Possibility of 1958 Eisenhower colour video being re-aired on NBC4 on 22nd May
 

Hi all. Don't hold me to this but I've been thinking... On the 22nd of May this year the oldest surviving colour videotape recording which is the Dwight Eisenhower dedication WRC-TV NBC4 22nd May 1958 will be 50 years old!!! So I speculate there may be a possibility that this footage may go to air on NBC4 news or a NBC4 WRC-TV 50th anniversary special or something along those lines. Anyhow for anyone who is interested in getting this footage keep your eyes peeled and your DVD recorders or VCRs ready to record this footage if it goes to air.

On Kris Trexler's site on this page http://www.kingoftheroad.net/colorTV/FCCmontage.html in amongst the various bits of colour footage is an excerpt of this footage and the colour looks BRILLIANT!!!

Hope not, else it won't work anymore. Oh, wait, that applies to CRTs... :D

One of the AK TV guys, Radiophile, might be a good one to check with. He lives not too far out of DC and might even have broadcast connections. I can receive WRC if I hold my head just right, but could not get the fidelity to do it justice.

I seriously doubt anything will be shown. Nobody cares outside of collector and historical circles. It's sad. And even if they did acknowledge the anniversary, they would probably just show a few seconds of the tape, not even worth recording. It would be nice if copies of the tape were made available to collectors, but that is very unlikely since it just seems that you have to know the right people and be in "the loop" so to speak. This reminds me how pathetic NBC's 75th anniversary program was. Just awful. Very little early TV and a miniscule amount of radio. Nothing like NBC's 50th anniversary in 1976. Now that was a spectacular event!

Gilbert

I agree they won't bring it up on the news. 99.9% of their viewers could care less I also agree it's sad. Most people would have no idea who Ike was and they would know even less about the history of video tape and color. Might be something for the history channel. Maybe if folks hit them up they may do some programming on early Television.

Yeah, the attitude nowadays is, "Eisenhower, who did he play for, The Mets or Chicago ?" and "1958 ? They still had dinosaurs then, didn't they ?

If it is aired, please someone get a tape that we can pass around!

I can watch it on 2 vintage Zeniths!

I have the audio from the '76 NBC special-someone recorded it on reel-to-reel. That was part of their "Big Event" series and it was big-at least 4 hours long, narrated by Orson Welles. I've never taken the time to listen to the whole thing. The 60th in '86 wasn't bad-I have a terrible copy of the audio from it on cassette somewhere. (I couldn't afford to buy VHS tapes at that point, my allowance wasn't high enough)

I know of a bloke on YouTube who has the whole special on 5 beta tapes from what I read on the reviews below of this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCceNxGJN_I . He's videoholic2008 and his page is at http://www.youtube.com/user/videoholic2008 . I'm seriously thinking about doing a video trade with him, hope he's into 70s and 80s Aussie television and commercials as I have plenty of that!

Does anyone know if any 1950s colour videotape recordings get played on this NBC special?

Anyhow if any of this Eisenhower footage gets shown and someone in here records it, I will be definitely wanting to buy/trade for a copy of the footage.

I STILL remember-or THINK I do-of a special from the '70s that had an early, early, early color telecast of Marlene Dietrich singing "Lili Marlene", backed by an orchestra. There was very little color- She was in a dk blue/black dress, the orchestra wore black tuxes, about the only colors were the fleshtones & the gilt of the instruments. It LOOKED like a kinescope-and the camera overloaded badly when catching the glare of the lights on the instruments. They said it was from 1949, IIRC, but that would be WAY too early for any known color broadcasts. Anybody else remember this ?

I wouldn't mind getting a hold of the 1976 NBC show as well as a copy of the WRC tape with Ike. I wonder how one does go about formally requesting a copy for this stuff?

David

I personally contacted UCLA archives who have that Eisenhower WRC tape and they told me I have to contact NBC themselves to buy a copy which I've not done yet. As I presume the cost of the tape is going to be extremely expensive I'd rather wait to see if it gets aired this coming 22nd of May first.

One of our more consequential presidents, too. A moving force behind the Interstate Highway System that radically changed America; shopping malls and empty small-town mainstreets are his legacy, for good or ill.

I have the audio form the 1976 NBC 50th on audio cassette. Lousy quality but as a kid of 13 years, that's all I had. Fortunately, years later I was able to get a copy on videotape and it is a fantastic program. I must say that you miss a lot listening to the audio because a lot of the material is visual. Yes, it is hosted throughout by Orson Welles, and has many NBC stars that host different segments. The run time is four and one-half hours. It was part of the NBC "Big Event" as was mentioned previously. The 60th was OK, but the 75th was terrible.

Videoholic is a great guy, I have not talked to him in years, but he is really into vintage video. Yes, there are many color clips in this special; clips of one of the Fred Astaire specials, of Andy Williams, of Barbara Streisand, and many more. Lots of B&W kinescopes too.

As far as the WRC tape, one of the people involved in the transfer of this tape is a member of AK. Perhaps if he sees this he will post. I don't know how willing he would be to facilitate copies to collectors. I got the impression he did not want to stick his neck out and was rather timid about getting copies of the material he has out.

I've always had issues with the UCLA archives. I think it is great how they are the repository for so much priceless material but yet the public has absolutely no access to any of this. That's terrible. You must be an educator or television producer to have access to any of the material and even then I would imagine it is a pain to deal with them. Much friendlier to the public is the Museum of TV and Radio. I have been to the one in Beverly Hills many times. At least there you can view vintage programs and hear old radio programs. And they are available for viewing/listening to the public, although they do not sell copies. Sadly, all of this great old historical material is often tied up with copyright holders, and a host of other legal issues that prevent them from being released. I think it is obscene the amount of wonderful material that is under lock and key because of legal issues. A lot of that material are early color TV shows.

Gilbert

I can understand why he doesn't want to go to far out for anyone. If the material then ends up on Youtube or something then everyone knows who's to blame.

There does seem to be a lot of abuse of copyright. As long as culture is a owned by someone FOREVER it will always be that way. I'm all for copyright law, as an occasional content producer myself. But the current application is broken, and its mostly due to the extraordinary long lengths that copyright lasts, much longer than a single human life in a lot of cases.

Well, enough soap boxing.

David