Although I collect about everything in broadcast electronics, perhaps nothing interests me more than TV Cameras! They have interested me since I was about 7 or 8 years old and in my warehouse I have stuff packed away that I haven't seen in years but still collected. As my interests change or "mature", I start thinking about what I have (and sometimes what I might have or found looking for something else) and start digging into it and want to learn more about it. What seems strange to me is the fact that we know more about vintage stuff today than we did 20 or 30 years ago!

I would like to briefly cover a GE PE250 "Live Color Camera" that not much is known about it today and is seldom talked about in contrast to RCA's. It came out about the same time the RCA TK44's were introduced and used Plumbicon tubes like the RCA TK44 which because of those tubes, never produced a sharp color picture. Plumbicons were the standard of the industry at that time and also brought an end to production of image orthicons. (IO tubes, 5820's and 2P23's etc) RCA's first Solid State color camera was the TK42 after the '41. The RCA '42 was terribly cumbersome and although it was modular, it needed "extendo cards" to help service the modules. GE's 250 was their early solid state color design and seemed much simpler to service as it did not require the extra cards or other cumbersome parts to service. RCA was (at that time) dominant in the broadcast industry and "The General" (Sarnoff) was adament in saying "We don't pay royalties, we collect them". That statement and attitude was reflected in what they built & sold and was also simultaniously changing about that time perhaps mostly by lawsuits. All this being the same time RCA was losing ground in the mid 60's to other manufacturers, GE had a very good product line in broadcast gear. They had a great promotional department and seemed to excel in certain regional areas and among the many, Dallas, TX was one area that had a lot of GE product. GE had a great and strong selling transmitter line and some are no doubt in use today. Their film chain cameras were also highly desirable in the industry.

The 250 used plumbicons which were a breakthrough at that time and were mainly designed to downsize the camera as well as work better in lower light levels which they did. They produced fair color pictures but were still no match for say the RCA TK41. NBC kept their RCA 41's for a long time because the newer generation of solid state cameras were inferior to the original workhorses!! I have a UTube URL below that will show you how a GE PE250 performed in a studio. (Joey Bishop Show)

This GE camera had a few features that I like better than the RCA line. For starters, the side doors opened easily and without unscrewing or pushing any latches to open. You just pulled on the top and it would open without binding or bending. All circuit boards were right in front of you and all would open for any parts replacement or measurements. It also had a built-in voltmeter and rotary switch to test the various supply voltages involved. You simply switched to desired voltage and set the meter to the center green area. What a neat little camera!

Of its' greatest virtues, no one can deny the functional ability of the Zoomar lens built into this camera. Instead of a enclosed cable that most cameras used, it had a solid mechanical shaft that went straight to the lens assembly, and there was absolutely no forward or backward backlash or slop in that mechanism. It would spin freely and had a short ratio that when turned, it got you there quick. Every camera operator who used one of these cameras will tell you that the zoomar lens was a treat to use and it was trouble free with no jerking or binding. The crank handle on the lower right side (shown in picture) has the "ZOOMAR" logo on it that suggested Zoomar was contracted to design it. (zoom lens in the RCA TK42 was a disaster)

All circuit boards have plug in transistors. Yes, these sometimes gave intermittant trouble but depending on the quality of the socket would translate into the amount of trouble it would have. Mil-spec sockets were used here. While on this subject, the circuit boards have a distinct resemblance of IBM computer boards that were in production around the same time. 5% resistors (gold band or better) were common throughout. (high quality)

I am trying to find out the production numbers of this camera but usually hit a dead end. They are very scarce to find today and what is most interesting is the data plate label inside the body. Mine (pictured) is a stick-on plastic label that only says "LIVE COLOR CAMERA" with either the serial number, revision number and/or production run on it. It was printed with a standard PICA typewriter which possibly may have been pre-production. Nowhere in the camera does it say GE PE250. Mine may be an early one as the later PE350's had a usual data plate screwed on but still never gave the model number. (odd!)

I'm sure the later 350's had updated circuitry but you can immediately tell the difference between the 250 and the 350 by a few cosmetics: The 350 had two small tally lights on the front lower part of the lens housing. This was in addition to the one on top. Seems like this would be more of a distraction than useful. The 350 had a large GE logo on the side in the upper right corner in addition to the one on the center band. There was also a retrofit available from GE for 250's that came as a parts kit to make it a 350. You could install it yourself in the shop or you could return the camera to the factory for refit. It was a little tedious and there were a lot of sloppy jobs done to 250's out in the field that were not sent back to the factory. (factory jobs were perfect) If interested, I will write more when I find out more so now on to the pictures for you to click on below!

