[James2001]

Great Scott I've just sold the last one

This is heavy

[Bluecortina]

Offering the loan of a flux capacitor so Bluecortina can travel back to 1988 to jog the memory would have been even more special

The only other thing I can remember is that since studios 1 and 2 had to be both capable of going to air with no air time to spare, all external sources to the studios had to be ‘timed’ into both studios simultaneously. Usually the two studios would be completely independent of each other including their SPG’s. As I recall we genlocked both studios together (with one or the other being considered as the Master) timed all the external sources into the Master studio and then used a large bunch of video leads each with a switchable delay in it in series with it and varied the delay in all the same external sources to bring them into correct timing with the second studio. Providing source assignments remained the same during the programme duration no other timing adjustments had to be made. It worked very well.

[Steve in Pudsey]

I'm surprised you weren't using synchronisers by that point?

[Technologist]

I expect the Station input was synchronised - but as the studios were designed to be independent
there is no need to co time them for "normal" operation (unlike BBC TC)
and cascaded synchronisers on very short delay were not the most stable source!
If you synchronise into each studio you run the risk of a repeated frame as you switch between studio outputs
and you need twice the number of synchronisers (and they were not that plenteous) to be rigged
and each one would need to be set up- so easier to manually time using delays.

This is my view not what /why itv did
but synchronsisers were not what you think now ....
and of course SDI tended to have Line synchronisers on mixer input so no need to "Cut cable" time

[Bluecortina]

I'm surprised you weren't using synchronisers by that point?

We were. But each studio had its own SPG chain and the video signal path lengths to each studio was/would be different so even if you genlocked the studios together, which we did, the signal paths from the incoming Lines area where the synchronisers were through the various routing matrices to the actual vision mixers would likely be different - a small difference hence why we were able to use small Matthey delay lines to soak up the timing differences. The same would apply to other kit within the building, so for example, an in-house caption generator in the telecine area assigned as a remote input timed precisely into Studio 1’s vision mixer would not necessarily be precisely timed into Studio 2’s mixer at the same time. The studios were all designed to be standalone technically and it was only with the introduction of SDI that the studios moved over to a common set of pulses (from memory).

[Technologist]

A Matthey delay line would be an adjustable one like these
bibbteck.com 

Bibb Technical Services. Matthey VU 360 Delay Line Package
Matthey delay lines, Matthey VU 360 video delay, Video delay, Analog Delay lines…
  Source: bibbteck.com

(The ones we had in the BBC were yellow with musa not bnc)

Or for a fixed one a PCBlike this and strap in delay as required
www.bbceng.info 

A lot more compact than cable at 4ns or 5ns a metre !
But more than about 100ns needed equalising …..

[Humphrey Hacker]

The only other thing I can remember is that since studios 1 and 2 had to be both capable of going to air with no air time to spare, all external sources to the studios had to be ‘timed’ into both studios simultaneously. Usually the two studios would be completely independent of each other including their SPG’s. As I recall we genlocked both studios together (with one or the other being considered as the Master) timed all the external sources into the Master studio and then used a large bunch of video leads each with a switchable delay in it in series with it and varied the delay in all the same external sources to bring them into correct timing with the second studio. Providing source assignments remained the same during the programme duration no other timing adjustments had to be made. It worked very well.

You were thinking fourth dimensionally

[robertclark125]

A little airing for this thread, but was there anyone who presented opt outs for one ITV region in one telethon, but a different one in any of the others?

[Humphrey Hacker]

I know that Andrew O Connor and Gareth "Gaz Top" Jones presented the breakfast slot for Telethon 88 but was Aspel on duty through the night?

[thegeek]

Something from the STV Archive team that's probably not seen the light of day since 1988:

twitter.com 

I wonder where their wood-panelled set was? it looks too poorly-lit to be in a studio.

Looking back through their account, this is the only other bit of Telethon-related ephemera they've tweeted:
twitter.com