[QuadList] Videotape Signal System an RF Engineer Al Sturm-July 23, 1934 - April 22 2013

[Ted Langdell]

Long-time videotape signal and RF system engineer Al Sturm passed away April 22 at his home in San Jose, California, surrounded by his family. 


Al was 78, and had been working on a new TBC project until shortly before his passing.

Here is Al two years ago yesterday (May 7, 2011) 
at a business lunch with Ken Zin and Ted Langdell
(Photo: Ted Langdell)

Al's first involvement with Quad VTRs was in 1958 at year-old KONO-TV, San Antonio, Texas, home of Ampex VR-1000 Quads with serial numbers 101 and 103.  Quad videotape was to figure prominently in his career.

Work as a field engineer for Ampex followed installing Quad VTRs, training operators and engineers and maintaining customer Quads.

By the mid-1960s Al was working with Visual/Allen as outlined in the March 22, 2011 QuadList post we've included below this item.

The demise of Visual/Allen led to the co-founding of Merlin Engineering Works with John Streets, and more work with Quad VTRs and other projects unrelated to video. 

Al was Merlin's Director of Engineering, and developed High Band signal systems for Ampex Quad and Bosch BCN VTRs. 

Merlin was renowned for creating solutions to problems through adaptations and new designs and refurbishing VTRs. 

Among those solutions was a 10-unit Quad dubbing system for Vidtronics, a Los Angeles post production and dub facility. Merlin used the Japanese Shibaden SV-7000 Quad machine as the transport, but designed new electronics. Merlin promoted the results in brochures like the one at right (which Don Norwood posted on June 6, 2009) listing the price per slave at $22,000.

Merlin wizard Ken Zin recalls that Al "designed the signal system with VHO, multiple television standards, hi-band and low band color and low band Black and White."  Delivered in 1977, the quality exceeded Vidtronics' "wildest expectations." Director of Engineering Jack Calaway wrote Merlin that, " The proof of this is shown clearly in the quality of our dubs. The video and audio quality and servo stability exceed our specifications in every respect."

In March, 1984, Al and his wife Constance formed Wideband Video Labs, Inc., which provided a platform for the design and manufacture of a variety of electronics for video and medical uses. His family recalls that Al designed and built custom one-off equipment for clients like NASA, Intel, Leapfrog, and Sony Medical Systems.

Al's clients also included Technicolor's massive Camarillo, California VHS tape dubbing facility seen in this photographer's gallery (scroll to bottom of gallery for photo). Al designed equipment for high-speed transfers, working with QuadList member (and friend) Pat Shevlin who was Technicolor's Director of Worldwide Engineering.


In 1992, he worked with Kevin Stec and David Rubenstein to develop a Laserdisc-based method of transferring content in digital form to VHS tape at twice normal speed.  

The concept and execution was patented in November, 1993 and the patent assigned to Laserdub, Inc. of Irvine, California.  

The work involved FM modulation and demodulation, A/D conversion, digital time base correction, noise reduction, splicing digital sync and blanking into the digital picture, and then outputting a 2X hetrodyne "color under" video signal to VHS decks for dubbing at twice user playback speed.

For another client, Ken Zin recalls that Al worked on a three-times play speed system for dubbing PAL VHS copies that used Bosch BCN series 1" segmented scan machines. These modified decks used SVHS heads. The smaller head's narrower gap was needed to handle the higher FM modulation frequencies created in the triple-speed design.


More recently, Al's signal systems have helped reclaim the Lunar Orbiter Survey Photos  seen on this Sony BVM monitor from Ampex FR-900 series 2" Quadruplex  Instrumentation tapes, seen passing through the Quad head on the right...

...a process continuing in a former McDonald's restaurant at NASA Ames Research Park in Mountain View. 

The systems enable stable recovery of the high quality image framelets that were transmitted from each Lunar Orbiter as it mapped the moon for suitable Apollo mission landing sites.  

These images are being compared to fresh pictures of the moon to see how things have changed.

In 2008 and 2009, Al applied other signal system solutions to an Ampex VR-7800 1" Type A recorder for Los Angeles based Film Technology Co., Inc.  As chronicled in the first issue of the AMIA Tech Review,  (secondary link to article not working at post-time) Al and his client, FilmTech founder Ralph Sargent showed how that enabled recovery of variable quality off-air recordings of “Johnny Cash Presents the Everly Brothers Show,” the only videotapes of the shows currently known to survive.   


Their presentation described the pitfalls—and ultimate success of the project—during the August, 2009 "The Reel Thing XXII" an annual event presented by the Association of Moving Image Archivists in Hollywood.  

Al at lunch during 
Reel Thing XXII, August 21, 2009 
(Photo: Ted Langdell)




Al continued to develop a variety of solutions for clients.  


These included a replacement board-set for the normally High Band only Ampex AVR-2.

The Wideband Video Labs H-LB2 allows AVR-2s to play Low Band or High Band color and monochrome tapes at the flip of a switch. 

Originated by Al's longtime friend Ken Zin for his own AVR-2, Al refined the concept and designed the manufacturable version. 

Al and Ken were working together on the TBC project, which continues toward completion.




Al is survived by his wife Constance and son Sean. 

A celebration of Al's life is planned in the San Francisco Bay Area with a planned target date of June 1. Location to be determined.

If you're able to attend—please contact me off list—ted at quadvideotapegroup.com. 
Please use Subject: Al Sturm's celebration--I'm interested.

