Preparing for the dive.
Worsthorne water has drawn the attention of a Manchester TV company, because it's so dirty, "Like Brown Windsor Soup," says executive Richard Young, and because of this the company has been using Roggerham Reservoir to try out some new underwater TV gear. So yesterday afternoon the murky water of the reservoir were lit by lamps on the front of a Marconi camera in a special lightweight housing and fed back to a mobile Ampex videotape recorder in a van at the water's edge.
For the first time, said Mr. Young, they were offering to the industry, or to the television companies or anyone who was interested, a "package deal" of lightweight equipment putting out a picture of broadcast quality straight on to the screen or on to a recording. One of the advantages claimed for the system is that the diver, yesterday it was Tom Darragh of Blackburn, can be given instant instructions by a supervisor watching a monitor on the surface. Now that Mr. Young's firm, Group 70, have successfully captured the rather unromantic subject of underwater Victorian girders at Roggerham, they hope to present this to firms they have already approached.
Granada TV, for example, are planning a series on underwater searchers and Group 70 hope to offer them inserts. Undersea treasure hunters, emergency rescue teams working on disasters like the Torrey Canyon, crashed airliners, the Sea Quest oil rig are all obvious customers. If the company can cash into the oil and gas prospecting market, they will obviously be striking it rich themselves. Next target, says Richard Young, is live "commercials" on telly from the bottom of the North Sea.