Pictures were taken in a darker area of my warehouse so excuse the poor quality of pictures. First one shows the camera with its' original lens cover on and there is some stuff stacked on top of it. The voltmeter and rotary switch are seen in picture 2 left of the color registration controls. Picture 6 shows front inside of camera and the mechanical shafts for the zoom control. Another feature for this camera are pull out handles on the bottom for ease of carrying and setting it up on a pedestal. No one else did this.

http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i3/julian51/?action=view&current=GE250-1.jpg
http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i3/julian51/?action=view&current=GE250-8.jpg
http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i3/julian51/?action=view&current=GE250-7.jpg
http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i3/julian51/?action=view&current=GE250-6.jpg
http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i3/julian51/?action=view&current=GE250-5.jpg
http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i3/julian51/?action=view&current=GE250-4.jpg
http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i3/julian51/?action=view&current=GE250-3.jpg
http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i3/julian51/?action=view&current=GE250-2.jpg

Here is a Joey Bishop show that was supposed to have been shot with GE PE250's. Regis Philbin is in it and dig the Nehru jackets!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdyDRjpPftU
Look carefully in this scene!! It's in there!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMXpahmPDFI&feature=related
More good stuff:
http://www.broadcasting101.ws/anselmo3.htm

Very interesting - keep it coming

Wow...Where DO you find this stuff ?!? I know, you could tell me but then you'd hafta kill me...(grin)

We had the 250's at WTVT in Tampa for a long time and they were very easy for the operator--the zoom was the greatest. As one who operated those as well as the much and deservedly maligned TK-42, I can say we hated to see those go in about 1990 I think it was when we moved in our new building and they got the Norelco's. A website big13.net has some great photos of the operation there over the years includiing the PE-250'S.

We had the 250's at WTVT in Tampa for a long time and they were very easy for the operator--the zoom was the greatest. As one who operated those as well as the much and deservedly maligned TK-42, I can say we hated to see those go in about 1990 I think it was when we moved in our new building and they got the Norelco's. A website big13.net has some great photos of the operation there over the years includiing the PE-250'S.

Did you notice on the side of the camera the sticker that says "WT" and possibly a "V"? It is a heavy camera and at the moment I could not pull it out and look on the other side to see if that sticker is intact but will do so. This may well be one of yours!!

Julian,

GE was sure well engineered. I get the impression that the design team were very attuned to the needs of camera operators. I am also impressed by the thought put into easy servicing and alignment for the maintenance engineer. They sure made fine AM and FM transmitters, I loved caring for their gear in a way I did with few other companies. They always had conservative ratings on key parts. I also liked the thought they put into metering all crucial stages and logical thought into their engineering. Details like that make my work as an engineer easier in the trenches. Their tech support engineers were superb for years.

Julian,

Do you have a picture of the CCU that went with this camera? I'm interested in seeing it. The studio I interned at in 1989 had just replaced these with Sony cameras, so I never did get to work one. But I'd be interested in seeing more.

David

Julian,

Do you have a picture of the CCU that went with this camera? I'm interested in seeing it. The studio I interned at in 1989 had just replaced these with Sony cameras, so I never did get to work one. But I'd be interested in seeing more.

David

I found this camera with others that were stored in an outside trailer that were used as spare units that were donated to a small production studio who did quite a bit of church work. At that time he would take anything donated and a good thing that he did. Unfortunately, he passed away at 62 years of age and the family could not keep up the studio so they sold most and threw out the rest. I got about 12 cameras and many did not have their CCU's as was the case for this one. I only wish it was complete. I did find part of a CCU that I think is for a very early B&W GE camera but have temporarily lost it in my building!

For any intuitive strange reason, I felt really bad for the family as I felt a connection with their father. I also felt a sense of his love for this equipment so I have a different appreciation for all that I removed from their studio property. He was doing the best he could with a minimal budget and not only did excellent work in keeping up obsolete 20-35 year old + equipment but supported his family and churches combined. I only wish that I could have met him and asked a thousand questions!

Saw the sticker with the WT---- ; don't know where the GE's were sent after our use; we were owned by Gillette at that time as I remember and have no idea what happened with those cameras. I did mistakingly say they were replaced by Norelco's but it was Phillips that replaced them. We had had Norelco's on the remote truck.

I found this camera with others that were stored in an outside trailer that were used as spare units that were donated to a small production studio who did quite a bit of church work. At that time he would take anything donated and a good thing that he did. Unfortunately, he passed away at 62 years of age and the family could not keep up the studio so they sold most and threw out the rest. I got about 12 cameras and many did not have their CCU's as was the case for this one. I only wish it was complete. I did find part of a CCU that I think is for a very early B&W GE camera but have temporarily lost it in my building!

For any intuitive strange reason, I felt real bad for the family as I felt a connection with their father. I also felt a sense of his love for this equipment so I have a different appreciation for all that I removed from the studio property. He was doing the best he could with a minimal budget and actually did good work in keeping up obsolete 20-35 year old + equipment, hence all of the extra parts. I only wish that I could have met him and asked a thousand questions!

