The helical tape head still amazes me. Not just the idea to pack in way more tracks on the same tape, but that it ever worked reliably enough to distribute millions of the mechanisms to households everywhere.
This was yet another episode that, as a kid, showed me how a common household item was based on fairly simple principles. I remembered bits of this episode and when our own VCR ate the odd tape the knowledge had taught me enough to be able to extract the tape through the slot without damaging anything.
As an avowed geek, these are absolutely amazing. I love this entire series. They're fascinating and spectacularly well done. I wish programs like this were still on TV that really explained how things work.
I was really not expecting the sticky tape and rust demonstration to sound so good. The part with Rex talking about tiny modern electronic components being hard to work with made me smile because he reminded me that I felt they signified the end of hobby electronics. Spoiler: they did not. We all adapted and some of our tools changed too.
It's amazing how easy it is to so surface mount work with a good binocular microscope, tweezers, and a nice soldering iron. I can do 0603 (about 1/3rd the size of the parts shown in this episode) easily and down to 0201 (1/3rd again the size) with moderate difficulty.
I saw this when I was 14 years old and it is partly responsible for the work I have right now in maintenance for professional video tape preservation! There's more to say but I'm going to wright it up properly before I post it.
Its interesting how in the 30 years since this show was made, we've gone from our shows and other programs being stored on a load of rust to them being stored on a load of silicon.
Although still mainly only kept long term on spinning rusty frisbees or data cartridges which contain even more flimsy rust ribbons than were used then. They don't even guarantee the same longevity.
Shoutout to Cathode Ray Dude for mentioning your work/channel in one of his videos. I love these old documentaries on technology of the times. I know what I'm watching all day! #subbed
A brilliant rediscovery of a great show. I always remembered Tim & Rex taking a bunch of old TVs and getting most of them to work simply by plugging in random valves! It sparked a career in electronics. May you never grow old guys.
I am in my early thirties and i was a teenager when VCRs got out of business, but they have special place in my heart. The mechanichal sounds when playing and ejecting,mushy picture and the distinctive sound that TV's flyback transformer made when playing from a VHS. The idea of having a little recording studio under the TV was very good for me.
Honestly I don’t know if I am more impressed with the explanation of how things work or with the introduction and end credits they made to go with the series.
I`m a simple man. I see "The Secret Life of the Machines" and press like and play button. Wish to have all the episodes when I was a kid, it`s wonderfull. Commentary was like another episode showing electromechanical magnetic data storage at it`s finest. I have ( Somewhere :D ) the smallest HDD in the world, it`s Toshiba 4GB capacity drive originally mounted in Nokia N91 smartphone. Just like you said, Tim - It`s piece of jewelry. Fun fact - Phone had built in accelerometer and when it detected gravity loss then the HDD heads were parked to safe place to protect the drive.
Watching your show, Connections and Modern Marvels taught me so much about the world. I feel sad for today's youth, a lot of them have no sense of wonder and discovery anymore. I hope that changes and people understand how their world works. When you know things you have power, people can't take advantage of you so much.
I actually learned something here. I knew the head was tilted but I didn't know why and how it effects the playback and those bits where you held a piece of tape and moved it through (both the home-made one you recorded Rex's voice and the video tape) was really fascinating!
Coincidentally, I wore out my VHS copy of this, taped off -air all those years ago and played on all kinds of junky machines I picked up at car boot sales and fixed. Plenty of white mis-tracking lines add to the charm! As concerns the legendary sticky tape and rust - Ironically, some 1970s and 80s audio tape (Ampex etc) suffers from a binder which has deteriorated and absorbs moisture, making the tape now stick to the heads when playback is attempted. Sticky tape is very much still around!
I'm still recording on tape (LTO8 is 15TB in on tape!), it's nice for backup. You can't trust hard drives for long term backups. I recently digitized 30 years old VHS, and I was bluffed by how the quality was still here like it was just recorded (after adjusting the tape alignment of the reader). I'm glad to have digitized last year because quality VHS players are harder to find than 10 years ago and the later ones were of bad quality.
