Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

MANUFACTURING continued APRIL VTR DELIVERY PROMISED BY AMPEX • Color attachment announced • Speed-up enables new orders Announcement that Ampex Corp. will complete delivery of all videotape recorders on order for tv stations by April, in time for DST operation, and now will take orders for additional deliveries starting that month was made Tuesday by George I. Long, Ampex president. Concurrently, Mr. Long also announced that orders are being taken for a new unit which will enable the Ampex monochrome recorder to handle color tv programs and that stations now may acquire the tv recording apparatus on a lease basis as well as by outright purchase. The trifold announcement was made in an all-day series of conference calls placed by Mr. Long from Ampex headquarters in Redwood City, Calif., to the owners and managers of more than 500 tv stations (all that are licensed) in the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. A telephone company official was quoted as calling the Ampex order the largest ever received for a conference call. Until Mr. Long's announcement that the $4.5 million backlog of orders for more than 100 units of the production model VTR would be filled by April, it had been anticipated that filling these orders would take at least a year from the time the first unit came off the production line last month for delivery to KING-TV Seattle [Manufacturing, Nov. 25]. Most of the orders from tv stations have been on the Ampex books since the April 1956 NARTB convention in Chicago, where the company's process of recording tv programs on tape was first demonstrated to station owners and executives [Manufacturing, April 23, 1956]. The only orders filled before last month were those placed by the tv networks for prototype units, priced at $75,000 apiece, appreciably higher than the $45,000 price of the production units ordered by individual stations. The new Ampex color recording attachment is completely compatible with the black-and-white recorder, Mr. Long said. Orders now are being accepted, he said, for prototypes of the color device at $29,000 each, with deliveries to begin in June. The announcement, following that of an agreement for exchange of patent licenses between Ampex and RCA [At Deadline, Oct. 14] indicates almost a certainty that on tape, as well as on the air, there will be full compatibility between color and monochrome and that the industry will be united behind a single system of television tape recording. Speaking of the new color recording equipment in a talk to the Seattle Advertising Club, meeting Tuesday in Studio A of KING-TV, Neal K. McNaughten, manager of the professional products division of Ampex, emphasized that there is no mechanical change to the black-and-white recorder. Color conversion is accomplished electronically by the addition of a single rack of equipment to any VR-1000, plus Page 98 • December 9, 1957 minor connection changes. "This means," he said, "there is no need for a station to wait for a machine built from the ground up as a color recorder. This station can have a VR-1000 production recorder now and benefit from all the economies of its use for black-and-white. Furthermore, the station can explore the many possibilities of videotape recording at the earliest possible moment, and simply expand its use to include color when this accessory is needed." Asked if Ampex expects to sell many of its color conversion prototypes to tv stations, Robert Paulson, sales manager, answered no. Chief significance of the color equipment on the station level, he said, will be in monochrome VTR sales to stations which have held off ordering black-and-white videotape recorders for fear that when color came along, it might prove necessary to scrap the monochrome unit and install completely new recording apparatus. These independent stations, he added, for the most part don't need color recorders yet and might as well wait for the development of production color units, which he estimated would be priced at about $20,000. appreciably less than the $29,000 cost of the prototypes now being offered. "Instead of worrying about color", Mr. Paulson said, "these stations should install two black-and-white VTR machines now and convert them for use with color when necessary. That's what we're trying to sell them on doing, as being both more efficient and more economical." Amplifying the third phase of Mr. Long's conference call, regarding the availability of Ampex videotape recording equipment on lease as well as by purchase. Mr. Paulson said that arrangements had been made with U.S. Leasing Corp. for leasing Ampex equipment to stations. Rentals, he said, would start at about $1,175 a month for a single production model black-and-white recorder (VR-1000). compared with the sale price of $45,000 for the unit. Rental of a single videotape recorder plus the color attachment would be about $1,875 a month, he said.x In his talk to the Seattle Advertising Club, Mr. McNaughten pointed out that already CBS-TV has eliminated all east-to-west live nighttime telecasting, utilizing videotape "to completely parallel its east and west schedules and adjust them to compensate for difference in east-west audience peaks ... It is our understanding that other networks will be bringing the same service as soon as sufficient Ampex equipment is available," he said. He added: "Besides using videotape for delaying programs, the networks are now putting some of their shows on tape in advance for playback at a later time." Similarly, Mr. McNaughten commented, "the independent station will be able to tape locally-produced shows, for later presentation at a cost well below that of film. It will also be possible to cover news and special events without the necessity of going to film. An important use for the videotape recorder for some stations will be the auditioning of local shows for clients. The overall cost will be well under that for film, and the client will be able to see the show on a video screen, thus seeing it as it would be telecast. This applies to the preparation of commercials, as well. "The flexibility of videotape in permitting instant playback can be quite useful and valuable to the independent station. For example, the station can pick up live commercials on location, perhaps a sponsor's store promotion or an on-the-spot look at used automobiles on the showroom floor, and play them back the same day. "During the peak loads of live programming, scheduling is often so difficult that potential business is turned away or done awkwardly. With tape, it is possible to schedule production of programs and commercials efficiently and smoothly — minutes, hours, or even days before broadcast. There will be benefits all the way around. Sponsors, agencies, performers, camera crews and station executives will learn what it is to have results immediately confirmed while the cast and crew are standing by. Production costs will be lowered, and both station and agency personnel can get off tranquilizers and back on to aspirins. "We are often asked about splicing and editing videotape. It is entirely practical to splice program segments together or to insert a commercial in a program. I would like to comment that splicing is a technique but not a difficult one which can be quickly learned and executed. We are certain that experience will develop applications of this splicing technique in many areas of television programming. "Another frequent question concerns dubbing, transferring information from a recorded tape to another tape. This is definitely practical where a limited number of copies are required. At the present time, duplication is done on a one-to-one basis. To make three duplicates of a one-hour show would require two machines and three hours, or four machines and one hour. A high-speed duplication system is certainly required and is a natural assignment for our research and development engineers," Mr. McNaughten said. DuMont Reorganizes Structure Of Research, Development Labs Organization of the Research and Development Div. of Allen B. DuMont Labs into eight specialized laboratories under centralized control and direction was announced Thursday by Robert T. Cavanagh, director of the division. Laboratories established are an advanced development group under Richard C. Palmer, a systems lab headed by Robert Wakeman, the communications and radar laboratory under William Sayer, the data and display laboratory under Robert Deichert, military television lab under John Auld, a nuclear instrumentation lab directly supervised by Mr. Cavanagh, a mechanical laboratory under Ludwig Zucker and a commercial receiver lab under Bernard Amos. DuMont research and development laboratories are located in East Paterson, N. J. Mr. Cavanagh also announced that Hambert Pacini, most recently in charge of television receiver engineering with DuMont, had been named associate director of the division for technical operations. Broadcasting