I understand what you mean. I've worked for years in local cable programming, which is pretty well the ass end of television production. We deal with a lot of these kinds of small studios and people and some of them are pretty cool. A local studio who I dealt with on a regular basis just lost its owner to pancreatic cancer, which is a bad way to go. There was a benefit concert for him just a couple of months ago (he also did a lot of music production work) and that was the last I saw of him. It always amazes me how some of these guys manage to stay in business. It takes a lot of passion to keep on going.

As far as your camera, you my friend have a bad habit. You need to go into collecting some CCU's for your cameras. Without the CCU's the old cameras don't work, they're just big props. I'm still glad you saved it though. Many of these old cameras are gone forever now, so its nice to see a representative still in existence.

David

[As far as your camera, you my friend have a bad habit. You need to go into collecting some CCU's for your cameras. Without the CCU's the old cameras don't work, they're just big props. I'm still glad you saved it though. Many of these old cameras are gone forever now, so its nice to see a representative still in existence.]



Bad habit nothing!!!

I go after every piece and look in every closet. For some reason, the CCU's are gone 9 times out of 10. The cameras survive after the CCU is tossed. I wish I had that CCU and I would have this camera working.

I'll send an email to the studio I interned at. True, they replaced those cameras probably 20 years ago. But as recently as 10 years ago they still had a lot of the CCU and GE camera stuff in storage. They might still have something left. Send me a PM and remind me.

David

Wow! great pictures and these bring back memories. I am a fan of ealy color television broadcast equipment and I have a collection of pictures from all the early color teleivision broadcast cameras, including the PE-250 and PE-350 cameras.

I do remember the PE-250 was announced at the 1966 NAB convention and was sold at the same time as the RCA TK-42. The RCA TK-44 came out several years later partly in response to the success of the GE PE-250 and Norelco PC-70. I grew up in Syracuse New York, (home of GE broadcast equipment) and both WHEN-TV, ch. 5 (CBS) and WNYS-TV ch. 9 (ABC) went with the PE-250s' in 1966, while WSYR-TV ch. 3 (NBC) opted for the RCA TK-42s'.

It should be also noted that GE made a good color film camera, (PE-24) and it was used by ABC and CBS at their network centers for color film broadcasting.

Wow! great pictures and these bring back memories. I am a fan of ealy color television broadcast equipment and I have a collection of pictures from all the early color teleivision broadcast cameras, including the PE-250 and PE-350 cameras.

I do remember the PE-250 was announced at the 1966 NAB convention and was sold at the same time as the RCA TK-42. The RCA TK-44 came out several years later partly in response to the success of the GE PE-250 and Norelco PC-70. I grew up in Syracuse New York, (home of GE broadcast equipment) and both WHEN-TV, ch. 5 (CBS) and WNYS-TV ch. 9 (ABC) went with the PE-250s' in 1966, while WSYR-TV ch. 3 (NBC) opted for the RCA TK-42s'.

It should be also noted that GE made a good color film camera, (PE-24) and it was used by ABC and CBS at their network centers for color film broadcasting.
First up, as far as New York City was concerned, two of the three commercial independent stations (WOR-TV and WPIX) used PE-250's starting in the late 1960's (while WNEW-TV had Norelco PC-70's); WPIX's lasted up to about 1975 when they were replaced by RCA TK-45A's. As for those PE-24 film cameras, I see they had four-Vidicon tubes; which GE color film camera had 3 Vidicons? I know in CBS's case, their equipment purchasing philosophy was "Anything but RCA" (before color TV caught on in the mid-1960's, CBS replaced the aging TK-10 and TK-11 cameras with Marconi Mark IV's, before going with Norelco PC-60's and some Marconi Mark VII's). It seemed to me the picture emanating from PE-24's (especially on slides) was somewhat better and more vibrant than RCA's TK-26 and TK-27's - or is it an optical (pardon the pun) illusion?

In addition, I noticed (looking at old Broadcast Engineering issues) that in 1966, the PE-24 film camera was superseded by a newer model, the PE-240.

Incidentally, The Joey Bishop Show as in its ABC talk show incarnation did use PE-250's; from what I've read, the program was based at 1313 North Vine Street, which had PE-250's (as opposed to the Norelco PC-60's and -'70's that were at the Prospect and Talmadge complex). It would seem that by 1970 or so, the Vine Street studio had the PE-250's replaced with PC-70's. One of ABC's New York studios was equipped with PE-350's.

hey good thing you're only into vintage broadcast TV cameras and not into quad tape machines

http://www.vidipax.com/museum/images/msm32.jpg :yikes: :lmao:

Hi

Reading this thread with interest, I note the GE PE-250 has a startling resemblance to the Harris gates PE-400 camera.

I am in the process of adding the Harris PE-400 to my museum site at www.tvameramuseum.org ( its not there yet!)

