Great read. And glad they were willing to help. I feel bad you had all that hassle with a betamax when I have a working deck.
On a related note, has anyone ever researched HBO’s Bond marathon in 1980? They ran every film up to at least TSWLM. Not sure if it was one month or spaced out over two or three. It definitely took up a big chunk of their schedule. It was the first time I had seen any of them uncut, and it was quite a revelation having grown up with the edited ABC tv versions throughout the '70’s.
JEDIT:Seems it was mostly the Connery films. So much for my memory!