Time Scanners

The stories behind the iconic structures and engineering feats that have shaped and defined our nation and our world.

Presented by Egyptologist Dr Joann Fletcher who goes on a fascinating journey in search of people like us, not the great Pharaohs, but the ordinary people who built and populated this incredible place, creating a remarkable way of life. Dr Joann explores their homes, workplaces and temples. The programme originally aired on BBC2 and we meet Kha and Meryt, an architect and his wife who lived just outside the Valley of the Kings. They left behind a treasure trove of information; their extraordinary tomb, full of objects from their lives and deaths - from make-up to death-masks, loaves of bread to life-like figurines, even the tools Kha used at work in the royal tombs. Joann Fletcher uses this to travel into the remarkable world of these Ancient Egyptians,.

Relive the biggest events of Australian Motorsport history in 'Shannons Legends of Motorsport', hosted by Neil Crompton. In an entertaining 12 part series, Neil Crompton, Australia's premier motoring commentator, brings to life the history of Australian Motorsport with rarely seen historical footage from Seven's extensive archives dating from the '60's to the '90'. In the he second 12 part series, hosted by Bill Woods and Aaron Noonan, they interview many of our Australian motorsport legends and reveal even more historical footage taken from the Network Seven archives. The third 15 part series includes a number of short clips outlining some of the most iconic people, cars and race events in our Australian automotive history.

This series presents a number of unique vehicles that helped to shape Australia's automotive history. We briefly look at some of the most iconic cars to hit the Australian highways ( goat tracks ) and why we loved or hated them and how they faired on our roads and race tracks. Some of these cars are unique to Australia, while other cars will be instantly recognised in other parts of the world. Some international models were renamed and rebadged for the Australian market, but you may still recognise them just the same. We've asked automotive journalists Mark Oastler, John Wright & Joe Kenwright to present their exclusive articles for the Shannons Club in a television format.

Impossible Railways

Coinciding with the release of the remastered original episodes of The Secret Life Of Machines, Tim Hunkin began a self-produced spiritual successor called The Secret Life of Components. It explores some of the individual parts that so often make up the appliances and machines that were the focus of the original series. The weekly episodes included what Hunkin has learned through his experience with the component, along with many models for demonstration and examples from his amusement machines and other works.

Extreme Engineering covers major construction projects from all around the world. Some are futuristic projects that may never be done, others are projects that are on there way to completion.

Top Trumps was a 10-part British television series based on the famous card game. It aired on Channel 5 in 2008, the channel being called Five at the time of broadcast. It was produced by Lion Television and presented by Robert Llewellyn and Ashley Hames. The show was a competition between the two presenters. Each chose one type of the machines chosen and finds out facts about it. At the end of the show, each presenter must choose 2 Trump factors to use in which they think their chosen machine will be best in. A fifth one gets randomly chosen. The winner is the one who wins on most Trumps factors.

Carrying nearly five million passengers per day, the London Tube is one of the world's oldest and busiest metro systems in the world. Today the Tube is undergoing a complete overhaul that is long overdue. Take a behind the scenes look into the daily lives of drivers, emergency personnel, operations managers, and many others among the near twenty thousand employees of this massive rail system, as they navigate the evolution of the London Tube.

Discover how and why the world’s most iconic bridges were built.

Britain's iconic and 'secretive' engineering companies reveal how they build the world's most amazing machines. The first part of the series "How to build a nuclear submarine" a documentary following the construction of the Astute nuclear submarine. The second part of the series "How to build a jumbo jet engine", the story of the thousands of people who design, build and test engines at Rolls-Royce’s manufacturing plants in Derby and across the UK, making Rolls-Royce a central part of life for the people of places like Derby. The third and final part of the series "How to build Britain's secret engineers" when the documentary team follows workers at a leading British company on a global journey, as they reveal a handful of their secretive projects including getting Chinook helicopters ready for front line service.

Ancient Impossible, the new H2 series, picks up where HISTORY’s long running Ancient Discoveries left off. In this next generation of storytelling, Ancient Impossible reveals how many of today’s technological achievements were actually developed centuries ago. Colossal monuments, impossible feats of engineering and technologies so precise they defy reinvention–the ancient world was far more advanced than we ever imagined. We’ll travel through history to reveal a radically different picture of the past, with innovations so far ahead of their time, they’re still in use today. New science uncovers a lost world more like our own than we ever suspected, and reveals how modern technology has its blueprint in the ancient world.

Filmed over 5 years, this series will trace the enormous engineering challenges faced by what is the greatest public transport project in Australia's history: a brand new, state-of-the-art metro system through, beneath and above the streets of this iconic city of five million people.

Everyone knows the pit stops from Formula 1 races: choreographed and rehearsed to perfection - each team member is a cog in an unbelievably complex machine. But let’s put things into perspective: pit stops during races are one thing, but they can’t hold a wrench up to the mega pit stops this show´s got for you. Mega Pit Stops documents how stressful the fight against the clock is when a cruise ship descends to the pit stop or one of the fastest trains in the world has to be completely overhauled in just ten days.

It is 2014 and the machines have not taken over…yet. The newest, most technologically advanced series from H2™, Rise of the Machines, reveals how the inventions behind the world’s most extreme machines have enabled them to evolve beyond humanity’s wildest imagination. This visually stunning series uses mind-blowing CGI animations to reveal the extraordinary engineering at the heart of the world’s most extreme machines. From the world’s biggest mega truck to the world’s fastest train to a revolutionary heavy lift ship, ground breaking CGI animation explodes the machines apart to reveal the ingenious inventions hidden under their skin that enables the teams who drive, fly and sail them to be at the top of their game. This series takes us inside these machines in close up detail and explores what helps these elite ships, trucks, trains and aircrafts rise above all others.

The Secret Life of Machines is an educational television series presented by Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod, in which the two explain the inner workings and history of common household and office machinery. According to Hunkin, the show's creator, the programme was developed from his comic strip The Rudiments of Wisdom, which he researched and drew for the Observer newspaper over a period of 14 years. Three separate groupings of the broadcast were produced and originally shown between 1988 and 1993 on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, with the production subsequently airing on The Learning Channel and the Discovery Channel.

Signing up for the 2006 season of the most extreme and exciting motorsport, six-part series Engineering the World Rally joins the Subaru World Rally Team as they and 2003 champion, Petter 'Hollywood' Solberg, fight for the championship through six countries and 11 months of intense competition. This ultimate off-road challenge pits massively powerful four-wheel drive rally cars - in the hands of some of the world's greatest drivers - against the toughest and most varied terrain on the planet. These guys hurtle down narrow twisty roads, along bumpy, dusty tracks, through deep water and across solid ice at speeds exceeding 130mph. They're supported by teams of dedicated engineers and mechanics, together with their straight-talking bosses and success-hungry sponsors. It's a world of fragile egos, high emotions and constant human drama. With unprecedented access, Engineering the World Rally gets under the skin of the Subaru WRC team and follows their every move as they engineer and prepare the cars for each event, test and shakedown, and enjoy the highs and suffer the lows of each three-day rally. It is an emotional rollercoaster of action both behind-the-scenes and on the rally stage.

Jeremy Clarkson's Extreme Machines was a six-part documentary series, originally broadcast on BBC Two in 1998. The series focused on presenter Jeremy Clarkson, testing out a series of cars, jet planes and powerboats.

Mega Makeover

International trade has been ferried around the world via boat for centuries. If the business of shipping stopped tomorrow, half the world would starve, and the other half would freeze. A testament of humanity's will to tame the elements and expand our reach; shipping has pioneered new technologies, revolutionized the global economy and reshaped the world as we know it.