Warm up your roundies....

[Steve D.]

TCM (Turner Classic Movies) cable channel is presenting "Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music" on Sunday, May 4, 8:00 PM PDT and 11:00 PM EDT.
This 1965 show was taped at NBC Burbank in color. A good example of color on tape in the mid '60's. RCA TK-41 color cameras were used. You may want to record it by what ever means you have. If you miss this telecast, it will be repeated on May 11 at the same times.

-Steve D.

[jmdocs]

FYI, the show's also available on DVD, as are most of Frank's TV specials; they're absolute must-sees, especially this first one. (Also look for the DVD of "Sinatra Duets," which features a 1959 color clip of Frank and Dinah Shore.) Ring-a-ding-ding!

[Oldstuff78]

Speaking of Sinatra. I recently picked up DVD of the 1967 TV Special his daughter Nancy did "Movin with Nancy".

It is a hoot. The TV special is Un-Cut and has the entire program start to finish. It starts with the Color NBC Peacock, contains all the RC Cola Commercials, Art Linkletter hosting etc. It even closes with the NBC chimes snake logo.

The RC cola commercials are neat. Nancy sings in 2 of them and Art even does one with the story of "The Cola Nut". It looks like one of those old 60's Travelogues.

Frank, Dino, Sammy etc....make appearances. I'm not a fan of their music....but it will be a treat for those who are. Nancy isn't best singer, but she wears a lot of mini skirts and go go boots.......LOL

I highly reccomend you all pick this up. The USA release is expensive and contains commentary by Nancy....but you can get the Import region 3 release cheaper without commentary and it will play in USA DVD players.

[Indian Head]

The Nancy Sinatra special is great!

The fact that it's complete with commercials makes it great to watch on a roundie, and feel like you're time-trippin'. In fact, it was one of the first DVD's we played on our CTC-5 after bringing it home from NYC. I can't remember which was first, that or the color Howdy Doody episode.

We'll be recording a DVD of the Frank Sinatra show. Thanks for the heads up!

[JohnAdams]

Wow, Howdy Doody. This brings back memories. I saw several episodes on a CT-100 at the TV station in Jackson, MS. I was in the first or second grade and my mother would take several of us down there to watch the show. For some reason I was enthralled with the idea of color TV. I remember that they had a small room with two CT-100's and 10 or 12 chairs around each set. Those huge boxes with that small picture tube. At that time we had a 21" RCA B&W at home. We also went down one night to watch some special. My memory is foggy but I think it was Heidi. Hey, while trying to verify it was Heidi, I found that William Shatner was Ranger Bob in one episode of Howdy Doody, per the IMDb.

For those interested in the history of old Radio and TV stations and the shows they carried along with historical TV schedules check out this site. http://www.dougquick.com/wicsspringfield2.html
I can see that I will easily spend several hours going through it.

[Dan Starnes]

I recorded it via DVR, I dont have any old color sets so I watched it on my
42" wide screen hooked to my bose for sound.. loved it.
Dan

[edison64]

TCM is showing part 2 this sunday 5/11/08 check out the website for monthly schedule,they will be running 2 more frankie specials.

[colorfixer]

I watched this the other day in great anticipation off dish network running component video to a Sony PVM2950 monitor, and noticed that flesh tones were off, and the saturation was really low, almost like a Turner classic "colorized" (destroyed) film.

Anyone notice the same thing? Did they do any restoration on this piece, or are we witnessing exactly what came from the quad tapes?

[edison64]

Yep I was kinda suprized with the purple people and low color, I have watched many (old) color vtr and this is a common effect the color loss is normal on some tapes. most networks reused tapes many times,and as a result the oxides wear off the tape, causing this effect. now, storage has a lot to do with it too, most of these tapes were not stored in the ideal enviroment, moisture heat and where ever else the could store them. its not a well known fact that video tapes are not forever, i think about 30 years? it i remember, sad to say the early videos are going the way of the silent movie films, just fading away.

[colorfixer]

I played back the TiVo recording of the show into a composite monitor, and played with the phase and chroma levels. After which, I was able to make a more realistic picture. The show was really purple. The worst color was when they used the overhead camera, which had some really nasty color blotching and white balance issues.

Changing the color temperature on the component monitor made little difference.

I guess the early broadcasts relied heavily on the viewer tweaking their receivers during the broadcast?

[Steve D.]

I watched TCM's broadcast of "Sinatra, A man and His Music. Part 2" last night. The color seemed more natural then the part 1 broadcast. I did notice that the entire show was just a bit soft focus. This may be a technical glitch due to the transfer from remastering the tape. Howver, it looked to be what we used to do on some shows, taped using TK-41 cameras, to lessen the sharpness of the image for a more "pleasing" moody look. Or to deal with softing the look of aging perfomers. This by using filters over the lens or adjusting the contours within the cameras electronics. The camera operator still maintained sharp focus through his viewfinder. The video operator adjusted the contours (picture sharpness) in the control room. The overall look of this show was subdued. The garish color. so apparent, on musical shows of the '50's and early 60's was not in evidence. This in the sets and costumes. A classy, almost, one man show, with guest star, Frank's daughter Nancy doing several solos and a duo with Daddy. Very nostalgic viewing. Next Sunday, Sinatra's third and final show of the series with guest Ella Fitzgerald.

-Steve D.

[colorfixer]

Frank doesn't seem to like component video. Makes him look dead He does however like composite video. Frank gets what Frank wants. See the attached photo. Everything on the two monitors is set at default.

[Dan Starnes]

I watched part 2, enjoyed it. Looking forward to watching Ella!
Dan