As I continue to watch this video, I'm reminded of my own experience with what was probably the biggest television/video transition that I've experienced in my life: I used to do work with the Tonight Show with Jay Leno as an actor (doing some of those comedy sketches). I remember THE day we went in to shoot something and we were shown the first high-definition cameras & monitors! I think this was the world of 1080P (this was, I suppose, in the spring of 1999!). I remember the monitors they were using had a wider aspect ratio than I had ever seen before AND the picture on that little 12-inch monitor or whatever was so incredibly clear! I was honored to be, I guess, among the first actors shot on high-definition television for a major network. As a good friend of mine might say, it was "cool beans!"

Early 1960 I attended American Bandstand in PHL and WFIL just started to video tape shows on the weekend for airing the following week. It was such a big deal back then to video tape shows and view later. Thanks for sharing.

As an analog video/TV geek I really appreciated this video

Television and Video cameraman .... /SECAM/PAL/NTSC/ > (1977-2021) I still remember all of that stuff !!!! Greetings !!!!

I started working in TV broadcast engineering in 1972. I came in at the tail end of the all vacuum tube generation of equipment. At the time about 70% of the equipment in most TV stations was still with vacuum tubes equipment. This video is very informative about TV history. We still use color bar and resolution tests to verify TV monitors. Signal testing is much more complex in the digital world.

Memories. From B&W 1/2" open reel tape in high school (c. 1978) to 1" tape and color Norelco plumbicon tube studio cameras. Then 3/4" cassette, DigiBeta, DVCAM, CMX linear editors to Media 100 (early Mac edit software). Yup. Those were the days.

Thank you David for the trip down Memory Lane. Those studio cameras were massive and sometimes required 3 people...one to operate the camera, one to pull and steer the pedestal base, and 1 to drag the cables so the camera remained stable on the shot. Very informative and enjoyable video!!

It All started at a little 5,000 Watt radio station in a in Fresno California, a 65 dollar paycheck and a crazy dream.👍😊👍

Another nice video from Dave Quam. It takes a lot of work to put something like this together. Thanks for the memories Dave.

Wow, I worked on all of the mentioned RCA gear in the 60s. The TRT1b was a beast, but you were never cold when you were around it. Thanks for the walk down memory lane. OF course all of the mentioned equipment was NTSC, now relegated to the heap of "things that were". I loved it all!

People are impressed with digital data. It's awesome, no doubt, but the actual recorded "signal'' is bone simple when compared to an old school analog NTSC video signal. It's actually amazing that ANY of it WORKED over the air, let alone being able to be captured on magnetic tape!

Great video, Dave. I learned a lot working with you and the other talented folks at Editel. Thank you.

great video. I learned a lot about video in 1974 at school on a Panasonic reel to reel machine. good memories.

This demonstration of the modern computer editing was rather superfluous. I wanted to see more of the historical and old machines and procedures. Today I myself edit in Premiere Pro. But I have been editing in both the U-matic and Betacam formats back in the days.

I started in TV in 1971 but there was too much noise and bustle at the studio so I prefer the (usually) peace and quiet of the transmitter which was out in the country where there was room for the 870 ft tower and it's guy wires. Of course, the tube transmitters back then required a lot of maintenance and there was always the chance something would blow and we'd be off the air. So I could go from hours of boredom to sheer panic at any moment. :-/

Early video tape was also very expensive. That's why so many early videotaped shows are missing. It was considered far more economical to simply erase a tape, and record another program over it. Keeping a copy of a program in a library was unthinkable. I remember Johnny Carson saying that almost none of the first three years of "The Tonight Show--starring Johnny Carson" exist.

“This camera recorded in B&W because color didn’t exist yet” 😂💀💀🗿🗿🗿

Thank you David - nicely explained. I can understand using foil tape to make joins may cause run snags. Also as explained the transistor and microprocessor has touched all aspects of our lives. Thanks for uploading - Liked.

Incredibly fascinating. Thank you so much

When I got my first intern job which turned into a paid job, my boss was Chuck Pharis, CP. We edited on the Ampex 2000, which I learned how to make dance. Still the lack of precision just something people can't understand. Later I did the beta testing of Final Cut Pro, which was developed into a great program. Too great, so they had to discontinue it and dumb it down to what is Final Cut Pro X.

This was well put together and informative of the history of the color television. Thanks for sharing. I remember seeing a color bar during a visit to Istanbul on the television in the hotel room. Only one channel was like this - it was from Iran, ironically, during the day time. I assumed the channel was offline and the others were still broadcasting. Again, thanks for sharing. Was enjoyable. :-)

Thanks for that David, appreciated.

Very interesting. Thank you.

I've gone from working in film to video, video thru the Betacam era, and now digital, shooting 4K Video to edit in Final Cut Pro X (Ten, not "X"). It's been quite a ride. I may reminisce about the old days, but I'll take my little Sony over the Ikegami HL-33 "Handee-Lookee" anytime. Thanks for a fun look back!

Great video.... I enjoyed that very much. Thank you.

If anything this video really highlighted the challenges The BBC faced when they were recording episodes of Doctor Who with some being film recorded onto 35mm film rather than videotape since the technology of the 1960s couldn't handle the complexity of these episodes such as The Seeds of Death, Episode 5 (625) or The Dalek Invasion Of Earth, Episode 5 (405) with 10 episodes film recorded onto 35mm but 3 of them were destroyed with The Daleks, Episode 4 existing today as a 16mm reduction print & 2 others lost forever. Back in the 1950s The BBC was experimenting with a videotape format known as VERA but due to it's linear recording method & tape reels spinning at 85 MPH the whole project was cancelled especially considering the early commercial broadcasters such as Associated-Rediffusion adopted the Quadruplex format in c.1961. The film recordings such as Quatermass II showed, to some degree, what viewers would have seen from TV cameras such as The Pye MK 3 in Lime Grove Studio G mostly in 405 lines with later film & videotape recordings such as Doctor Who The Enemy Of The World onwards being recorded in 625 line but transmitted in 405.

