Seven Seas Of Rhye - Top Of The Pops 1974

pittrek wrote:

Pim Derks wrote:

As far as I know Queen never performed Seven Seas of Rhye on the Dutch TV show Top Pop. They did do Killer Queen in November 1974, but that's it.

Are you talking about this show ?
http://www.webalice.it/pikkololuca/vcd/totp/1974%20Killer%20Queen/Killerqueen2.jpg

Yeah, that's the Top Pop scenery.

Thanks!

First of all, thanks to Mr Mercury for recalling me as the source of the TOTP video of SSOR.
A long while ago I discovered I had this video on a VHS tape that was sent to me by mail by a Queenfan from Argentina. He sent me this tape years and years ago.
When I found out I had this on VHS I quickly transferred it to my pc and made it available for download. Something I first regretted because I did not put my "signature" on it (to claim I was the source). Why? Because when you put something on the Internet it belongs to everyone.
I did it because I want to share (not trade or sell). Once out on the Internet you'll find out that others offer this clip as if they are the source. This is just the way it is. Full stop.

(I also provided another version of this same video but then transferred completely to black&white (on request from a Queenzoner) so there were less white spots and lines in the video.

Back then I even contacted Greg Brooks and he called me up and told me he would like to have this video. Now it was already available through my site I did not mail him a cd with the clip. About a year later or so I talked to him in person on a Dutch Queen meeting about this video.

If I recall correctly the "blue" version that is shared here in this post is part of the video I made available, but obviously with the blue coloured effect AND overdubbed with the original (single) audio track to have better sound. Both done by another Queenzoner.

And last but not least, Pim is correct (he often is!). Queen did not perform SSOR on the Dutch Top Pop, that indeed was Killer Queen.

Rien, you have all the answers! Thanks for sharing, and for enlightening.

Do you still have the original physical tape then? How did you digitise it? Wouldn't Queen Productions(or anyone with swanky professional equipment) be able to possibly recover more of the original quality and colour?

Rien, thanks a lot for the info. I actually have this from a collector, not internet, so it's very interesting to know who was the original source. So thank you again for sharing it and for NOT watermarking it :) And yes, you are right, this is the "blue" clip with overdubbed audio.

Thank you Pittrek. I was searching this for a long time.

regards
W.

yes I still have the original VHS tape.
I used Pinnacle Studio to transfer it to my pc from VHS recorder.

btw I cannot believe that there isn't anyone who has a better version of this clip. Hopefully it will appear one day. (let's say on Queen "Boxing" Day...)

In "The Story of Bohemian Rhapsody", they showed some of it, in b/w and clearly VHS quality, saying of it: "Long-lost from the BBC archives, this TOTP performance was videoed by a fan". It looked like it was from your tape.

Queen have lost audio and video master tapes before, you may well have the only copy of that in existence. All the more reason to thank you for sharing and not hoarding!

Rien wrote:

yes I still have the original VHS tape.
I used Pinnacle Studio to transfer it to my pc from VHS recorder.

btw I cannot believe that there isn't anyone who has a better version of this clip. Hopefully it will appear one day. (let's say on Queen "Boxing" Day...)

Last time i read something about this subject, Greg Brooks was after some Youtube uploader contact to ask for the version of the video. So, i think news are not that promising.

And if we think that in 1974 very few people would have recorded, makes this even more dificult.

I read a funny story about this, don´t know if it´s true though:

It stated that Freddie runs to the street to see the performance from a showcase of store wich sold televisions.

Don´t know if it´s true, but it´s funny!

And it shows that our Queen lads sisn´t have vedeorecorders.

Take care

Does anyone here who's into physically trading tapes, have or know someone who has a fancy VCR, full-frame timebase corrector, etc.?

That is, if Rien were willing to let someone have a go at a re-transfer?

boffy wrote:

Does anyone here who's into physically trading tapes, have or know someone who has a fancy VCR, full-frame timebase corrector, etc.?

