TV shows on film

[orthophonic]

In the 70's and well into the 80's, Television stations still used film chains
to air rerun TV shows and movies from 16MM, Networks were still airing
from 35MM air prints. Some stations would sometimes purchase a library of movies,
while most TV shows were on a bicycle schedule. The print would be sent on to the next station after airing. Remember, most ads were still being
run from film.
Transferring TV movies and episodic shows began in the late 70's when the
First Rank Cintel flying spot scanners came to the US. These would be transferred to U-matic or One inch tape with some color correction, but as I said, most stations were still using film chains. The shows transferred to
tape would also be bicycled. But film was still widely used by local stations.

I transferred thousands of TV episodes and movies from the early 80's till
the early 90's, usually in four different languages. Sometimes the source
was the original 35MM air print complete with commercials or the 35MM
Fine Grain master or the 16MM syndication print. On a few shows, the
original cut negative was used.

when digital broadcast tape came out in the late 80's and the public was
now used to and demanding better quality,many of these transferred again.
And when high def telecines became reality in the late 90's, and popularity
of tv shows on DVD, transferred again and the sources were usually the best that could be obtained, 35MM fine grains or negatives or new low-con
or interpositive prints of the negatives, with full color correction and dirt
and scratch repair.

There is a alot more to this, but that is the basics of it.