[QuadList] Fred Astaire Color Videotape-Background-Part 1 of Several

[Ted Langdell]

Hi, Scott,

There are some DVDs offered that were struck from Kinescopes.

There are a number of clips from Videotape on YouTube... likely from  
restored versions that were shown on the Disney Channel in 1988.

I'm not aware of anything from videotape legally available on DVD.

The restoration of "An Evening with Fred Astaire" from Quad to D-2 was  
undertaken in 1988, and resulted in an Emmy award for the participants.

The stills-from-video shown here are from a KTLA TV news video report  
about the restoration project.

KTLA engineer Don Kent handled the actual transfers and recalls:
"The Astaire masters were found by a former employee of the UCLA  
Archive who was then working for Universal. He found them in their  
tape library.  They didn't even know they had them.  They were there  
because Astaire had a distribution deal with them, but primarily (I  
think) because of his movies.

When Astaire died, Universal sold the "restored" shows to Disney.   
They hadn't even been done yet!

The restored D-2 is owned by Universal and is there now.  The original  
quads are in the UCLA Film and Television Archive in Hollywood."


The "heavy lifting" was undertaken by Don Kent who transferred the  
tapes on this KTLA AVR-1 and by QuadList member Ed Reitan, standing  
over the AVR-1's left-hand circuit-card drawer.


Reitan researched the RCA Labs hetrodyne color system used at NBC  
Burbank, designed and made circuit modifications to 10 AVR-1 boards  
that enabled recovery of the program.


Kent recalls:
"The AVR-1’s DOC was used.  The takeoff was at the input to the AVR-1  
TBC.  Ampex labeled it “Demod”, as the signal hadn’t been timebase  
corrected at that point.  That was what we used to feed the N.E.C. and  
then it’s output went directly to the D-2 machine."

The "N.E.C." was an NEC NTC 10 Timebase corrector supplied by QuadList  
member Ken Zin and Merlin Engineering Works in Palo Alto.  That TBC  
could handle the Quad's head switching.

The stills-from-video shown here are from a KTLA TV news video report  
about the restoration project.

Look for more parts as I have time to pull quotes from e-mails Don  
Kent and I exchanged.  Like a lot of projects, this one began with  
something personal to Kent.

This series of posts will eventually become a section of the  
QuadVideoTape.com website.

I'd finish the job in one pass, but I'm off to clear out what's left  
in my 10 x 20 storage H47 and put it into my 10 x 40 storage H-73  
before the end of the day so I don't owe another month's rent!

Some items may become available.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Ted

Ted Langdell
Secretary
Skype: 	TedLangdell
e-mail:	ted at quadvideotapegroup.com

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