That is, if Rien were willing to let someone have a go at a re-transfer?

Why ?

BTW I have an idea. When I was doing my Star Wars restoration project I have found a great AviSynth plugin which can read color information from one clip and write them into an other clip. Maybe it's worth trying it

pittrek wrote:

Why ?

Because a re-transfer with fancy equipment would be a bit sharper and cleaner, and might recover more of the colour. I may seems slightly obsessed with the recovery of the best possible version of the SSOR video, I am aware that the world probably doesn't revolve around this, but it would be nice.

My plan is to manually tidy up the bit with flickery colour so that the first half of the song is black & white and the second is in steady colour. I've tried this before with other videos and it works quite well. Obviously it would be nice to start with the best transfer of the source material possible, but I apologise if I'm being slightly unreasonable.

pittrek wrote:

BTW I have an idea. When I was doing my Star Wars restoration project I have found a great AviSynth plugin which can read color information from one clip and write them into an other clip. Maybe it's worth trying it

Thanks, I'm planning on doing something similar with a filter that gives you the Y(b/w) U and V (colour) signals side by side in one wide video, so it's easy to manipulate them individually and copy missing colour from adjacent frames.

Relatedly, does Rien or anyone have the file he uploaded here of the transfer from the tape, the one that got uploaded to YouTube?

EDIT: Rather off-topic, but that Star Wars restoration project sounds rather interesting, what was that about?

boffy wrote:

pittrek wrote:

Why ?

Because a re-transfer with fancy equipment would be a bit sharper and cleaner, and might recover more of the colour. I may seems slightly obsessed with the recovery of the best possible version of the SSOR video, I am aware that the world probably doesn't revolve around this, but it would be nice.

There's nothing wrong with this type of obsession :-) Queen community needs more people obsessed with quality :-)

My plan is to manually tidy up the bit with flickery colour so that the first half of the song is black & white and the second is in steady colour. I've tried this before with other videos and it works quite well. Obviously it would be nice to start with the best transfer of the source material possible, but I apologise if I'm being slightly unreasonable.

Sound VERY interesting.

pittrek wrote:

BTW I have an idea. When I was doing my Star Wars restoration project I have found a great AviSynth plugin which can read color information from one clip and write them into an other clip. Maybe it's worth trying it

Thanks, I'm planning on doing something similar with a filter that gives you the Y(b/w) U and V (colour) signals side by side in one wide video, so it's easy to manipulate them individually and copy missing colour from adjacent frames.

May I ask which filter are you talking about ?

EDIT: Rather off-topic, but that Star Wars restoration project sounds rather interesting, what was that about?

I was doing a re-creation of the original theatrical version (pre-special edition) in best possible format from best possible source, so I've started with colour-correcting the f*cked up official 2004 DVD using the 2006 "bonus" discs, if you know what I'm talking about :-)

pittrek wrote:

There's nothing wrong with this type of obsession :-) Queen community needs more people obsessed with quality :-)

Sound VERY interesting.

I've always been disappointed that there's no better video than the "Queen Rocks" one to accompany SSOR. It's as bad as the slide-show The Prophet's Song got on the ANATO DVD. Since I saw the TOTP SSORs on YouTube, I've been a man with a one-track mind.

May I ask which filter are you talking about ?

It's a pair of filters for VirtualDub. ExYUV splits in into its YUV components and CmYUV combines it back into a standard colour video.
http://www.geocities.com/siwalters_uk/excmyuv.html

I was doing a re-creation of the original theatrical version (pre-special edition) in best possible format from best possible source, so I've started with colour-correcting the f*cked up official 2004 DVD using the 2006 "bonus" discs, if you know what I'm talking about :-)

Ahh yes; the pink 'sabres, unnecessary Jabba, Greedo shooting first...Is your version available somewhere in the torrentsphere?

No, but I've sent a few copies to some friends