One season at least of Twilight Zone was recorded on video tape instead of film. Many soap operas at one time were recorded on video tape instead of film. I understand the reasons; cheaper and probably faster to get ready for broadcast. Why does video tape look so much different from film?
Videotape has always been lower resolution than film and that early system from the late 50's/early 60's was much lower resolution than later VHS and Betamax type systems.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think there are artifacts from making 16mm film copies using a Kinescope system which is how I understand these were copied. That is film copies were made of the original videotape. All other high image quality were done with film cameras.
There are various explanations why this was done discussed online. It was only part of season two and not all episodes. It was done to save production costs and it flopped.
As an aside, do you know that the original Apollo 11 footage we have is much lower quality than what was filmed and those signals were lost by accident? NASA used a system not compatible with then current video transmission, but it was higher res then the current TV.
The signals had to be converted and this was done via an Australia receiving station to show on US TV at the time. Somebody lost or threw out the tapes years later (or likely recorded over them)! THere is online discussions about this screwup.