It's worth noting that the lowly "sticky tape and rust" has continued to be improved and used for storing extremely large amounts of data for archival and backup purposes. The state of the art LTO tape cartridge, half the size of a VHS cassette, holds 18 terabytes (18,000,000,000,000 bytes!) on more than a kilometer of thin, precisely manufactured tape. Of course, solid state technology has now given us 1 TB microSD cards costing only a couple hundred dollars and are the size of literally a thumbnail. I really cherish the Secret Life of Machines for showing us so visually how technology works, back when you could actually SEE the technology! ◡̈
I remember in the early 70s having a video recorder at school that was in a big wooden box under a tv that was wheeled from room to room. It was the cutting edge of science to us children. Going home talking to parents who had been around at the birth of tv about it now seems slightly surreal. We only had 4 channels when we first got one, if not 3, yet there was always something to record. I haven’t a clue how many hours of TV we can record on our new Q box, personally I only record "The Repair Shop."
i love "The secret life of the machines" i watched it when i was a child :) now i repairing tv's, computers, etc and i love old electronics and precision mechanism like video or camera recorders, and still use it, and tape recorders too :) thank You! greetings from eastern Poland!
Thanks Tim for sharing your experiences in the end credits of the making of the Secret Life of the Videorecorder, very interesting. I am now 56 and still to this day miss the Secret Life of Machines TV programs which really inspired me to go into engineering. You are far from over the hill for making some more incredible documentary films and I think that you should really conciser it. The younger generation as always no more knows the origins of the new technology they proudly embrace as a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Doc Company to quote Douglas Adams.
Thank you. I love it when things are explained clearly and effectively. It takes skill. Video recorders were things that made me realise I couldn't fix my own stuff any more.
Absolutely love how forward-thinking the program was. In particular, the demonstration of the rapidly degrading Channel 4 ident is a perfect illustration of its governance and quality of programming over the years. The audio and video signal being distorted of that Channel 4 ident at the end was really the perfect analogy to the ongoing privatisation efforts.
It's remarkable how equipment shown in secret life of machines such as telephone, radio, word processor, television and video recorder converged into a single device called 'mobile phone' just in few decades.
why dont we get rid of all of those and just give you a super computer that can you can talk to and ask questions...oh and it comes with a phone app too
Yet another great remaster Tim, thanks so much! Like many here I always look forward to seeing your next video, and this one sure brings back memories with the sticky tape and rust recording you and Rex did! I was always amazed by how well it worked!
So good to see this again, I could watch this over and over. I was 15 when this first came on TV and I still have it on VHS. Sound and tape recorders is a passion of mine, personally and professionally. Thank you Tim and Rex for explaining their workings in such a relaxed and easy to understand way, yet packing the half hour with such an amount of information.
This is an incredibly interesting series , I remember this watching it I loved it, still do ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ this remastered version is brilliant to view and actually I have some original episodes on Vhs 📼 thank you Tim and Rex for your Incredible work and Great knowledge in presenting this Brilliant series best wishes
This was such a great and entertaining show....I've seen things on here as a teenager some 30 years ago that I've never forgotten and never seen anywhere else.
I remember this series shown on Ireland's national state television service, RTE, during the early 1990's. This episode about VCR's was my favorite, probably because I used to take my own VHS recorders apart to see how they worked. I also owned Betamax machines which worked slightly different than VHS ones in the way they laced up the tape to the head drum, and were much faster to play back a video once the play button was pressed compared to VHS recorders.
One of my most favorite episodes from the entire series. Some of the best practical demonstrations were in this episode. "Sticky tape and rust" has been in my American brain for nearly 30 years, since I first watched this.
