30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party

[Brekkie]

Well, 1998 was a terrible year for Noel, because House Party was in a state and Telly Addicts was axed as well. He certainly had plenty of other irons in the fire in terms of his business interests so he could certainly have coped with going off air for a bit - but I think it's worth pointing out that regardless of what Noel thought, the Beeb would have been loathe to do that because they would have lost 26 weeks of a ratings banker. I know the quality of the show was dipping, but it was still doing OK in the ratings and its opposition was Blind Date which was declining at a similar rate anyway.

I think also as well it's a different era in that light entertainment shows didn't really get "rested" - they were either on and they came back every year, or they were axed. It's not like today where pretty much the entire production team would be freelance, most of them would be BBC staff so they'd all have to be deployed on something else which would be pretty much the same thing. Easier just to keep making House Party and try and revitalise that.

I also suspect had it even been "rested" rather than axed they'd have been the fear he'd have gone to ITV instead, possibly with the House Party format as didn't Noel's company, rather than the BBC, own the rights to it? If not we might have seen something like Noel's Saturday Night Party on ITV vs Dales House Party on BBC1.

[simpfeld]

Eventually by putting my hand near where I thought it could be I worked out it was hidden in a VHS tape, through the record tab hole.
That was the kit that was used for NTV. That's something that couldn't work today with the digital delays in the broadcast systems.

I don't know presumably even in the original house party as well as rigging the camera, did they not feed the person's TV from the OB truck directly, rather than rely on the transmission chain. Not for delays, so they could provide a separate mix for that person. Do I not recall seeing that they would show them Noel full screen on their TV when the rest of us didn't. And sometimes they would show us that person before they had sprung the surprise and they were being shown filler content?

[Hatton Cross]

It was mentioned over on TVF, (it may have been commseng himself) that the tv of the star/victim was tuned on BBC One away from the usual transmitter, to a very low powered tx from the OBU , for the reason you've mention, and also, with a clean feed, to remove the howl of feedback as soon as they crossed to the room.

[commseng]

Yes exactly that, off air BBC 1 pictures, and the sound was fed through a desk and was replaced by a clean feed from TV Centre via a reverse bearer. The whole remodulated signal was then fed back into their aerial feeder, on a different channel to the usual BBC 1 signal, and their telly retuned to the new channel.
Like all these ahows, the longer it ran the more facilities got added, so although the first series wouldn't have done anything other than off air for the vision, later series may have had a reverse vision feed, although that would probably depend on the location. One of the major cities, or near a main transmitter, not too much of an issue, but one I remember from Hastings required 3 hops of microwave link (for example) so adding a return vision was a little more complex.
Plus the van we did it from was quite compact, and also needed to be fairly discrete so as not to arouse suspicion.

[Markymark]

If I had been the target, Ceefax and ITS would have had to have been added, and a NICAM carrier ?

Actually, follow up thought, as NHP was preceded (ish) by the regional news, what happened for hits outside of the London/SE region?

[buster]

This ep shows that process in action (well actually when it fails). The first star loses vision and sound briefly, and the link to the second NTV house goes down entirely and not only the camera has stopped working but so has the sound from the special feed of BBC1 meaning that even when they go in with a handheld camera, the star can't hear Noel. Listen out for the floor manager telling Noel it's screwed during the NTV opening sequence. This was later explained as a fox biting through the cables...

https://youtu.be/9F80E_uv3vA?t=370

(from 6'10" if it doesn't open correctly).
An unfortunate mess, this and the swearing, given this was the "relaunch" episode after Noel had walked out and they retooled all the content.

[buster]

This ep shows that process in action (well actually when it fails). The first star loses vision and sound briefly, and the link to the second NTV house goes down entirely and not only the camera has stopped working but so has the sound from the special feed of BBC1 meaning that even when they go in with a handheld camera, the star can't hear Noel. Listen out for the floor manager telling Noel it's screwed during the NTV opening sequence. This was later explained as a fox biting through the cables...

https://youtu.be/9F80E_uv3vA?t=370

(from 6'10" if it doesn't open correctly).
An unfortunate mess, this and the swearing, given this was the "relaunch" episode after Noel had walked out and they retooled all the content.

[Andrew]

Yes exactly that, off air BBC 1 pictures, and the sound was fed through a desk and was replaced by a clean feed from TV Centre via a reverse bearer. The whole remodulated signal was then fed back into their aerial feeder, on a different channel to the usual BBC 1 signal, and their telly retuned to the new channel.
Like all these ahows, the longer it ran the more facilities got added, so although the first series wouldn't have done anything other than off air for the vision, later series may have had a reverse vision feed, although that would probably depend on the location. One of the major cities, or near a main transmitter, not too much of an issue, but one I remember from Hastings required 3 hops of microwave link (for example) so adding a return vision was a little more complex.
Plus the van we did it from was quite compact, and also needed to be fairly discrete so as not to arouse suspicion.