I wondered if anyone had any ideas as to who made it and who is the badge engineer?

regards Brian

http://www.vidipax.com/museum/images/msm32.jpg :yikes:

Back in the mid 80's I used to work for RCA Sarnoff Labs in Princeton NJ, and that's the sort of tape machine we had in our TV signal source control room. About then, we got a new "director" level manager (my boss's boss) and he said, "we're still using a POS like that for this lab?" He authorized about 50 grand for a more modern 1 inch tape machine.

Hi

Reading this thread with interest, I note the GE PE-250 has a startling resemblance to the Harris gates PE-400 camera.

I am in the process of adding the Harris PE-400 to my museum site at www.tvameramuseum.org ( its not there yet!)

I wondered if anyone had any ideas as to who made it and who is the badge engineer?

regards Brian

Brian,

Your Harris-Gates PE-400 sure looks like a rebadged GE PE-250. Probably a bit tougher to find then the GE.

-Steve D.

Years ago, Harris used to make TV cameras. They purchased the TV camera division from GE. I imagine some of their early ones were just rebadged GE cameras, but they did eventually come up with their own design. Harris stopped making cameras in the early 1980's about the time that all the manufacturers were switching from tube based to solid state imaging devices. I have in my collection a Harris TC-85 studio box camera that was one of the last models they produced. (Mine was used as a test jig at the factory, it never saw any use in an actual studio.) How do I know that? Well about 10 years ago I worked at Harris's Quincy, IL location and bought the camera at an employee sale. One of the interesting things about the TC-85 was that it utilized a microprocessor driven CCU that featured automatic setup and registration by the touch of a button. Even though it had that option, many engineers preferred not to use it and would set up and paint the cameras manually, because the automatic method was hard on the tubes.

Also, I don't remember all the exact details of this, but one of the reasons they abandoned making cameras was that they filed a lawsuit against their imaging tube vendor (Amperex I believe,) stating that the quality of the tubes was below par and not up to the standards to compete with the brand new solid state CCD cameras of the day. The lawsuit primarily focused on the Harris TC-90 cameras, which were a shoulder mount EFP camera. Harris ultimately lost the lawsuit and was forced to recall and destroy all the TC-90's

I will try to post some pictures later of some of the different Harris cameras, as I have some old 35MM slides from the '70's sitting around somewhere. Also, some of they guys who worked in the camera division at Harris back in the day are still there, working in TV transmitter field service, in the repair department, and in various management positions.

Hi

Reading this thread with interest, I note the GE PE-250 has a startling resemblance to the Harris gates PE-400 camera.

I am in the process of adding the Harris PE-400 to my museum site at www.tvameramuseum.org ( its not there yet!)

I wondered if anyone had any ideas as to who made it and who is the badge engineer?

regards Brian

Also, I don't remember all the exact details of this, but one of the reasons they abandoned making cameras was that they filed a lawsuit against their imaging tube vendor (Amperex I believe,) stating that the quality of the tubes was below par and not up to the standards to compete with the brand new solid state CCD cameras of the day.

Solid-state sensors essentially either work off the processing line or don't (with some dead pixels, perhaps), and are stable thereafter. Photoconductive tubes are also pretty stable (except for cathode wear-out and maybe gas), but their initial performance also can be variable depending on the manufacturing process. I remember in the 60s or 70s Motorola shutting down their CCTV camera line because the vidicon supplier "lost the recipe." Photo-emissive tubes (image orthicon or iconoscope) were not only variable in production, but unstable in use. RCA's return policy stated that these tubes used cesium and other unstable elements and therefore WOULD have long term variance in performance during use. They strongly implied that they would not take returns unless the customer screamed loud and long.

Years ago,....
...was forced to recall and destroy all the TC-90's

I will try to post some pictures later of some of the different Harris cameras, as I have some old 35MM slides from the '70's sitting around somewhere. Also, some of they guys who worked in the camera division at Harris back in the day are still there, working in TV transmitter field service, in the repair department, and in various management positions.

HI Matt Thanks for very useful info and I lookforward to seeing your picures. Shame about the TC90s. I have a photocopy of the TC-90 brochure.

regards Brian S

That Harris PE-400 is certainly a GE product. It doesn't look like the '250, it looks like the '350 with the thumbwheel adjustment on the right side front. "PE400" likely an upgrade of the '350 through Harris. These were good cameras!

Re my earlier posting, I have now uploaded to my site the thumbnails for the Harris Gates pages, no big pictures yet but there is a brochure for the PE-400 and TC-80 for downloading.
http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/harris/harristhumb.htm scroll down the page to find the others.

There is still much to be done on the Harris page. The Harris family of cameras is all but unknown here in England. I need to find some pictures of the other Harris cameras to fill the gaps if anyone can help.

Someone was asking about the GE PE-250 CCU. There is a picture of the CCU in the Harris PE-400 brochure, assuming that they are the same?