What a lovely gentleman! These sorts of programs are what I used to love watching as a kid growing up, and still do today! I absolutely love the animated front room at the end with the record player speakers bobbing around. Such clever ideas and abilities people had back then given the limitations of technology available. Who else would have had the idea to chuck some rust on sticky tape and make it record audio! I had no idea you could just drag video tape across the head and it still play like that. Makes me want to drag out my old VCR and have a faff around with it :D Love it!! Thank you so much :D
Back in the day my instructor told us that there were 30 (thirty) lines of information (tracks) in the width of human hair. The precision for the laser mechanism to follow that with a moving disc is incredible. Especially considering that not all discs are exactly centered and they are warped up and down thru changing heat cycles. Ronn
I’m so glad these are available again. Remember watching them so many years ago. Actually met Tim in the mid nineties and I remember it to this day . Great to see he’s still pottering about on experiments and his unique , simple way of explaining things. Thank you Tim 👍
I loved this program. So glad i can watch them again. How time`s have changed in so little time. Who know`s ` THE SECRET LIFE OF MOBILE PHONES ` Now that`s a rabbit hole you don`t want to get stuck in. :)
Fantastic remastered videos and I enjoy the commentary at the end. I've been a Secret Life Of Machines fan for years, and have recorded most of the original episodes on VHS for watching later. My favorite has to be the light bulb episode, where you made actual working lightbulbs using milk bottles! Watching the remastered versions, I see there were some bits edited out (probably by the US Public TV network folks) in my original recordings. I have also visited your display in the London science museum many many years ago. Thank you for these educational and fun videos.... sorry to hear Rex is gone. You two were a fantastic team!! Looking forward to watching these again and again. Thank you Tim!
Well done Tim, for remastering these classic films! You are a inspiration to any young budding engineer or scientist! It is a real pity to see your backwards clock was taken down at the warehouse at Ellough a few years ago, always smiled when I drove past looking at "the bloke" on top of it in his hi-vis jacket trying to mend it!
I love this show so much, thanks for the update, Tim! I hope you continue making videos or new episodes or what have you for us to watch, keep SLOM alive.
How excellent! I saw this by chance decades ago and always described it to people as an example of how different science shows in the US and UK could be. I'd never been able to find it since. I've been watching Tim Hunkin recently and hadn't recognized him as the same bloke. Thanks so much, Tim Hunkin, for uploading!
Your videos are amazing and keep me inspired and willing/excited to learn about life and technology! Looking forward to the secret life of components. You're my hero.
I love your shows! I’m as old as they, 1990. It is so nice explained. A shame I did not come across this in my younger days! Greetings from Switzerland 🇨🇭
Absolutely brilliant pops! Thank You. Not only are you a master tinkerman with the skills and knowledge of a mechanical engineer, you have a knack for explaining the principles of "How things work" in a simple manner which anyone can understand.
This was always the episode the stuck out the most in my memory. Maybe it was because of the topic but I think it was because of the oh so memorable line, "This was recorded on sticky tape and rust." It was also recorded deep within my primal memory. Thanks, for all of the years of education and thanks for always doing it with so much style. Lets just say you had me at Val Bennett and have had me ever since. Much
I knew about the German Audio Tape Recorders and that Bing Crosby was an early adopter to get his radio broadcasts recorded to send to radio stations across USA for playback at the correct time for each time zone. Also recorded programs can have retakes edited and trimmed or padded to fit time slots.
It was a joy to see this video again - and with the extra bit. Anything involving magnetic recording has always interested me, since I had a reel-to-reel tape recorder when I was a child, and ran a pretend 'radio station', broadcasting to exactly one person (me). I still have the booklets that go with this series.
loved it. i still use ALL the old media in my shop ThePhotoStore doing conversions from audio on aluminium records to tapes cds and dvds and now flash media and u know what they all skip and drop the beat... right back to my C64 cmos U2
England needs you knighted. Sir. Hunkin. National treasure
I was thinking the same thing right now. I'm not British, but I hope you honour him that way.
Rex’s classic and memorable line “this is recorded on sticky tape and rust”.
That’s the best line of the series
I often use a similar metaphor to explain our electromagnetic body and it effect on the physical.
Shiatsu, acupressure and acupuncture use it too.
And Tim's best line: "I think it's a miracle it even works at all."
I still use that line whenever I'm doing a test recording on anything!
@@TailedFeature Yeah, me too!
