years. It was amazing the places we could shoehorn those things into. 4 men just to lift the camera body without the viewfinder attached.

Probably explains my back problems today.

-Steve D.

Steve,

I think this is a 3/4" copy from KNBC. I heard a local station ID early in the game. Off-air check. The smear and ringing in the vid is pure 3/4".

Classic also has the 1968 RB tomorrow at 7am EST. Only one hour though.

Dave

Thanks Dave,

The ¾" aircheck replay explanation seems right on the money.

-Steve D.

I would say it is a 3/4 OFF AIR copy I could see ghosting and ringing as well it might even be 1/2 in batamax or VHS. It sure was not Quad or 1in type C. I'm sure it looked better then that when first broadcast. I had better looking high school football games on cable at that time.

Steve

May be apochryphal, but I heard of someone involved with the last use of the TK-41s at their outfit, and when the game broadcast was over, they tipped one over the stadium wall to watch it crash on the pavement. One of those things that gives you mixed emotions!

RATS! We don't receive ESPN Classic here in south Miami

With the new storm coming in here tonight you may want to watch one of these reruns, tommorrow's parade is likely to be rained on and drab looking. I hate it when I watch the parade and it is cloudy and the flowers don't have that 'punch' to them. Channel 5 out here was rerunning last year's parade today, in HD no less.

Did anyone catch a copy of the 1968 version? My miserable DVD on the timer is blank.

Dave A

Boy what a miserable Rose Parade, sad looking folks on the floats, water dripping off the floats, spectators leaving halfway thru, dirty water flooding the gutters, seeds running down the faces of the float's animals and people, horses all wet. I've heard the phrase "don't rain on my parade" many times but this is the first time I've ever seen it! Hooray for all those that participated and were troopers to continue it, but it's a good rainouts only happen once every 50 years!

And NBC jumped out of the parade with an hour to go!

Back to early color on Classic. They had a 1970 ABC PBA Bowling championship this AM that I found about half way through. Classic TK-41 color. I forgot that polyester shirts and slacks came in so many bad colors. Not very good lighting at the alley, so it was a bit noisy, but the colors were the saturated variety I remember. And of course, no two of the three cameras matched. But Chris Schenkel sounded great.

They have a 1974 bowling show on Wednesday at 9am EST. If you color fans wish, I can keep an eye on their schedule for more shows. Let me know, otherwise I will hoard them for myself.

Dave A

Is ESPN CLASSIC available only on satellitte? Here in Miami Fl. my cable service does not offer it and I checked with some other cable providers, same answer. I may have to have my direct tv re-activated.
Richard.

Classic is available on Direct. Cable access depends on your local system and what kind of cheap weasels they may be.

Dave A

Frenchy,

I agree that everyone that participated in the Rose Parade deserves a pat on the back. Color tv wise,my alma mater, KTLA provided excellent coverage here locally. And, unlike the networks, stayed with the entire parade commercial free. I thought the multi-hued rain slickers on the crowd almost competed with the floats for dazzle. To bad so many of the camera lenses were clouded with water. As for the ESPN classic Rose Bowl games, The 1969 telecast was on film, so technically, no fun there.

-Steve D.

Raindrops...
 

Hey you broadcast guys: is there supposed to be a squeegee guy to clear the raindrops? :scratch2:

1) I wonder if they had covers
2) I wonder how windy it was?

On ABC, many cameras had raindrops, and one was fogged - I wonder if they tried to wipe it and found out it didn't work?

(If I were there, I wouldn't volunteer to stand in the rain with a hair dryer either)

My local NBC never broadcasted the parade in HD, it was upscaled to 1080i. I think they had a 480i source feed because that's what it looked like. It looked terrible. My local ABC broadcasted the last hour of the parade in 720p which looked really good. Sadly I never had my CTC9 working and the only old set I had that actually worked was my Sony 5-303W. I wanted to feed the downscaled HD broadcast into my CTC9. There is always next year. :P

Jonathan

This was a problem. And as you pointed out Pete, it's been 51 years since the broadcasters had to deal with rain during the parade broadcast. Since there was plenty of notice of a strong storm on parade day, all the cameras had heavy duty covers. As to keeping the lenses clear of water, this was by any standard a really strong storm with wind gusts up to 70 mph. It would have been nearly impossible to keep the lenses constantly wiped clear. Especially since the cutting between cameras was so quick. I wonder how they kept those huge TK-40 color cameras dry 51 years ago during the rainy 1955 parade broadcast in color by both NBC & local L.A. station KTLA?

-Steve D.

In '55 with the few little 15-inchers around (and maybe a few 21s?), the rain probably didn't bother anyone, color was so new then they would have been happy looking at an NTSC test pattern.
I noticed you could really pick out the raindrops better in HD than the non-HD broadcasts today, it was coming down in sheets! I didn't even bother looking at it on any of my oldies, will just wait for next year.