Earls Court 1980 Bootleg

[RemembranceCCF]

Hello all.

As mentioned in the Say Hello post, I came to this forum to ask about the 1980 Earls Court VHS bootleg. I was hoping some of the older fans here would have some memories about when it first came out, and if anyone ended up finding a better copy than the source for Divided We Fall.

I have a few theories on its origin and why the tapes are all higher gens, but I was hoping to know more about the initial release, if anyone has memories of that, and if anybody has some original VHS copies they can remember.

[theaussiefloydian]

I don't know much about Divided We Fall, but a cursory search I did tells me it was filmed on 8 and 9 August 1980. If it's better source audio copies of it you want you could probably use those dates to track down a decent bootleg (not sure if they will be soundboard quality, because I think just about all the soundboard recordings of that tour went to Is There Anybody Out There?), but for video as far as I know you're rather stuck with just Divided We Fall I'm afraid.
For more info on Divided We Fall, here's a page from a website run by another member of this forum. It's pretty informative.
https://thewallcomplete.com/discography ... rls-court/

[RemembranceCCF]

I probably should have clarified exactly what and why I'm looking for more info about the tape in the initial post. My apologies for that. I'll go over what is currently known about the bootleg and why I was hoping some members here were around when it first released.

The initial recording of August 7th, 8th, and 9th were likely shot on U-Matic tapes. These shows were compiled into a single edit by Howard Lamden. A copy of this was sent to Pink Floyd around 1980 or 81 as well, and sometime in between 1980 and what I believe to be 1993 or 1994, the cut is misplaced.

It can be assumed this cut was acquired by someone, who then copied this tape around four times on VHS, then purposefully induced time base errors. These errors and tape degeneration were done in the interest of deterring legal actions against whoever released the bootleg.

In 1993 or 1994, this bootleg is released to the Pink Floyd community. I do not know how many tapes were released, but supposedly every tape recorded online is at least 4th generation, and has the same time base errors.

By 2003, Divided We Fall is released, and is based off RonToon's 4th generation tape, using a DVD recorder. Divided We Fall mixed this 4th generation tape with scenes from Behind The Wall, an EPK for a larger documentary, 11 minutes on VHS.

By 2008, another tape is released online, but is an even higher generation, this time likely 6th.

Finally, by 2020, my compatriot Notelu uses AviSynth to restore the initial raw capture of RonToon's tape for Divided We Fall, and while this is a great step up from the initial material, it's still based off a tape with generational errors, baked in time base errors, really bad chroma noise, and compression from the DVD recording.

My reason for asking here for more info is if searching for a lower generation tape is futile. If anyone remembers being at the forefront of this bootleg coming out, and knows something that may prove the theory of all copies originating from the source to be 4th gen, then there isn't much more anyone can do to restore this concert aside from cobbling together the best bits of as many 4th generation tape as one could find. However, considering footage from only two tapes have ever surfaced online, finding even more seems to be an extremely tough challenge.

[mosespa]

I don't know any of the Harvested guys personally, but I would assume that if there were lower generation tapes to work from, they'd have found them and used them.

If anyone would have, they would have.

To be more on topic, I don't "remember" when these tapes first came out; I was completely unaware of their existence until I found them on a website that I believe was called "Marching Hammers." There, I found the Earls Court video and the Nassau video. There were many other videos available and I took great advantage of their "7 tapes for $77" special and got them both, along with some other things.

That was around 2000 or '01.

I was just pleased to have two complete shows. I really didn't care about the generational quality. I could still see and hear what was going on and that was all I cared about.

[pazhimself]

Where can you find this dvd?

[RemembranceCCF]

I don't know any of the Harvested guys personally, but I would assume that if there were lower generation tapes to work from, they'd have found them and used them.

If anyone would have, they would have.

To be more on topic, I don't "remember" when these tapes first came out; I was completely unaware of their existence until I found them on a website that I believe was called "Marching Hammers." There, I found the Earls Court video and the Nassau video. There were many other videos available and I took great advantage of their "7 tapes for $77" special and got them both, along with some other things.

That was around 2000 or '01.

I was just pleased to have two complete shows. I really didn't care about the generational quality. I could still see and hear what was going on and that was all I cared about.

Would you possibly be willing to describe how the tape packaging looks, or post a picture, as well as the video quality of your tape? That might help determine some information about releases. If you bought this from a distribution site, that would mean either new tapes were produced, or older stocks of tapes were still being sold, meaning a decent number of them were produced. As far as I know, this is what the first release's cover looks like, in a hard plastic black case.

[mosespa]

There was no cover. It was a consumer grade blank VHS tape; so not even fourth generation. It came in the traditional cardboard sleeve which only had the markings of the manufacturer's logo and a handwritten label.

[RemembranceCCF]

Thanks a ton for the clarification. S'pose that proves the theory that the initial release only came out that one time, and the later mass releases were all based off those original fourth gen tapes, each new copy dependent upon the distributor, which would also explain the 6th generation tape currently out there, probably a copy of a distributor's 5th gen tape.

This info is extremely helpful so thank you so much for elaborating