The demonstration using your bandsaw is simply inspired
The helical tape head still amazes me. Not just the idea to pack in way more tracks on the same tape, but that it ever worked reliably enough to distribute millions of the mechanisms to households everywhere.
This was yet another episode that, as a kid, showed me how a common household item was based on fairly simple principles. I remembered bits of this episode and when our own VCR ate the odd tape the knowledge had taught me enough to be able to extract the tape through the slot without damaging anything.
As an avowed geek, these are absolutely amazing. I love this entire series. They're fascinating and spectacularly well done. I wish programs like this were still on TV that really explained how things work.
This show changed my life.
Looks like I'm not the only one refreshing this channel to see when the next one will come out!
I was really not expecting the sticky tape and rust demonstration to sound so good. The part with Rex talking about tiny modern electronic components being hard to work with made me smile because he reminded me that I felt they signified the end of hobby electronics. Spoiler: they did not. We all adapted and some of our tools changed too.
you can still get 'wired'/'leaded' parts but they are slowly dwindling ,
@@andygozzo72 getting them's not the issue, it's hooking them into stuff meant for surface mount. It's much harder to mess about and change things.
It's amazing how easy it is to so surface mount work with a good binocular microscope, tweezers, and a nice soldering iron. I can do 0603 (about 1/3rd the size of the parts shown in this episode) easily and down to 0201 (1/3rd again the size) with moderate difficulty.
Bravo, bravo, bravo. Hunkin is the best explainer I've ever seen.
@MichaelKingsfordGray Yes! I am a coward. Narely everone is a coward.
I saw this when I was 14 years old and it is partly responsible for the work I have right now in maintenance for professional video tape preservation! There's more to say but I'm going to wright it up properly before I post it.
Its interesting how in the 30 years since this show was made, we've gone from our shows and other programs being stored on a load of rust to them being stored on a load of silicon.
That would have been a better ending if you'd said "on a load of sand"...😊
Although still mainly only kept long term on spinning rusty frisbees or data cartridges which contain even more flimsy rust ribbons than were used then. They don't even guarantee the same longevity.
Most of it is still on a load of spinning rust.
I'm still a fan of this old analogue stuff. I acquired a still working Sony Handycam from 1998 last year.
Shoutout to Cathode Ray Dude for mentioning your work/channel in one of his videos. I love these old documentaries on technology of the times. I know what I'm watching all day! #subbed
+1 for CRD! My source of all knowledge about Indextron!
These were the best shows ever. So happy you’re rereleasing them!
A brilliant rediscovery of a great show. I always remembered Tim & Rex taking a bunch of old TVs and getting most of them to work simply by plugging in random valves! It sparked a career in electronics. May you never grow old guys.
Utterly marvellous!!
I am in my early thirties and i was a teenager when VCRs got out of business, but they have special place in my heart. The mechanichal sounds when playing and ejecting,mushy picture and the distinctive sound that TV's flyback transformer made when playing from a VHS. The idea of having a little recording studio under the TV was very good for me.
Tim Hunkin: The principles are really very simple
The Machine: Captures and records imagines from the magic picture box
Honestly I don’t know if I am more impressed with the explanation of how things work or with the introduction and end credits they made to go with the series.
I`m a simple man. I see "The Secret Life of the Machines" and press like and play button. Wish to have all the episodes when I was a kid, it`s wonderfull. Commentary was like another episode showing electromechanical magnetic data storage at it`s finest. I have ( Somewhere :D ) the smallest HDD in the world, it`s Toshiba 4GB capacity drive originally mounted in Nokia N91 smartphone. Just like you said, Tim - It`s piece of jewelry. Fun fact - Phone had built in accelerometer and when it detected gravity loss then the HDD heads were parked to safe place to protect the drive.
Great to see this programme again. I made a living repairing VCRs, an era where repair of electrical items was the norm.
So happy to be able to watch these again and with the added bonus of Mr Hunkin himself afterwards. Quality TV!
Watching your show, Connections and Modern Marvels taught me so much about the world. I feel sad for today's youth, a lot of them have no sense of wonder and discovery anymore. I hope that changes and people understand how their world works. When you know things you have power, people can't take advantage of you so much.