Regards Brian S

I love how Gates touts this GE PE400 Camera as a "lead oxide color camera". Isn't this the same thing as a car battery?

Here are some pictures of GE and Harris live and film cameras. Note that the Live cameras went from the PE-250 to the PE-350 and then the Harris PE-450. (Missing in my pictures is the GE-400)

For the film cameras, there was first the GE PE-24, then the PE-240, and then the Harris PE-245. The PE-24 & PE-240 are 4 tube vidicon cameras.

Also note from the 1965 picture, the 3 tube IO GE PE-25 live color camera that was sold against the RCA TK-41.

I have a box of pictures from RCA, Norelco, GE, and Ampex broadcast equipment photos from the 50s' and 60's. These are just a couple of them. Hope these help in this thead discussion.

John

John,

Thanks for explaining the history between GE and Gates/Harris. Just hope the Gates Color TV Cameras weren't "Value Engineered". For the uninitiated, Value Engineering was the watchword at Gates Radio Co. in 1958 when Harris purchased them in radio. We went from reliable, solid 1000 watt AM rigs which lasted many years and were easy on tubes (the old BC1F and BC1J) to the BC1T which would run for 10 days at full power on a set of tubes and then didn't make power the rest of the way. This was when many 250 watt AM stations were increasing power to 1 KW. This explains the nickname Quincy Tin Works!

I think Harris must have made a little bit of EVERYTHING at one time or another...There was a Harris-Seybold division that made guillotine paper cutters for the printing/packaging industries-We had several, until in the mid-80s they just got so worn out & you couldn't get parts for 'em anymore. We replaced 'em w/ cutters from Heidelberg Eastern.

Good day Gentlemen,

Just a bit of personal experience with CCD sensors. Late in 1985, Ampex (where i was working back then) sold the entire Betacam range of products.
Sony was afraid of Matsushita, a much bigger company, and sought allies to make Betacam the ENG (Electronic News Gathering) standard. They therefore signed alliances with Ampex (USA), Thomson (France) and Bosch-Fernseh (Germany).

Several times i got frantic calls from customers commenting that their CCD camera had suddenly developed a rash of black or white permanent pixels and were therefore unfit for Broadcast use.

This is how we learned that Sony had in the UK a production line machine which would read the CCDs pixel by pixel, then reprogram a ROM mask which contained all the addresses of the "no good" pixels. This was a duplicate of a machine in the Japan OEM factory, and Sony was pretty "hush-hush" about its existence.

Apparently under certain conditions, heat being one of the them, the ROM would loose its memory and the defective pixels would appear. We would send them the optical prism block containing the 3 x CCDs factory-cemented to it (positioned to half a micron precision in the X/Y/Z directions) and would get it back a couple of weeks later producing again a perfect picture.

It would be interesting to know if the same scheme is still used today or if CCD production techniques have reached such a high level of quality that it is no longer necessary. Personally i think it's still used; getting 1920 x 1080 perfect pixels with a near 100% yield is a tall order to achieve, even today.

and oh by the way, a spare prism with 3 CCD sensors was US $16,000 back then...

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

I love how Gates touts this GE PE400 Camera as a "lead oxide color camera". Isn't this the same thing as a car battery?
I presume they used the term "lead oxide" because Plumbicon was a registered trademark of Philips - and they didn't want to pay royalties on the name? (Similar to RCA referring to their videotape models as "television tape" because Ampex trademarked the name "videotape.")

But PE-400 actually came out within the last two years of GE's ownership of the broadcast equipment division (1970), prior to selling that unit to Harris. Here are some web pages with photos which clearly had GE markings on the PE-400, as used throughout the 1970's by Tampa, FL television station WTVT:

http://www.big13.com/Facilities/facilities_cameras.htm
http://www.big13.net/Adrian%20Snow/adrian_snow8.htm

In short, Harris inherited (but did not originate) the PE-400.

Here are some pictures of GE and Harris live and film cameras. Note that the Live cameras went from the PE-250 to the PE-350 and then the Harris PE-450. (Missing in my pictures is the GE-400)

For the film cameras, there was first the GE PE-24, then the PE-240, and then the Harris PE-245. The PE-24 & PE-240 are 4 tube vidicon cameras.

Also note from the 1965 picture, the 3 tube IO GE PE-25 live color camera that was sold against the RCA TK-41.

I have a box of pictures from RCA, Norelco, GE, and Ampex broadcast equipment photos from the 50s' and 60's. These are just a couple of them. Hope these help in this thead discussion.

John
Oh, do they help. I seemed to notice that when the PE-240 and PE-250 came out, it seemed a case of adding "0's" to the end of the numerals, because the predecessor to the PE-250 was the PE-25 3 I/O color camera, and the PE-240's predecessor was, of course, the PE-24.

I read in various places (such as Ed Reitan's early color TV site) that GE had a three-vidicon color film camera prior to the PE-24. Would anyone know what model number this 3-V camera was?

