UK

Root into Europe (1992) [VHSRip (XViD)]

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Torrent description

This torrent was uploaded from www.TheBox.bz (signup is open and free) - the home of all British TV

Root into Europe (1992) with George Cole *as requested*

Great to be able to give something back to this fantastic site!

More info here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103527/


Episodes 1 & 2 (of 5)

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Originally transmitted: 17th & 24th May 1992, ITV.
Running time: 2 x 51 minutes
Source: Sell-through VHS/Off air Betamax

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Cast and crew:

Cast:
George Cole & Pat Heywood

Crew:
Written by William Donaldson and Mark Chapman
Produced by Justin Judd and Mark Chapman
Directed by Mark Chapman

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Description:

Extracted from the spoof letters of William Donaldson, the character of Henry Root is transplanted to television with mixed success. The story's thread sees our hero travel across Europe, wife in tow, "investigating" the lives of Johnny Foreigner, as the self-appointed emissary of John Major. With the European dream about to take a step towards integration, Root acts as the classic, British, bigot, with little interest in learning from his experience, instead keen to impart his own wisdom on each nation, as he passes through.

What's special about the show is the sequence of set pieces in which George Cole is inserted as Root in to "real" situations with "real people". These lift the series from what might otherwise have been a rather lacklustre adaptation of a brilliant collection of letters and are most interesting for the documentary-feel that the "real-people" impart, but also have the effect of breaking the story apart in to a series of Trigger-Happy style skits. It seems somewhat clichéd humour though, and doesn't serve the source.


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Technical notes:

Picture is fairly steady, although I'm not terribly satisfied. There's something about VHS-sourced, film-shot material which seems to suffer worse than other sources, when compressed. Maybe it's the trouble caused by bandwidth-hungry, random noise? The episodes are actually pieced together from a combination of pre-recorded VHS and an off-air Betamax recording to fill in the title sequences and the odd couple of shots which were trimmed from the former.

Disappointingly, although the series had a stereo soundtrack and transmission (if only applicable to the score), the pre-recorded release seems to have been sourced from a MONO recording.

Video:
VHS Pre-recorded/Beta Off-air -> MPEG-2 -> XviD
Resolution: 592 x 448
Frame rate: 25/second

Audio:
Analogue VHS HiFi/Betamax Linear -> MPEG Audio -> MP3
Data rate: 128 kb/s (variable)
Sampling rate: 48 kHz
Format: Mono

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Episodes 3 & 4 (of 5)


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Originally transmitted: 31st May & 7th June 1992, ITV.
Running time: 2 x 51 minutes
Source: Sell-through VHS

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Technical notes:

PLEASE NOTE: Each of these episodes are missing their opening and closing title sequences and an establishing shot: I missed these when originally transmitted and am reliant on the edited sell-through VHS release.

Picture is fairly steady and this is a superior cap compared with episodes 1 & 2, which I may recap at a later date.

Disappointingly, although the series had a stereo soundtrack and transmission (if only applicable to the score), the pre-recorded release seems to have been sourced from a MONO recording.

Video:
VHS Pre-recorded -> MPEG-2 -> XviD
Resolution: 592 x 448
Frame rate: 25/second

Audio:
Analogue VHS HiFi -> MPEG Audio -> MP3
Data rate: 128 kb/s (variable)
Sampling rate: 48 kHz
Format: Mono



============================================================================================

Episodes 5 (of 5)

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Originally transmitted: 14th June 1992, ITV.
Running time: 51 minutes
Source: Sell-through VHS/Off-air Betamax

---------------------

Technical notes:

Picture is fairly steady and this is a superior cap compared with episodes 1 & 2, which I may recap at a later date.

Disappointingly, although the series had a stereo soundtrack and transmission (if only applicable to the score), the pre-recorded release seems to have been sourced from a MONO recording.

Video:
VHS Pre-recorded/Betamax off-air -> MPEG-2 -> XviD
Resolution: 592 x 448
Frame rate: 25/second

Audio:
Analogue VHS HiFi/Betamax linear -> MPEG Audio -> MP3
Data rate: 128 kb/s (variable)
Sampling rate: 48 kHz
Format: Mono

-------------------------------------

Enjoy :cool2:


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