The demonstrations with the band saw and metal tape were simple and brilliant, or simply brilliant. Thank you sirs.
I actually learned something here. I knew the head was tilted but I didn't know why and how it effects the playback and those bits where you held a piece of tape and moved it through (both the home-made one you recorded Rex's voice and the video tape) was really fascinating!
Coincidentally, I wore out my VHS copy of this, taped off -air all those years ago and played on all kinds of junky machines I picked up at car boot sales and fixed. Plenty of white mis-tracking lines add to the charm! As concerns the legendary sticky tape and rust - Ironically, some 1970s and 80s audio tape (Ampex etc) suffers from a binder which has deteriorated and absorbs moisture, making the tape now stick to the heads when playback is attempted. Sticky tape is very much still around!
I'm still recording on tape (LTO8 is 15TB in on tape!), it's nice for backup. You can't trust hard drives for long term backups. I recently digitized 30 years old VHS, and I was bluffed by how the quality was still here like it was just recorded (after adjusting the tape alignment of the reader). I'm glad to have digitized last year because quality VHS players are harder to find than 10 years ago and the later ones were of bad quality.
The programmes were utterly fascinating when they first came out on the BBC. I remember eagerly waiting for each one to come on.
Channel 4
Same here
I fondly remember watching this program when i was younger. Love it just as much now.
I love how the documentary continues with the hard drive part during Tim’s ending comments
This series of videos are, in my opinion, are the greatest ever made. So much explained in such a simple way. Thank you.
It looks like Tim Hunkin has been digitally remastered. Respect for you Tim.
The video head demonstration with the pens installed in place of the heads is just pure genius. Thanks, Tim and Rex.
Thanks Tim for showing the world your brilliant career. I am amazed at all of your accomplishments. 🍺🍺
It's worth noting that the lowly "sticky tape and rust" has continued to be improved and used for storing extremely large amounts of data for archival and backup purposes. The state of the art LTO tape cartridge, half the size of a VHS cassette, holds 18 terabytes (18,000,000,000,000 bytes!) on more than a kilometer of thin, precisely manufactured tape. Of course, solid state technology has now given us 1 TB microSD cards costing only a couple hundred dollars and are the size of literally a thumbnail. I really cherish the Secret Life of Machines for showing us so visually how technology works, back when you could actually SEE the technology! ◡̈
I’ve always enjoyed watching this particular episode of Secret Life. Thank you so much for making it available again. Truly great stuff.
I remember in the early 70s having a video recorder at school that was in a big wooden box under a tv that was wheeled from room to room. It was the cutting edge of science to us children. Going home talking to parents who had been around at the birth of tv about it now seems slightly surreal. We only had 4 channels when we first got one, if not 3, yet there was always something to record. I haven’t a clue how many hours of TV we can record on our new Q box, personally I only record "The Repair Shop."
Great show!
I remember that four from when I watched this episode as a kid. Fascinating stuff. Thank you for releasing these remasters.
i love "The secret life of the machines" i watched it when i was a child :) now i repairing tv's, computers, etc and i love old electronics and precision mechanism like video or camera recorders, and still use it, and tape recorders too :) thank You! greetings from eastern Poland!
Thanks Tim for sharing your experiences in the end credits of the making of the Secret Life of the Videorecorder, very interesting. I am now 56 and still to this day miss the Secret Life of Machines TV programs which really inspired me to go into engineering. You are far from over the hill for making some more incredible documentary films and I think that you should really conciser it. The younger generation as always no more knows the origins of the new technology they proudly embrace as a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Doc Company to quote Douglas Adams.
Tim scratching with the channel 4 logo by pulling videotape through the machine is pure genius😁
I remember watching this on a VHC recorder. It’s good to be able to watch it again
I'm from the 1960's and have been interested in your content since then, very cool videos. Thank you.
Lovin' this series in 2024. Love the music BTW.
Thank you. I love it when things are explained clearly and effectively. It takes skill. Video recorders were things that made me realise I couldn't fix my own stuff any more.
