[QuadList] Cronkite's first half-hour newscast... count the tape roll ins

[dcfwtx at aol.com]

I think we have to keep in mind that not all departments had the budget to fully outfit all gear. News, in my experience, did not get as much money (for tape machines) as did production or zone delay (in some cases), which were basically the same set of VTRs?at NBC Burbank. News always got the really used pieces of 2" tape for pre-taped packages. I cannot vouch for all of the three networks, and generally speaking, NBC New York got everything they needed (they were headquarters). But news was sort of a "fly by the seat of your pants" operation. It was during news (3:30 P.M. in the Pacific Zone) that we would see all sorts of junk incoming from 30 Rock. Some of the most mangled sync and video coupled with glitches and non-vertical interval switches were normal incoming from network news, well into the 80's, when I was at NBC Burbank. It was so bad at times that the FS 10 (and subsequent FS?15 and 16 ???) would skip and freeze up, necessitating that it be dropped midway through a report, to save the show. Of course, the 2" machines would then have to re-lock, and would then be subjected to all of the crud incoming for the rest of the program. It got so bad that for a while we recorded 4 machines (at least at times), two off of the FS 10, two with no frame sync, so as to possibly edit together a better show for 5:30 P.M. West Coast zone delay playback.?



Transmission in ?Burbank was always busy dealing with incoming remotes. Unless it was something like the Emmys or a fully planned sports remote, there was no time for a wire lock or Rubidium lock, as far as I could tell. There was just too much going on during news to get a sync lock or even to set levels, if you were lucky. So, I would pretty much think that CBS may have had the same set of drama going on there in NYC in the early 60's. News was assigned certain VTRs and that was that. The basic stuff. No intersync? No DOC? That's just the way it was.?




Dennis might be able to confirm this, but when the TK 44's finally came to 30 Rock or Brooklyn, News appeared to get them last. They seemed to be on the TK 41's later than other production studios. CBS appeared to be more aggressive in updating cameras during the late sixties, and Conkite's ratings certainly supported the latest equipment as time went on. On the other hand, it appeared to me that CBS TV City held on to their VR 1000's in low band color well into the seventies as the "B" copy on zone delay. So, not all networks had equal thoughts as to what got upgraded when.?




David



-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Degan <DennyD1 at verizon.net>
To: Quad List <quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com>
Sent: Sun, Jul 19, 2009 9:59 am
Subject: Re: [QuadList] Cronkite's first half-hour newscast... count the tape roll ins








?      On Jul 18, 2009, at 4:27 PM, Ted Langdell wrote:?
?

 > True enough about monitors and sets.?

 > This is from September 1962... so the question would be... did CBS, 
NYC have Intersync on playback machines at that time? ?The Geritol spot 
also rolls when taken.?

 > Intersync was introduced at the SMPTE conference in April, 1960.?
?

?      I reply:?
?

?  I think it's safe to say that CBS had Intersync.  There are a couple 
of possible answers to the question concerning the breakups.  My first 
thought was that the tape was rolled and taken too soon; before the 
tape had finished locking up.  But at the end of the Kennedy interview 
clip, there's another breakup when switching back to Cronkite's live 
studio camera so it appears that the VTR playing the Kennedy interview 
was not vertically locked.  Cronkite said that the interview took place 
earlier that day.  Cronkite himself was seen in the interview clip.  
It's certainly possible for Cronkite to do the interview in the morning 
and fly back to New York to do the newscast that evening.  They 
probably did not have a telco link back to New York from the remote 
site.  The tape was most likely hand-carried to a local affiliate (in 
Boston, I'll bet) to feed it back to New York with no time to edit it 
(notice that the clip has no apparent edits in it; it's a straight lift 
from the interview).  Since the playback was coming from out-of-house, 
from a facility likely to not have a sync reference such as a cesium or 
rubidium frequency standard (nor a method to adjust it to match New 
York's timing), the breakup on-air was inevitable.  Who knows why they 
may have done this, but having worked with time-critical events such as 
this, I can tell you that sync lock was the least of their concerns.   
;)?

?  Another breakup occurs when Cronkite leads to the Dan Rather story 
from Plaquemine, Louisiana.  Probably, the same thing happened in that 
case as well:  The story was a feed from a local station in Louisiana 
running without the benefit of its sync matching into New York's.  Even 
if it originated from a film chain, breakup would be expected.?

?  As for the Geritol commercial, I have no way of being certain, but 
this could have been a live commercial coming from a different studio 
also not locked to CBS New York.  Or I could simply be completely wrong 
about any or all of this . . . .   ;)?
?

?          Dennis Degan, Video Editor-Consultant-Knowledge Bank?

?                      NBC Today Show, New York?
?


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