Newly restored video:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/moonwalkvideo/


-- 
Mary had a little lamb, a little beef, and a little ham.


                     /\  /\               /\  /
                    /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                        >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                    anl

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Neeum Zawan wrote:

> Mary had a little lamb, a little beef, and a little ham. 

I still prefer "Mary had a little lamb, and the widwife fainted." ;-)

(Alongside such classics as "Mary had a little lamb, she also had a 
bear. I've seen her lamb, but I've never seen her bear." and so forth.)

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
>     Newly restored video:
> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/moonwalkvideo/

I've read that the original videos were actually very high quality, but they 
didn't get any sort of converter between NASA's systems and regular TV sets, 
so someone just pointed a TV camera at the monitor in NASA and that's what 
was broadcast.  Then, nobody bothered to convert the video afterwards, until 
all the machines that could read the tapes had been scrapped.


-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I've read that the original videos were actually very high quality, but they
> didn't get any sort of converter between NASA's systems and regular TV sets,
> so someone just pointed a TV camera at the monitor in NASA and that's what
> was broadcast.  Then, nobody bothered to convert the video afterwards, until
> all the machines that could read the tapes had been scrapped.

Sounds like a legend to me.

IIRC the reason why the best recordings are spread so far around the world was
that the video broadcasts were converted at each receiving station, and they
would broadcast the TV signal from whichever station currently was in the best
position to receive a good feed from Apollo.

Though it sounds plausible that the converters may actually have been built
according to this principle, using a display vacuum tube and a camera vacuum
tube in an enclosed chamber. But they were certainly more sophisticated than
just someone casually pointing a camera at a monitor that happened to stand
around in a corner.

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clipka wrote:
> Sounds like a legend to me.

It was the second hit on google, even given the current flurry of posts 
about it.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5578853


And, of course, our government is too f'ing stupid to fund science well 
enough to even BUY NASA TAPES for its data. I mean, really guys? Did we have 
to overwrite the original moon walk videos because we couldn't afford to buy 
new tapes?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106637066

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> clipka wrote:
> > Sounds like a legend to me.
>
> It was the second hit on google, even given the current flurry of posts
> about it.
>
> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5578853

"To convert the originals, engineers essentially took a commercial television
camera and aimed it at the monitor."

The keyword here is "essentially".

It doesn't describe what they actually did - just the basic principle of how it
worked.

And later, it continues:

"Richard Nafzger, a TV specialist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Maryland [...] worked with Apollo's lunar TV program, and says that conversion
was the best they could do at the time."

Which is to say they definitely did not just aim *some* camera at *some* monitor
*somewhere* - because they could have done better than *that*. Mounting both
camera and monitor firmly into a dark enclosure, placed somewhere undisturbed
by casual passers-by, for instance.

The articles also confirms that conversion took place at the downlinks, not at
NASA's control center in Houston.

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clipka wrote:
> It doesn't describe what they actually did - just the basic principle of how it
> worked.


OK. My point is that even the best images you see are downconverted from 
what really came down.  I'm sure there was some of the stuff you talked 
about going on also. @Whee for the digital age.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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