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Star Trek - Treknology (Released)

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Hi all

I have been backing up some VHS tapes and come across some episodes of “Treknology”, that I believe aired in the UK around 20 years ago (possibly as part of the 30th Anniversary?)

A few questions for anyone who may know:

  1. Have these been commercially released anywhere, and if so, where?
  2. Assuming the answer to Q1 is no, are there any decent preservations already completed?
  3. If not, does anyone have any interest in seeing them?
  4. Does anyone have a good quality (i.e. NICAM sourced) audio for them? My video seems pretty good, but it was recorded on a non-NICAM VCR, so the sound is poor.

Happy to share my results with anyone who is interested!
I have a screen capture of the video, but not sure if/how I can post it here?

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Not sure if this will work, but I’ve uploaded a sample image to my google drive. This is a “raw” image from the capture. Unfortunately the best I can get is from my Panasonic DVD recorder connected to the VCR, but I recorded in SP mode (i.e. 1hr per 4.7gb disc) to get the best quality I could.
Some clean up to be completed in virtualdub, and (hopefully!) a better audio source 😃

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Never heard about it. Can’t even google it.

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Likewise. Which channel was it broadcast on?

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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It was broadcast on BBC2 (I know as it has the “2” logo at the start!). I’ll google to see what I can find but it was split into episodes. So far I have come across 1 called “Funk me up Scotty” about how ST stars have gone on to have music careers (with varying success!). I think the second was about spoofs.

Will try and find out more!

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Thanks! Now I remember the theme night because it also featured the BBC premiere of ST: Voy - Caretaker. Did you manage to record the entire night? It didn’t occur to me at the time that I ought to record it and my VCR was mono anyway, let alone NICAM. I’d definitely be interested in re-watching Science: the Final Frontier and Funk Me up Scotty.

It’s such a shame that BBC2 hasn’t shown anything like this in years.

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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Unfortunately I think (from looking at the link) that what I have is cut down versions of “Funk me up Scotty” and “Spoof Trek” that were transmitted in 1997. I remember a Star Trek night but don’t think I recorded it either unfortunately. Watching it back, the sound is pretty reasonable although it would definitely benefit from a Hi-Fi/NICAM source.

Whilst I’m discussing Trek, I also found a recording of a 25th anniversary special recorded in 1992. The picture is pretty decent on that too but the sound is very muffled as it was recorded at LP on a mono VCR. Is that likely to be of value to the community? (I obviously don’t mean in monetary terms!)

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This Trek fan for one would definitely welcome anything that you want to share. 😃

So much of that stuff has never been made commercially available and will probably never be repeated due to licensing issues and other factors. On a side note, I wish that I’d been able to record the Nimoy introductions to C4’s Star Trek TOS film marathon a few years back.

Was the 25th anniversary special also broadcast on BBC2 and was it around the same period in 1992 (the autumn IIRC) when they also aired The Cage?

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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Yes the 25th anniversary doc was broadcast on BBC2 in 1992. It was more than likely to tie in with the broadcast of The Cage although I can’t confirm that 100%. It was US produced unlike the Treknology bits which appeared UK produced (albeit featuring clips from a number of US shows)

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I’ve noticed the 25th Anniversary doc seems to be available on VHS from Amazon US. What I don’t know is whether that (or the UK transmitted version for that matter) were edited in any way for rights issues.

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For anyone interested, I have now made this available from the body part site 😉