Television digest with electronic reports (Jan-Dec 1953)

2 How color tape compares with color kines. we don't know. Only color kines we've ever seen were made by Navy, using CBS field-sequential system, and projected on screen (not telecast) during 1949-50 color hearings (Vol. 6:12). Results were good under those conditions, considering capabilities of field-sequential system. Sound on tape was so good, comparable with audio of live telecast, that it acutally increased observers' impression of picture fidelity. Considering tremendous strides to date, it's not unreasonable to expect tape eventually to produce pictures completely indistinguishable from live pickups. One important step remains to be taken. Though black-&-white tape is now ready to be fed through station and telecast, color tape isn't. However, both RCA chairman David Sarnoff and Dr. Engstrom emphasized that there's no obstacle in sight and that telecasting color tape is "just a job of doing it." * * * # Next comes question of impact on film industry in this "era of electronic photography," to use Gen. Sarnoff 's phrase. For TV film producers, tape will be quite significant. When stations are equipped for tape, there will be no reason at all to put TV programs on film. Furthermore, TV film makers must immediately question advisability of producing color film now — if stations are to be equipped with tape reproducers rather than color film scanners. TV film men have a great deal to ponder, in next few years, about obsolescence of equipment, learning production techniques with "electronic photography," etc. For producers of feature film for theatre exhibition, impact is considerably less. Cost of film stock and its processing is small fraction of cost of making a picture, about 8-10%. Big factors are salaries, scenery, travel, etc. However, if a director records scenes on film and tape simultaneously, he can check tape immediately, needn't wait for film "rushes" next day or so. Savings in salaries, minimization of weather vagaries, etc. could be substantial. If pay-as-you-look TV ever develops into something big, tape could mean a lot to movie producers. It might then be desirable to put show on tape for boxoffice TV, on film for theatre exhibition. Effects on exhibitors are in more distant future. Dr. Engstrom said. He visualized day when tape would have quality high enough to project theatre pictures comparable with 35mm film. It's manifest, however, that it will be a long time before tape offers exhibitors such great economic advantages that it will justify the investment in tape reproducers and theatre-TV projectors. Also in the future is possibility of equipping home TV sets to record programs. Another home use visualized by Gen. Sarnoff is the taking of home movies with a recorder and small TV camera such as vidicon unit. * * * * How does RCA tape work? Dr. Engstrom gave a few details. Tape is ^-in. wide for color, %-in. wide for black-&-white , runs at 50 ft. per second (vs. 1 % ft. for sound tape). Made by Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co., it uses same magnetic material as sound tape. Reels are 17-in., contain 5 minutes of program. H.P. Buetow, pres, of MMM, told us tape is not difficult to make, said "it's pretty much a standard tape." He says tape engineers haven't been too successful in making many copies but "we're working with people who believe they know how." Current goals, Dr. Engstrom said, are to reduce speed to 20 ft. per second and less, and to put 15 minutes of program on a 19-in. reel. Black-&-white is recorded in 2 tracks, one for picture, other for sound. Color has 5 tracks — one for each color, one for sync, one for sound. Color signals were fed directly to respective color guns in picture tube, sync circuits and loudspeaker. Bandwidth is 3 me. Still remaining is task of extending the response beyond 3.6-mc color subcarrier and combining signals into NTSC specifications. Dr. Engstrom revealed little about heart of techniques, except to mention use of new type of recording heads and extreme constancy of speed — latter achieved with servomechanisms and other complicated equipment. Whole equipment is in 3 racks about 7-ft. high — one with the reels, one for recording, one for reproducing.