Up Pompeii

Up Pompeii was a British television comedy series of the 1970s. Written by, among others, the Carry On films' Talbot Rothwell. It starred Frankie Howerd.

A DVD Release?

A long-overdue complete release of the series on DVD may soon come to pass. No complete home video release has yet been undertaken due to the nature of the videotape master materials. Like many television series made before the advent of the collectable VHS, master tapes of British television productions were often thought to be worthless and erased to be reused (for such reasons as copyright restrictions allowing only one repeat, black & white series being determined as unrepeatable with the advent of colour, and even a physical lack of the necessary archival storage space). In the case of Up Pompeii (et al), copies were sold internationally, where, once their broadcasts had occurred were contractually obliged to be returned to the BBC or destroyed...

Related Topics:
DVD - Videotape - VHS - Copyright

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In the late 1970s, following a change in the BBC's archival policy, parts of the series were located in the Canadian CBC archive. Due to the differences in international broadcasting, these copies had been converted to the North American NTSC television videotape standard, thus one chunk of the series remained in their native PAL format, and another was found in a poorly-converted (dating long before digital conversion methods) NTSC state. These Canadian finds plugged every gap in the BBC's Up Pompeii archive, however the picture quality of some was not up to the exacting standards of the BBC, and so their marketablilty was severely limited. A VHS release was therefore out of the question.

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In 2004/2005, through the success of a group of BBC employees' restoration work on similar NTSC-only productions of Doctor Who (specifically the Jon Pertwee adventure 'Claws Of Axos'), the BBC decided to convert all their NTSC-only productions (as reclaimed from various international stations) back to their original PAL format using a newly created, computer controlled process - Reverse Standards Conversion. A PAL-like, high(er) quality image resulted in a more stable picture and more enjoyable viewing experience for an audience. And so, after 35 years, a complete and restored Up Pompeii may once again be available...

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