14 Comments
Sep 24·edited Sep 24Liked by James O'Malley

If I were retired, I would take on this mission in a heartbeat. However, having meticulously digitised all the VHS tapes that I own (which you can count on two hands) I know what a time-consuming task it is. Granted, it could be argued that I didn't need to remove the cover of my VHS recorder and tweak the heads and tension for each individual cassette, but if you're going to archive something, you might as well aim for the best quality that you can achieve. I then spent hours upon hours slicing the recordings up in the correct places to extract each individual advert, link, programme etc. and also dating them. It was a lot of work, some of which can be seen here for anybody who's interested: https://www.youtube.com/@sphinx464/videos.

Of course, now that you've made me aware of the teletext data that could potentially be recovered from these tapes, I feel obliged to delve back into my archive. So, er, thanks... I guess!

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Sep 26Liked by James O'Malley

Love this! I remember reading every word of Digitiser every day was excellent procrastination when I was supposed to be applying for games industry jobs.

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Hmm. Wish I could help as this is what I do professionally (as part of a company I’ve digitised around 7,000 VHS over a year), but I’m starkly on the other side of the world. Maybe keep an eye out for events like this: https://www.broadcasttechevents.co.uk/archive-restoration-forum and keep your ear to the ground & seek out local enthusiasts. I’m sure this is possible! Just make sure they aren’t in a humid environment & temperature fluctuates as little as possible where they are stored (the tapes, not the local enthusiasts).

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If you have S-VHS recordings they have high enough bandwidth they can record teletext directly without needing reconstruction software. Just put an S-VHS tape in, press Play, and hit Text on your TV's remote control. Many deaf people used S-VHS for recordings because the subtitles in teletext could be recorded this way.

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The hours I spent waiting for the Turner the Worm pages to load. It makes me feel like a bored neglected xennial home alone all over again just thinking about it.

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As soon as you mentioned Ceefax I was hoping for a reference to Bamboozle! I also came across this website that converts the Daily news to a teletext image! On this day works too! https://www.nathanmediaservices.co.uk/ceefax/

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Hello! Pretty sure I mentioned when you took on the tapes but the UK Advertising History Museum had expressed interest when I was the previous person looking for a good home for these. I agree it is best to keep them together but it would be a start. Apart from ads and teletext, the other treasure here is the ephemera between shows.

Thanks for writing this post, hope it finds them a longer term home! danbri@

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I also accidentally discovered an a/v digitisation company based in an archive in Woolwich recently, but they would want paying

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You say people have forgotten teletext buti sure haven’t…., We didn’t have Teletext when I was little but my granddad did.

On our goodbye visit to his house to say goodbye before we emigrated to Australia I kept bugging the adults to let me play with it, for some reason they kept saying no, which led to me having the mother of all tantrums (in hindsight probably a bit of displacement going on) which led to my parents going equally ballistic and me being sent to the car to wait and me totally ruining the goodbye visit.

Strangely unlike all the other embarrassing moments from my childhood this one hasn’t entered family lore, in fact I don’t recall it ever being mentioned

So yes, I remember teletext and the lesson clearly is that you were letting your kids down if you didn’t have it at home 😀

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For everything in his long tyranny that he was wrong about, Fidel Castro was dead right with the Mickey Mouse thing and Mexico's diplomatic services shat the bed.

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There’s a YouTube account David Boothroyd that seems to have every political documentary and every election night from the 70s through the aughts on it, as well as a bunch of newsnight episodes and the like

Maybe that’s what you can do with your videos, take on this Boothroyd chap to own the GenX political nostalgia space on YouTube

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VHiStory seems like a kindred project! https://vhistory.wordpress.com/

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Ha Ha, good way of making use of HelloFresh boxes😅

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https://www.tvbrain.info “Britain’s longest-established television heritage organisation.” They have a Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/9smkUdwF8Yvr77D3/?mibextid=K35XfP

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