I'm also curious as to whether one can identify the GE film chain cameras in these pictures, from Dennis Degan, taken in 1978 (the cameras as shown on the right in each one):

http://www.cbsretirees.com/Degan/images/CBS%20Film%20Chain%201%201978.jpg

http://www.cbsretirees.com/Degan/images/CBS%20Film%20Chain%202%201978.jpg

All I know is that former CBS technicians who frequent the CBS Retirees website (where these pics are featured) have said the Broadcast Center in New York (where the photos were taken) used "4V" cameras, suggesting they'd possibly be PE-24's. But the top looks a little earlier in make than the model as shown in the 1965 ad.

Maybe this will help: (Click on picture to enlarge)

148393

Hmmm. Seems like the PE-24/PE-240 had two different top designs, from what it looks like. But thanks in any case. (If CBS acquired them in 1966, then they'd be PE-240; if 1965, then they'd be PE-24.)

B.T.W., the PE-245 film chain camera was first introduced by GE in 1971, in that company's last year of owning their broadcast equipment division. Thus, in 1972, Harris inherited both that and the PE-400 studio camera among those product lines.

Yeah, I agree in that GE must have had two different top designs for their PE-240 color film camera. I have ads for both their 1st. generation (PE-24) and 2nd. generation (PE-240) and both show the same square edged top. Yet my other ad that I attached in my message above shows the rounded top, similiar to the ones show in the CBS image above, so I really don't know.

One thing though, CBS started regular color broadcasting in the fall of 1965 so they must have already had some of their new color film chains in place by then.

I also checked an old TV-GUIDE dated March 1964 and in the issue, there is an article on color television by David Lachenbruch. He writes that, "...it [CBS] is installing $1,500,000 worth of color equipment in its New York production center, now under construction."

Thus, I am assuming that they installed their new color equipment in the spring of 1964, which would place everything a little earlier than 1965 or 1966. And, I am assuming they are talking about color film and tape equipment and not about colorizing their live studios, which I think came later when they purchased their first Norelco PC-60 (or maybe PC-70) cameras that became available in circa 1965.

One thing though, CBS started regular color broadcasting in the fall of 1965 so they must have already had some of their new color film chains in place by then.

I also checked an old TV-GUIDE dated March 1964 and in the issue, there is an article on color television by David Lachenbruch. He writes that, "...it [CBS] is installing $1,500,000 worth of color equipment in its New York production center, now under construction."

Thus, I am assuming that they installed their new color equipment in the spring of 1964, which would place everything a little earlier than 1965 or 1966. And, I am assuming they are talking about color film and tape equipment and not about colorizing their live studios, which I think came later when they purchased their first Norelco PC-60 (or maybe PC-70) cameras that became available in circa 1965.
It's quite possible that some PE-24 class GE film chain cameras had the same round tops as on that PE-240 in the ad you attached, if they started acquiring color equipment in New York in March 1964. (And they'd obviously be referring to the Broadcast Center on 57th Street in that article.) Especially since I've seen references in old Broadcast Engineering issues to PE-24-A's as well as PE-24's. It was also around that time that Ampex first rolled out their high-band VR-2000 quad VTR. And CBS's mentality in terms of buying broadcast equipment, as my understanding, was "anybody but RCA." The PC-60's first came round in 1965, and the PC-70 was introduced in early 1966. So the colorization must've been a long process for CBS.

But also, when initially equipping the Broadcast Center, CBS had transferred RCA TK-26 film chains that had originally been at "Studio 72" on 81st Street and Broadway, to the new studio.

Hi all-

Re: The GE 250 camera was fairly popular, especially in the Midwest U.S. It was a 4 tube design, as was its successors, the PE-350 and PE-400.

The 250 had dichroic optics for color separation, but later, a kit was offered that upgraded the camera to a beam splitter, a big improvement.

The encoder was prone to drifting, that I recall.

Another interesting feature pioneered by GE was "AutoTrast," their term for an auto knee.

ABC had them also in TV-15 in NYC for the "Dick Cavett Show." With an experienced VO and sufficient light, the camera made a fine picture.

For telecine, I don't believe ABC had any GEs, relying on TK-27s, TK-28s, a TK-29 at Prospect, and probably TK-26s in the early days. If anyone has any contray information, I'd be interested, as I worked at ABC.

CBS definitely had GE telecines, although I once saw a TK-28 at Television City.

Regards,

J. Ballard

J Ballard: Actually ABC did use GE Color Film Chains and may have been the first network (or even station) to use them. I attached a picture from April 15,1963 BROADCASTING MAGAZINE showing ABC with the new GE 4-tube color camera. It is my understanding that ABC did have an original RCA TK-26 chain for the Fall of 1962 color startup but by the Fall of 1963 had switched to the new GE cameras. I also have ads from 1965 claiming ABC is using GE color film cameras.

John

Thanks John.

