I think there's LOTS of media out there, but there doesn't seem to be easy ways to convert it.
There was probably a renaissance period when conversion equipment was being actively developed and available, but that time is probably gone. For example I think a good film scanner would be the Nikon Super Coolscan 8000 ED, but current state of the art falls far short. For film, vcr tapes and more we should be doing so much better.
I have old family super-8 films that are kind of convertible, but not the magnetic sound strip.
If you have something precious on home movie film, this lab in Burbank, CA that does a lot of the movies will have sometimes deals on film transfers for holidays, or you can call them for a quote. No relationship, but I did have some done and they were very good. https://www.pro8mm.com/
There are several "holy grails" in British TV history.
Lost Doctor Who episodes are one of them. Dad's Army also has lost black and white episodes (the colour ones have been repeated ad nauseam all my lifetime).
I can think of a few others. Scotch on the Rocks was a political hit piece written by Douglas Hurd showing an armed Scottish uprising along the lines of Northern Ireland. It was supposed to frighten people away from Scottish nationalism, but ended up causing copycat incidents. It vanished shortly after being broadcast probably because of its unintended effects.
The ultimate would be some of the pre-WW2 television broadcasts. Most of these were broadcast in the London area and practically nowhere else. Almost no one had recording equipment back then and they were often broadcast live.
I just wanted to mention at this opportunity that some British TV series from the late 70s, early 80s are absolutely brilliant and some of the best stuff I have ever watched. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley's People, Danger UXB, Sandbaggers and Sherlock Holmes are some of my favorites.
One of my favorite Youtube channels I've come across in the last year is BBC Archive. Not fiction, but a mix of documentaries, interviews, human interest stories, and educational content from the 50's to the 80's and a little bit of 90's. This 1970 short film on a Scottish boy's last carefree days before starting school is probably my favorite that I've seen so far.
One video in that archive is about a family day out to and island by ferry. You'd basically arrive in the morning, climb to the top of the hill on the island, have lunch and meet the ferry in the afternoon. The first thing that strikes you is that no-one is fat. The second that everyone is fit enough to make it to the top of the hill regardless of age.
I have seen that one. It is very sweet. I'm familiar with the area it's filmed in.
However, I do not think the BBC has provided a decent service to Scotland over the years at all. We tend to be represented in certain clichés, if we are represented at all. Another clip from the same era is basically about a Scottish drunk who cycles over the Lairig Ghru and back, and has a patronising posh voiceover the top.
I grew up with Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, by far, in my opinion, the most accurate representation of the stories.
Only in my adult life did I read the stories, finding large chunks of the dialog in the TV show being word for word taken from the stories. And when not word for word, the tone and feel of the scenes so well portrayed on screen.
Suchet's Poirot is definitely good, but I should point out that it is produced by ITV not BBC (their long term rival). My mother used to watch it, so I'm very familiar with it thanks to her.
However, I've never been much enamoured with the Miss Marple adaptations. Joan Hickson's is maybe the best (even though I prefer Geraldine McEwan as an actress) but I never took to it like Poirot.
You might like the nineties Jeeves and Wooster which stars Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie (of House fame) as Bertie Wooster. It is formulaic but fun. I think it's the best thing Stephen Fry ever did.
Brett's Sherlock Holmes is definitely the definitive one in my book.
There is a Soviet version of Sherlock Holmes which is surprisingly good starring Vasily Livanov. The locations sometimes don't quite look like England etc, but I really enjoyed it.
Not completely. The Soviet Union did adapt a lot of classic literature alongside the more obvious Communist propaganda you'd expect. I think they used the old town of Riga in Latvia to film the London scenes. I have heard that the Russians still show these films every Christmas.
There are subtitled versions available online. Here is a short clip (with Sarabande over it)
I am a great fan of Brett's version, which I think is the best ever made. But I think the Soviet version is fantastic, considering it was made behind the Iron Curtain. There have, of course, been some awful Sherlock Holmes films but that's another matter.
I was just thinking about Danger UXB recently and remember watching it on PBS with my Mom. Another show of that era that I remember loving was the miniseries of the Barchester Chronicles (adapting the first two of Trollope’s Barsetshire novels). During the DVD-by-mail era of Netflix, I revisited that one and it still held up, although I did not at the time realize just how star-studded the cast was.
I should mention that all of the programs that I mentioned are things that I watched for the first time about 7 years ago at most. So in my case, nostalgia doesn't play into it. There aren't many things that I watched as a kid that I'd consider brilliant today. The (original) TV series of Das Boot comes to mind and Todesspiel, a docudrama about a crisis situation with the RAF aka Baader-Meinhof group, of the eponymous effect ;)
I think one has to cut old series some slack. I tend to find they come with slower pacing and can be very set-bound in some cases. That is partly because the old cameras used to be much bulkier. However, I think the acting is often better than today so there is some trade off.
The Baader-Meinhof series is good. I enjoyed the film they made about them some years ago. I was impressed by how nuanced it was, i.e. showing all the various angles.
Sherlock Holmes is great. Tinker Tailor was repeated through my childhood, so I saw it a few too many times. I watched it again recently and found it slow... However the cast of it and Smiley's People are great. Karla is a notable early appearance of Patrick Stewart.
There were some great period dramas at the time, if a little set bound (like I, Claudius)
> the pre-WW2 television broadcasts. Most of these were broadcast in the London area and practically nowhere else. Almost no one had recording equipment back then and they were often broadcast live.
The "Phonovision" recordings made by Baird (which were unplayable at the time) have been recovered:
Hope more are found sooner than another 13 years from now.