Absolutely love how forward-thinking the program was. In particular, the demonstration of the rapidly degrading Channel 4 ident is a perfect illustration of its governance and quality of programming over the years. The audio and video signal being distorted of that Channel 4 ident at the end was really the perfect analogy to the ongoing privatisation efforts.
It's remarkable how equipment shown in secret life of machines such as telephone, radio, word processor, television and video recorder converged into a single device called 'mobile phone' just in few decades.
why dont we get rid of all of those and just give you a super computer that can you can talk to and ask questions...oh and it comes with a phone app too
Arguably the phone is really 7.5 devices sharing a case. Or is it 9.333?
the bandsaw method is such a smart and simple way of showing it ! great !!
Yet another great remaster Tim, thanks so much! Like many here I always look forward to seeing your next video, and this one sure brings back memories with the sticky tape and rust recording you and Rex did! I was always amazed by how well it worked!
Yes the sticky tape and rust comment of Rex's. I always rem that. Thanks for uploading Tim.
Perhaps the most iconic line from the series. RIP Rex Garrod.
So good to see this again, I could watch this over and over. I was 15 when this first came on TV and I still have it on VHS. Sound and tape recorders is a passion of mine, personally and professionally. Thank you Tim and Rex for explaining their workings in such a relaxed and easy to understand way, yet packing the half hour with such an amount of information.
Me: Look, one of my fafourites, how a video recorder works.
Daughter: A what?
Now she knows more then I did when I used one. This series is priceless!
these productions are a piece of art. thank you for preserving them.
This is an incredibly interesting series , I remember this watching it I loved it, still do ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ this remastered version is brilliant to view and actually I have some original episodes on Vhs 📼 thank you Tim and Rex for your Incredible work and Great knowledge in presenting this Brilliant series best wishes
This was such a great and entertaining show....I've seen things on here as a teenager some 30 years ago that I've never forgotten and never seen anywhere else.
I remember this series shown on Ireland's national state television service, RTE, during the early 1990's. This episode about VCR's was my favorite, probably because I used to take my own VHS recorders apart to see how they worked. I also owned Betamax machines which worked slightly different than VHS ones in the way they laced up the tape to the head drum, and were much faster to play back a video once the play button was pressed compared to VHS recorders.
One of my most favorite episodes from the entire series. Some of the best practical demonstrations were in this episode. "Sticky tape and rust" has been in my American brain for nearly 30 years, since I first watched this.
What a lovely gentleman! These sorts of programs are what I used to love watching as a kid growing up, and still do today! I absolutely love the animated front room at the end with the record player speakers bobbing around. Such clever ideas and abilities people had back then given the limitations of technology available. Who else would have had the idea to chuck some rust on sticky tape and make it record audio! I had no idea you could just drag video tape across the head and it still play like that. Makes me want to drag out my old VCR and have a faff around with it :D Love it!! Thank you so much :D
Back in the day my instructor told us that there were 30 (thirty) lines of information (tracks) in the width of human hair. The precision for the laser mechanism to follow that with a moving disc is incredible. Especially considering that not all discs are exactly centered and they are warped up and down thru changing heat cycles. Ronn
I’m so glad these are available again. Remember watching them so many years ago. Actually met Tim in the mid nineties and I remember it to this day . Great to see he’s still pottering about on experiments and his unique , simple way of explaining things. Thank you Tim 👍
"...this razor sharp steel would fly all over the room" Jesus!
This is just fantastic. Giving me a nostalgia rash.
Thank you Tim.
Oh.. my mind back to the day when I was kid while watching this.
It's taken me 7 mins but it suddenly hit me how good this remastering actually looks - bravo and thank you
Brilliantly simple explanation and examples with a few surprises, thank you for sharing!
Yes! I was waiting for this version. I actually wonder what my life would have been like if I never saw this episode.
I loved this program. So glad i can watch them again. How time`s have changed in so little time. Who know`s ` THE SECRET LIFE OF MOBILE PHONES ` Now that`s a rabbit hole you don`t want to get stuck in. :)
This was my favourite episode, looking forward to watching again.