That was way before my time there and the veterans that I knew never mentioned GE film. Was this in NY or LA, or the O&Os?

I bet that they didn't have many, as there were several TK-27s in NY, and that model was introduced just a couple of years later. Also, the ABC network wasn't flush with cash then. Legend had it that the TV net didn't make money until some of the comedies (Happy Days,etc.) took off. ABC publicly complained that the cost of a vectorscope was excessive!

Frank Marx later went off to run ABTO, the lenticular film company formed by ABC and Todd-AO. Later, Julius Barnathan took over, and finally making money, ABC started spending on equipment for color.

Later on, a Bosch FDL-60 was added to the TK-29 at prospect for network film transfers.

Thanks
JB

Thanks
JB

...Frank Marx later went off to run ABTO, the lenticular film company formed by ABC and Todd-AO...


What did ABTO do with lenticular film?

I did not know ABC used TK-27 film chains. All of my ads show GE color film chains although I have an old RCA ad from 1955 that shows a B&W RCA TK-21 film camera connected to a RCA 35mm film projector so I know ABC did use RCA equipment (as well as others).

I am not at home right now but somewhere at home I have a link that explains how ABC started colorcasting. From what I remember (and I could be wrong), when ABC started to colorcast in September 1962 with the Jetsons and Flintstones, they had no color film cameras in NY so they had to have their LA broadcast center (that had a RCA TK-26) show the programs and microwave them across the country to NY for network feeds. It was not until seven months later (April 1963) when ABC installed the GE color film cameras in NY that they were finally able to originate colorcasts from NY.

We got our first color TV in the fall of 1963 and I spent many of hours watching color back in those days and could actually tell what brand of color film camera a station had by just watching their film broadcasts. RCA TK-26 and GE looked similar, but TK-27 films looked way different and were awful compared to the GE and older RCA TK-26. TK-27s were washed out, low in contrast and saturation and did not the "wow" look of the others. I have read since that even NBC did not want to use the TK-27s for the same reason and kept the TK-26s going until the TK-28 3 tube film cameras came out later.

Frank Marx later went off to run ABTO, the lenticular film company formed by ABC and Todd-AO.

What was ABTO's goal?

Lenticular projection screens (for super brightness theatrical) or
Lenticular camera film (for easy-to-process hot color kines on B&W film stock) or
Lenticular film for front projection (instead of rear screen projection for process shots during live or taped shows.)??

(Of the three only the first was a success.)

I worked at ABC NY, from 1965 to 1968, but in Film Services (450 West 56th) and not Engineering and this is news to me. In 1965, almost all of our kines were B&W. In fact, at the time, all of ABC's 35mm and 16mm network air prints included B&W protection copies of color video tape commercials as a back up if the video tape recorders went belly up.

James.

Can't find your $200 TK-40/41 hiding in the basement of some retired engineer from West Oatmeal? Don't want a TK-42/43 along with everyone else in the day? Now you can blaze a trail in broadcasting history collecting with your own GE 250/350/400 because the seller does not know what it is. Neither do I as it is not mine.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vtg-GE-General-Electric-PE-250-350-400-Series-Color-TV-Broadcasting-Camera-HTF-/141048950898?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20d72c3072

HTF=Hard To Find.

Hi All-

ABTO's idea was to save money on remote color film acquisition for newsgathering using B&W negative film. This was in the days of 2-1/2 U.S. television networks, and ABC was struggling to convert to color origination. They even engaged their Boston affiliate, WNAC, as a testing partner.

The idea was not successful, and ABTO folded quickly.

When the ABC Lab closed in 2010, they gave me the ABTO collection of press clippings in a large binder. It's at the Museum of Broadcast Technology in Woonsocket, RI.

James, you must have known Ed Messina?

John, there is a picture of RCA TK-21s in NY coupled to TP-35 projectors that appeared in RCA Broadcast News.

Re: TK-27. This camera was not popular at the networks, even at RCA owned NBC. The TK-26 was the mainstay at NBC, and other places, for network origination. In the late 1970s, the TK-27s in Burbank were assigned to KNBC news and not used by the network. The 26s had FET preamps built by Technical Maintenance and were fitted with Dynasciences image enhancers, but still used TX-1 encoders. These chains were retired around 1980.

The TK-27 relied on auto target mode in unmanned operation, but obtaining good tracking was difficult in my experience. Later, Beston Electronics introduced a neutral density wheel kit for use with the 27, and it seemed to do the job. An RCA field engineer once told me that the ND wheel on those kits wasn't really "neutral."

Some felt that the lag on the 27 was very good, as the tubes were hit with a high level of illumination (no ND wheel). Some added Grass Valley, CBS, or RCA aperture compensators (2H) and these made a big difference in the look of the camera. Registration on this camera was never very good, but it was a reliable film camera.

There are a couple of ABC veterans still alive who might know about the GE film chains. I'll see if I can hunt them down.

