The Beatles on DVD: FAQ

Twin sites.
Q: What are "The Beatles on DVD" and "The Rolling Stones on DVD"?
A: They are chronologically-arranged visual guides of every known TV, movie and (home) video appearance by one or more of the Beatles/the Stones, from 1957 (for the Stones) and 1961 (for the Beatles) to the present day.

Downloads.
Q: Are the videos available for download?
A: No. Let me repeat that. THERE ARE NO VIDEO FILES AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD ON THE SITE and nothing is for sale! The captures are for reference purpose only.

Sections and subsections.
Q: How are the items listed?
A: By year. Each year is then divided into as many days as necessary for each item to be given an individual page. Many years, and some days, have been divided in two or more subsections due to the wealth of material. Undated material is organised by year and by month.

Layout.
Q: What do the colours mean?
A: BLUE is for a location, RED is for the name of a program.

Q: Why are programs listed by airdate rather than taping date?
A: In many instances, the taping date is not known, and I felt viewers might remember the airdate better. Consequently, RED items are arranged chronologically by date of transmission, whereas BLUE items are listed on the day they occured.

Q: How do you choose whether to list items in blue or red on the year-by-year pages?
A: Generally speaking, a performance or interview recorded for a particular program is listed in RED, whereas an event that wasn’t primarily organised for broadcast purposes (such as a concert, or a film premiere) is listed in BLUE. Exceptions to this rule include most television interviews conducted on the way to, or from, such events. For instance, Paul McCartney’s interview backstage after an awards ceremony would be listed in BLUE, whereas if he sat down specifically with the reporter, it would be in RED.

Q: Why do items taped on different dates sometimes appear on the same page?
A: When a report features archival footage (i.e. taped at an earlier date), each archival capture is linked to the relevant page. Click here for such an instance.

Q: What do the letters and numbers given before the name of the available source stand for?
A: They're just my own archival system. The letter D is for (bootleg) DVD, F is for video file, V is for VHS, while X is for a DVD I've seen but don’t have in my collection. Other letters indicate legitimate releases.

Year-by-year pages.
Q: I don’t see all the interviews taped on a particular day.
A: Multiple telecasts of the same interview are listed only once on the year-by-year page, on the earliest date of transmission. This is also the case for successive interviews taped by different reporters before the same background. Interviews taped in front of different backgrounds are listed individually (because they may not look as if they were recorded on a single day). Each of these is listed separately in the relevant day-by-day page.

Q: Why are some titles in brackets?
A: When the name of the program is not known, or not applicable (in the case of untitled amateur footage, for instance), I've put it between brackets on the year-by-year page. An unknown title is omitted entirely on the day-by-day page.

Month-by-month pages.
Q: Why are there month-by-month pages?
A: When accurate dating information is missing, items thought to have been taped in a given month are lumped together (when even the month is in doubt, a page is created for that particular year). All undated material can be accessed here.

Day-by-day pages.
Q: How are items listed on a day-by-day page?
A: Either alphabetically (If they were all taped at the same venue) or chronologically (by airdate). If the items have been taped at different venues, they are listed chronologically (i.e., those taped in the morning are listed before items taped in the evening).

Q: Why do two different programs sometimes share the same letter?
A: Each item is given a capital letter (A, B, C, etc.) which may be followed by a lower case letter, when the material originates from the same source. For instance, an interview originally given to Today would be labelled A.a. while its subsequent airing on Time & Again would be listed as A.b. Another interview recorded that day would have a different capital letter.

Q: Why do you list the native-language name of a city?
A: Because I feel it flows more naturally with the name of the venue. Thus, Copenhagen is listed as "København". For practical purposes, though, the name of the country is in English. I've systematically researched the correct name of a place, usually relying on information posted on Wikipedia (which, in this area at least, appears to be quite reliable). Hence, "Schipol Airport, Amsterdam" is really "Amsterdam Luchthaven Schiphol, Haarlemmermeer".

Undated.
Q: I see red items in the undated section, yet you list the exact recording date on the relevant page.
A: That’s because what I'm missing is the airdate (thus it can’t be listed on the year-by-year page).

Size of the captures.
Q: Why are some captures bigger than others?
A: Starting in mid-2008, I felt that the sites could use bigger captures. Smaller ones had been posted before then, and they're in the process of being replaced.

Availability.
Q: Why are some items listed as "Currently unavailable"?
A: This means I don’t have them in my collection (although you may do) but I know or have heard that they exist. I'm in the process of creating day-by-day pages for these, too, with comments indicating what they contain. Click here for such an instance.

Q: Why do you list some items as "Unbootlegged" although they have appeared on a DVD?
A: I may not be aware of that particular DVD. My source may also be longer or better quality that what’s been bootlegged, in which case the bootlegged source is usually listed on the same page with a different lower case letter (see here for an explanation on these). One other possibility is that I haven’t updated that page yet!

Updates.
Q: How do I know whether you've recently updated a page?
A: All pages modified since October 2008 have a "Last revised on… " mention at the bottom.

Reliablity/sources.
Q: Why do you write that such-and-such was recorded/transmitted on this date although book X says otherwise?
A: There’s been relatively very little research done in the realm of Beatles and Rolling Stones videos (especially post-1970) and information is often contradictory. I've tried to use reliable sources (John Winn’s "Way Beyond Compare" and "That Magic Feeling", Chip Madinger and Mark Easter’s "Eight Arms to Hold You", the "Complete Works of the Rolling Stones" website) and use other means when I felt mistakes were made.
One method of solving inconsistencies was to look for visual clues (items of clothing, hairstyles, and such), use common sense (a feature with zillions of edits and archival material wasn’t likely to have been broadcast live) or logic (John Lennon couldn’t have taped that interview in 1983 because he was dead - although this doesn’t work with Elvis).