Thanks, well put together and interesting.

it occurs to me that people way back then are more efficient than my generation because you need to be to get over the difficulties of such equipment

Imagine having vacuum tube tv on your vacuum cleaner.

Nice bit of history there, with great archive.I would love to have operated those old cameras!

This obviously dates me, but I well remember that Indianhead test pattern! It seems to me I would see it if I got up very early in the morning before normal (in my case, cartoon) programming began (this was Los Angeles television in the 1960s). I don't know if I remembered still seeing the test patterns in the 1970s but I think they were phased out probably sometime in the early 70s, if I were to guess.

It’s amazing how far we’ve come. Wonder why I work harder now than in the days of film?

The invention of the vacuum tube revolutionized our world. The invention of the transistor revolutionized the revolution.

I would love to see those cameras in person!

Well, didn´t colour TV start in the US already in 1953? So I have heard...

Damn, technicians back then wore tux's to work? Different times..

great video!

Amazing.

Ah brilliant. Thanks. :)

I always thought the test pattern was just a camera pointed at a printed poster. The monoscope tube with the pattern etched internally was a brilliant idea.

How could you overcome the problem when cutting and splicing the tape when the picture was cut at one point and the sound at another point?

I found one of these cameras in my town behind a mechanics shop. Even had a massive rail to it. All of it was rusted, seized, and gutted and weighed more than a vehicle. Was gonna get someone with a vehicle to pick it up but it was moved before I could get it. Amazing to see one in real life though. It's gigantic

I actually worked on every model of VTR that AMPEX made from the VR-1000 to the AVR-2 and ACR-25 & 225. The quads have a very simple tape path, unlike the 1" machines. The RCA tape machine were inferior to the AMPEX equipment. In NY I would often here the tape operators at NBC tell me they wish they could use AMPEX equipment, but since RCA owned NBC, they were stuck. I love the quad equipment and hate helical scan. I used to edit sports for the news and did it fast for the sportscaster. Using quads, you could not see a picture in fast fwd or rewind. I relied on sounds. The tape was never on contact with the delicate video head during fast fwd or rewind which I liked. Unlike helical, where the tape was always in contact with the head drum. Like sandpaper on metal, not good In addition we never used 1kHz tones as a test audio signal in the early days, it was 440Hz or middle-c

You're not a real engineer until you've erased at least one master tape...

Could you video-tape the pictures from the first colour cameras?

This was before transistors, they used vacuum tubes!

What do studio cameras look like today?

What Is the name of the program for digitalizzing the tape?

I miss the old Grass Valley 100 switcher.

I know that some shows (like I Love Lucy) were recorded with regular film so they could be resold, but others were recorded live. It looks like the early videotape equipment was probably more expensive than using 16mm film.

it was far easier to cut 35mm film and broadcast it than cutting magnetic tape

Wait a minute, New Dream Read 180 Library; Different Videotapes, Different Discs, Different Books, Different Mail, Different News, and Different Games.

And you don´t have to register your cameras either.....

Neat to see an early camera from WCHS-TV (Charleston, WV).

I worked in the early days of television and the test pattern had a 440hz tone, not 1khz, that came later with the color bars. I worked on EVERY model of VTR that AMPEX made beginning with the VR-1000. Did you know that AMPEX copyrighted the phrase "videotape"? RCA called it television tape. RCA claims to be the inventor of electronic television, not true. RCA was like Microsoft, buying all the patents and inventions from a lot of people. They tried to buy the patent for the phosphor coating from Dumont labs (who made crts for the military radar systems) but Dumont didnt sell it to RCA, which pissed off David Sarnoff

Anyone wanting to see 60s color and how the color cameras were sometimes not so well matched, could do worse than buying the box set of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Looking at the early shows I would say they used only two color cameras for the show. But they did have the benefit of the new technology of Edi-Tech on the color Ampex 2000s VT machines to cut various items together....

TV history

we're now in 2021 and I'm afraid in about 5 years from now my grandson will ask me : Grandpa, what's a camera ?

And now all of this has been replaced with SD Memory cards and cheap laptops.

Today anyone can do it, where's the fun and effort in that? it took skill and inventiveness back in those days, people had to think and posses knowledge. I prefer it.

They seen unnecessarily huge.

RCA had a great sales move, they offered a 'turnkey' operation. If you signed up for it, they would come in and install an entire station full of RCA equipment, get it running and hand it over to you at completion. It was a clever idea, but in reality, the only stations that bought this idea were those who had no money to afford better equipment. Most RCA gear was rubbish.

My cannon tlr can shoot good digital video and can shoot 24 frames a second too gi giving a film look . Early video cameras could only shoot 30 frames a second.

It would have been nicer to have had the winter scene you edited with the software to have been more colorful. It was like watching a black n white TV. Just sayin, is all.

Those TV cameras were $200,000

Corruption too

"They didn't have transistors in those days..." WHAT days? The transistor was invented in 1947. LOL.

Why did you say "color didn't exist then" (1950's) when one of the cameras you showed is 1953 RCA TK40 camera? It was the first commercially-available color television camera & revolutionized televsion, IN THE 1950's !

Thanks Chuck! I watched quite a few shows on your WCHS-TV Channel 8 camera here in Charleston, WV back in the 60s...I still live in Charleston today!

transistors didn't make machine to machine editing possible.