Morten Frost in 1985

Eddy Choong on Malaysian Badminton in 1985

Eddy Choong on the BAM in 1984

1970 Thomas Cup Teams of Malaysia and Indonesia

1973 China Badminton Team's Tour of Malaysia

Here are some pictures downloaded from an American Badminton Forum.These are pictures of the China and Malaysian badminton team.The pictures show a 30+ year old Tang Xian Hu playing Punch Gunalan and Tan Aik Mong.China won all matches except one ladies singles.It was remarkable considering that the China players like Tang Xian Hu and Hou Jia Chang were veterans in their 30s and had no competition for 7 years from 1966 till 1972 under Mao's Cultural Revolution.Clips of a few minutes are available for sale in ITNsource.com.

Erland Kops and Danish badminton

Malaysian Badminton in early 1980s

Rudy Hartono in 1980s

1980 Australian Badminton International

1976 Thomas Cup Asian Zone-Malaysia

1984 Thomas Cup Badminton Prelim Rounds

1980 Badminton-England vs Malaysia

1982 Japan Open Badminton Results

1970s Badminton Films

   The above is an exception to the rule that full length badminton matches prior to the commercialisation of videotape before 1979 were rarely filmed. Wonder if there are any left in private collections, whatever has been previously listed in the British Film Institute has also been removed from the library.
   Hopefully in future someone may be able to find these films and digitise them ,just as what the late Punch Gunalan did for the 1974 Final.
    More full length features will help to dispel the common notion that players of that era do not know how to play badminton or even hold a racquet,in fact players of that time were already highly skilled and differed mainly in terms of physical training ,sports science and equipment from the players today. Badminton turned professional in the Open Era around 1982 and even before that there were also very competitive and tons of  badminton clubs and leagues in Britain,Sweden or Denmark ,played by amateurs unlike the pros of today.Malaysia for example with players like Misbun were no match for even England in the era of the 1982 and 1984 Thomas and Uber Cups.The high speed and power of badminton today is the standard set by China and Korea's sports system,evolving from legends like Tang Xian Hu and Hou Jia Chang.
   Speaking of course from the point of view of one who played in the English leagues in the 70s.

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HD Badminton Videos scarcity on youtube

In case there are inquiries why there are so few HD badminton videos on youtube, I will try to answer that question as best as I can based on my groundwork in the internet forums :

1) Many badminton video clips that were uploaded from matches after 1996 were probably recorded from broadcasts by Astro in MPEG2 format.ie. standard DVD.They may have been compressed to wmv ,flv or mpg2 for uploading.
2) Astro introduced in 2010 digital broadcasts which featured HD programs in 720 progressive and 1080 interlace.These HD programs are protected by a technology called HDCP whereby recordings of HD content that are transmitted via a HDMI connection cannot be recorded by hardware that are not HDCP friendly, ie. DVD recorders or capture devices. They can be recorded on Astro Beyond 's PVR or a particular Western Digital Harddisk and even so,the recorded programs cannot be extracted to computers to be converted or uploaded.All these are in effect an attempt to prevent piracy of HD content. DVD recorders are no longer allowed to have HDMI connections by HDCP regulation,which probably explains their discontinued production.
3) Recordings though can be made from the RCA output and they will at best be MPEG2 format,not HD. The BWF appears trying to protect its copyright interests in while allowing some videoclips to be uploaded, they make it unavailable in some countries where they have been broadcast  or claim the right to impose advertisements into the clip and probably the right to earn revenue from it.The IOC has even been more stringent totally banning all uploading of recorded videos to youtube except if they are in the form of slideshows only.
4) The BWF is already broadcasting on youtube in many countries but this service is not available live in countries where it is also broadcast on TV such as Astro.The BWF broadcasts are not in HD and cannot be downloaded and are probably too big to download and require high speed connections to view comfortably.
Some HD uploads seen are not TV programs but private HD video recordings done courtside.
  All these are actually done to protect the genuine business interests of the sports body and the broadcasting company and to reduce piracy.If fans want to watch live telecasts in high definition,they must be prepared to pay for it.If not,they will need to be satisfied with low resolution clips on youtube delayed,assuming the copyright holders permit it.