No worries just thought I’d offer the help if needed.
Hi, I have checked with someone who has the DVDs of all the series of Heartbeat, I asked this person whether the episodes I have seen on youtube (as well as the torrent files in avi I’ve also seen) have cuts in them, and he confirmed that yes they had been cut. Very strange why the DVD distributor of the show cut some scenes out, but watching the scenes I suspect that ITV or Yorkshire TV either didn’t or couldn’t give the DVD studio (Network) the actual raw master tape that didn’t have any music added where they could just simply add a different song in replace of the song used in the TV broadcast, in this case Beatles songs. So all they were given was some already finalised version of the episodes which still had the original music, and this of course created a problem because they couldn’t use that version due to copyright music and all the rights issues for home video, so what they did was just basically mute the audio from the audio track to the scene (which included music and background effects and people speaking), add the replacement cover song on the audio track, but because the music was used during where two characters are speaking they had no choice but to cut out the dialogue scene because the original audio track had been muted to remove/hide the copyright Beatles song which they couldn’t use.
Why ITV Studios or Yorkshire didn’t give them the actual master tape I do not know, surely they have a copy it somewhere and haven’t lost it. I’m pretty sure this is what they have done as other episodes where they have used different music are like this also, in a previous scene where the original TV broadcast music would’ve transitioned from the previous scene into the next scene, in one ep from series 4 ep 9 you can hear the beginning of the Beatles song “Back in the USSR” with the sound of the plane which was on that song, however, when the scene cuts to the next scene where it should be Back in the USSR, we hear a cover song of “You Can’t Do That”. The original broadcast tape should’ve had no music at all, again why ITV never gave them the episode without the music is strange.
Sorry for the long winded message.
If anyone has any original ITV broadcast recordings of the episodes to share I would love to them. The Britbox versions, although “uncut” don’t include the original ad break bumpers which the ITV broadcasts from the early-mid 90s do, but the DVD versions do include them but scenes have been cut in some episodes. When it has been shown on ITV3 in the UK they have (from the ones I’ve seen) add the original songs included, but some scenes have been cut, and they don’t include the ad break bumpers as they were originally shown, and also the display the annoying channel logo.