Thanks.
===

What follows is my post from March 22, 2011on the background of Visual/Allen. It was related to me in June 2009 over several e-mails by Al Sturm, a principal in Merlin Engineering Works, which succeeded the Visual/Allen enterprise. 

I've corrected spellings. typos and formatting and added photos as available. Otherwise, it's as Al sent it.

Ted

Ted Langdell
Secretary, Quad Videotape Group
e-mail:	ted at quadvideotapegroup.com
------------
Visual/Allen and the Bosch connection
I’ll try to do a chronology of Allen/Visual/Fernseh (Bosch) association from the period of 1965-1970. 

Steve Allen was a sharp video entrepreneur who from the early days of Quad was able to come up with accessories to improve the operation of the Quad machines. Among some of the products were:

A very early manual Amtec.This was a time in electronic state of the art when transistors were first being used in video design. 
They built a solid state switcher, and 
An improved limiter low band demod. This was about the time of the VR-1000B. 
Their next project was to replace the tube servo.
 
Steve had two sharp engineers working with him, Clarence Boice (ex Philco), and Dick Silver (Stanford student.) who were the “power behind the throne.”  They were very innovative for the time. 

Steve had friends at Ampex, and learned of a problem that it was difficult to obtain quality variable delay lines for Amtecs. It was very difficult matching the varicaps and holding tolerance on  the wound inductors. They then started building and selling them to Ampex. They also built balanced output filters for the VR-1000C demod, which Ampex used.
 
Simultaneously, Visual Electronics was a primarily a rep company for broadcast TV equipment. 

Jim Tharpe—Visual's president—was involved in TV all the way back to the DuMont days. One of his coups was to become the sole US importer for the Philips Plumbicon cameras. This was about the time when color hit so they were the “only show in town.” Among products Visual sold were the accessories from Allen Electronics.
 
In 1964 when the VR-2000 was introduced. High Band became the standard for broadcasters. 

Jim Tharpe was intrigued with Allen and thought they could build a competing high band system due to their experience with signal systems. He then bought Steve Allen out. 

The problem turned out to much harder to solve than Visual was led to believe. Among the problems were:

Number 1: Understanding Charlie Ginsburg's high band patent, and 
Number 2. Designing a high band signal system that didn’t infringe the Ampex patent. 

Along with Clarence Boice and Steve Allen , Visual brought in engineers from France, Germany, and New York to solve the problems. This is when I went to work for Visual because of my field engineering background with Ampex. My job title was “Jack of all trades” trying to be a go between with Visual, Allen, and customers. I ended up being somewhat of a “fire fighter”.
 
They had some success. As a result Visual put together a VTR using the VR-1000 console and monitor rack with a solid state H-locked servo, signal system utilizing the MK10 head, Amtec, and Colortec. Because of the buyout of all the Ampex equipment, Ampex wasn’t too concerned with the competition.

That's me with my "AJ squared away" crew cut. The pix is at Visual Sunnyvale, CA, (Circa 1968),  
in front of  Visual/Allen VA-1000 " 


A number of the “Allenized” machines were sold by Visual Electronics. Some customers were: Corinthian Broadcasting (then a subsidiary of Dun and Bradstreet,) NBC New York for their time delay, and a number of educational and religious broadcasters.
 
(TL notes that in 1977, an Allenized VR-1000 was still in use at KXTV, 10, Sacramento, often recording the first feed of CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite for "cherry-picking" stories, and other feed duties.)

The Visual/Allen machine at KXTV was from a purchase made by George Jacobs, Director of Engineering for the Corinthian stations. KOTV Tulsa was another. The president of Visual Electronics Jim Tharpe and George were good friend from their past DuMont days.

The next step by Visual was to build their own VTR. Tharpe had contacts in Germany with Fernseh who had a monochrome VTR with their own air bearing heads. 

(Bosch Fernseh BM-20 Monochrome Tube Type Quadrupled VTR--Deutsches Fernsehmuseum Wiesbaden website)


An association was formed between Fernseh and Visual. Fernseh supplied frame, transport, and heads to Visual who built a high band signal system, motor controls, and servo from the Allen electronics to compete with Ampex.  I was in Darmstadt, Germany many times during the development and know quite a bit about their products.
 
The Fernsh head was very good. It had some good features, one of which was linear bearings for the guide. It was very repeatable and positive.

(Fersnseh head from Al Sturm collection-Al Sturm photo)
 


Visual then made and marketed a machine called the VA50.

(Engineer Bruce Braun monitors a VA-50 at Rev. Gene Scott's KHOF-TV, 30, San Bernadino, California—Bruce Braun collection)


(Pair of VA-50's, likely at KHOF, from former KHOF-TV Asst. CE, (now Meredith Local Media VP of Engineering) Joe Snelson via Bruce Braun)



 The VA-50 was a striped down version of the VA-100. I frankly can't remember what was left off. Pricing was around  $45,000.00 for the VA-50 and $55,000.00 for the VA-100.

(April 1966 (NAB?) Visual/Allen Quad VTR Catalog from Don Norwood Collection)



It had limited success. The problem was with all the design engineering, field engineering, and buyout items from Ampex and Fernseh costs profit margins were very slim. 

Visual was having other financial problems so they shut the VTR project down.
 
This is when John Streets and I  started Merlin by buying out all the excess inventory from Visual. We then started refurbishing and reselling VR-2000’s , VR-1200's, building our own high band signal system and offered  high band kits for older machines.
 
This is the story to the best of my recollection.
 
Al Sturm
  

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

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