Preserving the Television Archive
Hear from the people behind the scenes at the BBC Archive
Preserving the Television Archive
Preserving the Television Archive
An interview with Adrian Williams, BBC Preservation Manager
Adrian Williams, the BBC's Preservation Manager, explains how the BBC keeps its archive safe for future generations to enjoy.
- Click on a heading below to jump to that section of the film
- Why do we need to preserve the Television Archive?
- The Challenges of Preserving the Television Archive
- What does preservation involve?
- Film
- The Earliest Type of Film: Silver Nitrate
- The Oldest BBC Television Film Clip
- What are the limitations of film?
- Why was videotape invented?
- Computers
- Film Conservation
- Vinegar Syndrome
- Storage
- The Legal and Royal Vault
- The Value of Preservation
Transcript
Film
After the war, the BBC started to build up a large collection of film that went all the way through to the '90s. There were roughly 650,000 film items with the collection, one of the largest broadcast collections of its type in the world. The BBC started off using 35mm cinema gauge film, and we used this through the '50s and '60s. We then moved over to a 16mm gauge and this was used through the '60s and up until the '90s. The reason for the switch to 16mm size film is that this was cheaper and easier to use in a broadcast environment. As we can see from these two reels here, this would be about seven or eight minutes' worth of TV programme, whereas this is only five minutes. So you can see the scale is very, very different. The quality isn't as good as 35mm, but it's good enough for television.