And I’m guessing back in the 90s even the smallest van was probably still quite conspicuous.

The way to never appear on NTV was presumably to refuse to go out during Saturday afternoon, so the engineer can’t turn up and retune the TV

[simpfeld]

And I’m guessing back in the 90s even the smallest van was probably still quite conspicuous.

The way to never appear on NTV was presumably to refuse to go out during Saturday afternoon, so the engineer can’t turn up and retune the TV

Didn't always work to go out. This episode they get a man at the cinema, who went out every Saturday to avoid NTV. I think this is actually really really well done.
https://youtu.be/sTOzG6Ml7r4?t=1309

[VMPhil]

And I’m guessing back in the 90s even the smallest van was probably still quite conspicuous.

The way to never appear on NTV was presumably to refuse to go out during Saturday afternoon, so the engineer can’t turn up and retune the TV

Didn't always work to go out. This episode they get a man at the cinema, who went out every Saturday to avoid NTV. I think this is actually really really well done.
https://youtu.be/sTOzG6Ml7r4?t=1309

This is the bit from the new highlights video that really put a smile on my face. Genius.

[Hatton Cross]

If I had been the target, Ceefax and ITS would have had to have been added, and a NICAM carrier ?

Actually, follow up thought, as NHP was preceded (ish) by the regional news, what happened for hits outside of the London/SE region?

Good question. Waiting around from the offical source, but wouldn't the CF into the NTV house from the OBU, been 'crossfaded' as soon as the regional opt had gone back into network?

It's really odd to think that nothing like this, with the handful of different digital transmission systems and built in encoding/decoding delays, could be done today.

[commseng]

If I had been the target, Ceefax and ITS would have had to have been added, and a NICAM carrier ?

Actually, follow up thought, as NHP was preceded (ish) by the regional news, what happened for hits outside of the London/SE region?

You may have been one of the more difficult ones to fool, but maybe changing the scan on the telly and keeping you busy beforehand would have been the key.
As for regional opt outs, the off air sound would still have been available. I assume they changed over to the clean feed once the programme was on air.

[commseng]

Yes exactly that, off air BBC 1 pictures, and the sound was fed through a desk and was replaced by a clean feed from TV Centre via a reverse bearer. The whole remodulated signal was then fed back into their aerial feeder, on a different channel to the usual BBC 1 signal, and their telly retuned to the new channel.
Like all these ahows, the longer it ran the more facilities got added, so although the first series wouldn't have done anything other than off air for the vision, later series may have had a reverse vision feed, although that would probably depend on the location. One of the major cities, or near a main transmitter, not too much of an issue, but one I remember from Hastings required 3 hops of microwave link (for example) so adding a return vision was a little more complex.
Plus the van we did it from was quite compact, and also needed to be fairly discrete so as not to arouse suspicion.

And I’m guessing back in the 90s even the smallest van was probably still quite conspicuous.

The way to never appear on NTV was presumably to refuse to go out during Saturday afternoon, so the engineer can’t turn up and retune the TV

There was a lot more to do than just retuning the telly!!

[commseng]

Yes exactly that, off air BBC 1 pictures, and the sound was fed through a desk and was replaced by a clean feed from TV Centre via a reverse bearer. The whole remodulated signal was then fed back into their aerial feeder, on a different channel to the usual BBC 1 signal, and their telly retuned to the new channel.
Like all these ahows, the longer it ran the more facilities got added, so although the first series wouldn't have done anything other than off air for the vision, later series may have had a reverse vision feed, although that would probably depend on the location. One of the major cities, or near a main transmitter, not too much of an issue, but one I remember from Hastings required 3 hops of microwave link (for example) so adding a return vision was a little more complex.
Plus the van we did it from was quite compact, and also needed to be fairly discrete so as not to arouse suspicion.

And I’m guessing back in the 90s even the smallest van was probably still quite conspicuous.

The way to never appear on NTV was presumably to refuse to go out during Saturday afternoon, so the engineer can’t turn up and retune the TV

It was one of our smaller communications trucks, with all BBC branding removed and Satellite Data Systems with a matching logo added. Nobody questioned that the dish wasn't pointing at the sky......!!

[simpfeld]

Good question. Waiting around from the offical source, but wouldn't the CF into the NTV house from the OBU, been 'crossfaded' as soon as the regional opt had gone back into network?

It's really odd to think that nothing like this, with the handful of different digital transmission systems and built in encoding/decoding delays, could be done today.

I guess my point was I don't see this being very hard today. So long as you are feeding the persons TV from the OB, getting a clean feed from the studio to the TV in the house, that should be much easier today. In an era when people are broadcasting live TV from their homes in broadcast quality on broadband. I was amazed to see that video of Channel 5 presenter presenting the news from their house on broadband, with inserts from the studios. So delays must be pretty short on their H265 encoder i.e. good enough.

You just can't use the off-air for showing them Noel nowadays, that seems like the only difference.