I had always assumed that "AMPex" was named after the electrical unit "ampere;" I was surprised to learn that AMP are Ponyatov's initials.
I think it was also chosen as it would sound reminiscent of Ampere
Love this! Such relatable animations and a very fitting creative ending. Thanks for sharing!
Fantastic remastered videos and I enjoy the commentary at the end. I've been a Secret Life Of Machines fan for years, and have recorded most of the original episodes on VHS for watching later. My favorite has to be the light bulb episode, where you made actual working lightbulbs using milk bottles! Watching the remastered versions, I see there were some bits edited out (probably by the US Public TV network folks) in my original recordings. I have also visited your display in the London science museum many many years ago. Thank you for these educational and fun videos.... sorry to hear Rex is gone. You two were a fantastic team!! Looking forward to watching these again and again. Thank you Tim!
Thanks for redoing these with commentary at the end.
Keep 'em coming Tim - brilliant!!!
Well done Tim, for remastering these classic films! You are a inspiration to any young budding engineer or scientist! It is a real pity to see your backwards clock was taken down at the warehouse at Ellough a few years ago, always smiled when I drove past looking at "the bloke" on top of it in his hi-vis jacket trying to mend it!
I love this show so much, thanks for the update, Tim! I hope you continue making videos or new episodes or what have you for us to watch, keep SLOM alive.
Great to see this episode remastered to great quality as we can now see the BBC Vera segment (footage) in probably the best shape ever!
How excellent! I saw this by chance decades ago and always described it to people as an example of how different science shows in the US and UK could be. I'd never been able to find it since. I've been watching Tim Hunkin recently and hadn't recognized him as the same bloke. Thanks so much, Tim Hunkin, for uploading!
I love these programmes!
22:21 I would not have been able to do this scene without laughing.
Your videos are amazing and keep me inspired and willing/excited to learn about life and technology! Looking forward to the secret life of components. You're my hero.
I'm a simple man, I see a load of rust, I give it a like!
I love your shows! I’m as old as they, 1990. It is so nice explained. A shame I did not come across this in my younger days! Greetings from Switzerland 🇨🇭
Absolutely brilliant pops! Thank You. Not only are you a master tinkerman with the skills and knowledge of a mechanical engineer, you have a knack for explaining the principles of "How things work" in a simple manner which anyone can understand.
Yes I am amazed they work, and I made my living diagnosing and servicing them.
I remember watching this when it was first shown. Lovely to see it again. Thank you.
This was always the episode the stuck out the most in my memory. Maybe it was because of the topic but I think it was because of the oh so memorable line, "This was recorded on sticky tape and rust." It was also recorded deep within my primal memory. Thanks, for all of the years of education and thanks for always doing it with so much style. Lets just say you had me at Val Bennett and have had me ever since. Much
I knew about the German Audio Tape Recorders and that Bing Crosby was an early adopter to get his radio broadcasts recorded to send to radio stations across USA for playback at the correct time for each time zone. Also recorded programs can have retakes edited and trimmed or padded to fit time slots.
Fabulous. Thank you for sharing.
Beautiful. The quality is Top Notch. 👍
It was a joy to see this video again - and with the extra bit. Anything involving magnetic recording has always interested me, since I had a reel-to-reel tape recorder when I was a child, and ran a pretend 'radio station', broadcasting to exactly one person (me). I still have the booklets that go with this series.
Best doc series ever.
Your videos are so realistic and convincing that it's hard to believe they are only strings of 0s and 1s.
😍 I can't stop watching ! Great shows
Thank you Tim.👍
I loved this show as a kid.
loved it. i still use ALL the old media in my shop ThePhotoStore doing conversions from audio on aluminium records to tapes cds and dvds and now flash media and u know what they all skip and drop the beat... right back to my C64 cmos U2
Tim, congratulations on the remastered videos. Looks and sounds fantastic!
Good episode! I like playing around with VCR's & tape recorders.
You are fantastic, keep the videos coming please, thank you so much.
Been meaning to say this...THANK YOU Tim for your fantastic body of work, i have truly enjoyed it