Business screen magazine (1971)

1 r "Yoii can chaiisio horses in llie middle of the stream and often come out just as well" ed L-xactly right logclhcr. Other ing effects made on the spot durproduction included spht screen, inking objects and inserts. While i can he done on film, it can also f quite expensive if too much of it required in one film, vioss estimates the client's savings the S&H and Shell films at approxitely 40 percent. Shell is using its IS on s8 cartridge projectors at 40 icr training centers throughout the intry. As an example of the versay of transfers. Shell is also using iklets in the training program with strations made from the color film de from the original tape. Quality? "V good, ut there is more to the tape-to-film transfer system than production .'t\^o-inch tape. Windsor Electronic, ^ew York videotape full ser\'ice isc, has made a specialty of tape-to1 transfers for a number of years, h equipment custom-built by its 1 engineers. Windsor is now providtransfers of half-inch and one-inch cal scan tapes that would have been lossible several years ago. )nc of the major problems of transi from helical scan tapes is the lack horizontal time base stability of iy small format recorders. Windsor licked a great many of these probs by the use of regulating controls ch can "straighten out" the picture the monitor before it is photophed, and which carefully match. :tronically. the camera's speed to of the videotape recorder. ~|)ne Windsor transfer, made two ago. is probably the first prooriginated on half-inch tape to made into a television program. It «sistcd of an interview with tennis : ^ .Arthur Ashe at Forest Hills, which V |. later transferred to 16mm film and ^ed on a number of TV stations in \ Northwest. IMndsor is currently doing both / and color tape-to-film transfers such clients as Insurance Company North America, University of Alaia. New York Telephone Co.. CarC'orp.. New England Telephone, several dozen others. I Ivn interesting side-light is that a f ijiber of companies are producing 1 single camera video set-ups, gettransfers at Windsor to 16mm film then going through the editing less at this point. Windsor provides |the-premises film processing, print ing, and film, as well as t.ipe, editing facilities and services. With the various systems of clearing up stability and contrast problems that the company has developed, Windsor's Bob Henderson and Bert Goodman believe they have the facilities of enhancing videotape so that a fair-quality tape can actually be made into a good quality film. While recognizing that the video cassette player may someday change th; necessity for tape-to-film transfers, Henderson and Goodman see it as a number of years off. Many problems, such as international differences in scan lines and power supplies will ha\e to be solved before tape playback becomes as easy as film is today. Another tape to film service house. Electronic regulation corrects horizontal distortion before transfers are made. Bert Goodman, of Windsor Electronic, supervises transfer of Sony format halfinch tape to 16mm film. with offices in New York and C hicago, IS the Color Center, which provides tape to film transfers for such clients as General Electric, J. C. Penney, NBC. Associated Press. John Deere, DuBois Chemical, Southwest Bell, Travelers Insurance, Ford and Chrysler. Jack Cook, president of Color Center's Videotran division, favors scrapping the term "kinescope" completely. "There is just no comparison between the work modern transfer houses are performing and the old kine' which was little more than shooting off a picture tube with no regulation at all," he says. Videotran uses the Electronic Beam Recorder developed by 3M, and expects delivery of one of 3M's first color EBR's within the next few weeks. This SI 38,000 apparatus exposes the film directly to the video gun, with no tubt; in between. While there is no doubt that the HBR produces a sharper image than shooting off the tube, it is a demanding process. If what you put into it is sharp and stable, the output is grjat. but imperfections show up very strongly, too. Ciood videotape to film transfers on the EBR are good enough to show on the theatrical screen, and one scries of programs on auto racing is now showing at a midwest theatre chain. Hoffman La Roche, the large pharmaceutical concern, is currently using tape-to-film transfers made on Color Center Videotran's EBR on super 8 projectors in the hands of 600 detail men. Most of the tape-to-film transfer houses — other prominent labs doing this work are Byron, in Washington; Consolidated Film Industries, in Hollywood: DuArt-Rombex. in New York; Image Transform, in North Holhwood; Motion Picture Labs, in Memphis: Reeves Production Services, in New York: and Technicolor, in Hollywood— -will provide double or single system sound prints, and reversal or positive prints in either b/w or color. In the present state of the industry, with continuing indecision about production and dissemination methods acting as a hindrance to audio-visual use. transfers are providing a valuable service. You can change horses in the middle of the stream, anil often come out just as well. D ly/June, 1972 27