[QuadList] was Helicals, Quads, now Marconi cameras

[David C. Crosthwait]

Guy,

KQED was a user of that MkVII, having received them in 1968. They  
replaced other Marconi 4 1/2" IO black and whites. At that time, KQED  
was heavily into the San Francisco music scene, with many artists  
using their facilities. Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead,  
It's a Beautiful Day etc. I transferred all of the above named shows  
years ago from 2" HBC. The cameras always had a different look than  
the others of the day (the 44 was not out till late '68.) They  
certainly looked better than the 42, and in some ways looked better  
than the PE 350, depending on who's facility had them (the GE's). It  
did look like they were pouring a lot of light on the KQED material.  
Must have made for some hot times in the studio.

If you kept the optical path clean and used the CBS image enhancers in  
the luminance channel correctly, the GE 350's could look spectacular,  
as they did at WFAA.


David



Quoting Guy Spiller <quadruplex at verizon.net>:

> Hi Park,
> Ironically, I didn't get to work with very many RCA cameras...except
> for the venerable TK-76, which was not in the same league picture-wise
> with the big studio cameras back then.  Most of my direct camera
> experience (color, anyway!) was with the Marconis and GE-250/350s.
> Of course, with the four plumbicons, the MkVII took a lot of light and
> the standard Taylor Hobson 40-400 lens was an f/4!  Subjectively, they
> were usually noticeably sharper than the three tube ones, as slight RGB
> registration errors didn't affect the Y signal at all.
> I liked the Marconi colorimetry much more than the Philips/Norelcos,
> but I also was impressed with the look of the RCA studio cameras of
> that era as well.  Overall, I thought the NBC produced video generally
> was more appealing to me.  No matrix or masking adjustments either in a
> Marconi, or a GE for that matter,  so what you got...is what you got.
> I saved one quad tape out of the dumpster from the PBS station where I
> worked up into the early '70s that I did video on with their MkVIIs in
> 1972 or so.  Except for the various tube blemishes here and there, as
> the station was a big "frugal" on replacing plumbicons, it still looks
> pretty decent.. even today.  It was the very first program produced at
> our station that was accepted for nationwide distribution by PBS/NET.
> I'll make you a DVD sometime if you'd like to see it.
> Guy
>
>