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BBC Wales C.O.W

 
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Last Post by Cathovisor 4 months ago
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 mfd70
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In a previous post I mentioned that I was aware of the BBC Wales COW still in storage, well in 2025 it will be forty years since the COW first appeared on air and they would like to see if it can be made to work again, so we have been taking a look over the Christmas / New Year period. Luckily Chris was able to provide manuals and it was clear the +12V supply is missing, its and OEM PSU made by Gould/Advance. In order to see if there was any hope of getting this going I lashed up a 12V supply, snipped out the rifa caps (after they filled workshop with smoke..) and the results were rather good, see the video if you are interested;

There is no luminance as the COW does not have sync pulses on the Y output so I've just fed the YUV to SDI converter with station black and burst on the Y input to get a locked picture. Of course this is not my unit and not my decision on how much time or effort will be spent on this project. If anyone does not know what I mean by BBC COW, there is an explanation here;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Originated_World

Also a more detailed explanation here;

https://www.bbceng.info/Designs/designs_technology/new_world.htm

 

 
Posted : 04/01/2025 8:33 pm
 mfd70
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Anyone who can get BBC 1 Wales will hopefully see the COW symbol from the original hardware at the 19:30 junction into Eastenders this evening, which will be running their original 1985 titles (4:3), network BBC1 are also using the COW symbol but from a file.

 
Posted : 13/02/2025 9:17 am
 Cathovisor
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I'd have thought they'd do that next Thursday when they do the live show - forty years and a day after the first episode.

 
Posted : 13/02/2025 2:14 pm
 mfd70
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Here is a short video about how the COW was used last week, it's having another outing on air this week too.

 

 

 
Posted : 18/02/2025 8:51 pm
 Cathovisor
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Now, compare that with the piece on the BBC News website where a photo is described as being of "the construction of the director's gallery at Elstree Studios" - when in fact, it's one of the Studio Engineers working on one of the ex-TC3 EMI 2001 CCUs in Studio C's Vision Apparatus Room..

 
Posted : 19/02/2025 12:08 am
 Cathovisor
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Further to my post above - the BBC has now corrected it.

There's an article in the current BVWS Bulletin about the BECG COW. I am rather pissed off about it.

 
Posted : 05/03/2025 11:34 am
 mfd70
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@cathovisor Do you have a link ? Someone from there has e-mailed my colleague about the BBC Wales COW.

 
Posted : 05/03/2025 10:51 pm
 Cathovisor
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@mfd70 No, it's in the printed magazine so no online version (yet).

 
Posted : 06/03/2025 9:37 am
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