Regards,

JB

J Ballard, it would be great if you could tack down some ABC veterans and ask them about the early days of color broadcasting.

It was interesting in that when ABC started color broadcasts in September of 1962, they only showed a couple of shows in color, (The Flintstones and The Jetsons). Then for the 1963 season, they added Wagon Train and The Greatest Show on Earth and some movies. But the following year, Wagon Train went back to B&W and ABC reduced their color broadcast schedule.

It was not until the 1965 season that ABC (and finally CBS) went with many color programs.

See this link: http://www.novia.net/~ereitan/studios.html

for some interesting information on early color history. Be sure to scroll down to ABC color studios.

RCA TK-26 and GE looked similar, but TK-27 films looked way different and were awful compared to the GE and older RCA TK-26. TK-27s were washed out, low in contrast and saturation and did not the "wow" look of the others.

Could not these properties be have been changed by a changed set of
adjustments, at the cost of increased noise?

Hi all-

Today, I received word from a former ABC colleague who confirms that ABC did indeed have 3 GE color film cameras at the Union City, NJ site. These were located in NJ to avoid the 35mm exhibition tax in NYC (NBC had a similar arrangement in Englewood Cliffs), and the signals were microwaved back to the NY TOC. Being in NJ is probably the reason why photos don't exist (I've been through the ABC Technical Photo archive, and don't recall seeing any GEs).

However, in NY, ABC had 10 TK-27s and 4 TK-28s. These telecines also supported WABC-TV's newsgathering efforts.

A former ABC Hollywood manager confirms that ABC's first color programming originated in Hollywood in September 1963 on an RCA TK-26. Two years later, a second TK-26 was added, followed by seven TK-27s and later, a TK-29.

The only GE cameras of any type in Hollywood were 250s used for the "Joey Bishop Show."

An interesting discussion-thanks to all.

Regards,

J Ballard

Many thanks J Ballard for the info. I was not aware of the 35mm exhibition tax in NYC.

At any rate, a couple of questions and remarks:

You stated that ABC's first color programming started in September 1963. I assume you meant September 1962 as it is well documented ABC started color broadcasts in September 1962 and I even have some old TV Guides showing color this.

The fact that ABC NY had 10 TK-27s was interesting so I guess they did not stay with GE cameras. However, I think TK-27s started shipping in the late spring of 1965 so until then, ABC NY must have still been using the GE cameras. It is also interesting in that around that same time, (late spring 1965) I started to notice a change in the quality of ABC color film shows, looking pale, low contrast, and muddy (as if the lens on the camera was dirty) that was so similiar with TK-27s, so this may have explained why I was seeing the change. As I said, to this day, I have a vivid memory of the differences between TK-27s and GE PE24/240 cameras. There was no comparison in my mind. Why ABC went with TK-27s was (IMHO) a big mistake.

Finally, you mention the ABC Technical Photo Archive. Do you have old pictures showing the ABC Broadcast Center? If so can you share any of them for I would love to see them for I collect old broadcast equipment pictures.

Very interesting, all. But I remember the exhibition tax issue and the setups of NBC and ABC. I think this even affected independent station WNEW-TV, which had much of its telecine equipment (involving the showing of movies on their various umbrellas, i.e. Five Star Movie, Metromedia Movie, Movie Greats, Hollywood's Finest) in its final years of Metromedia ownership around the area of that company's corporate HQ in Secaucus, NJ.

But in a sense, it makes sense ABC in NY would have used TK-27's. I once saw a clip someone taped off of WABC-TV in New York in 1983 where the color test pattern's white balance appeared turquoise green/bluish, not unlike what people waking up in Washington, DC to WRC-TV's test pattern saw on their color sets. So, that would mean that the following NY stations would have used the TK-27 (that I know of):
- WNBC-TV
- WNEW-TV
- WABC-TV
- WOR-TV
- WPIX
- WNDT / WNET (?)
with WCBS-TV the odd one out, the only one to use the GE PE-240's (but then, they were housed on the grounds of the Broadcast Center, so . . . ). Don't know about what the old WNYC-TV used at the point they converted to color in 1968 . . .

It would also likely mean that sometimes when they had on the color test pattern in the morning, the blacks were sort of dark green-bluish, the greys were about greenish, and the whites orange/pinkish. I've seen quite a few video clips of test patterns on local stations known to have TK-27's in their telecine setups to notice.

And then the auto-iris which was part of the TK-27. Many a video clip on various sites besides YouTube show the characteristics thereof, where a scene goes from dark to light and the first second or so is too light before the exposure adjusts.

Now, can any member of this forum from Chicago apprise us of the telecine setups of the local stations there? (I seem to remember WBBM and WFLD definitely used TK-27's, probably WCIU via hand-me-downs, maybe even WSNS).

I have no direct knowledge of equipment used in Chicago (or anywhere else), but as a viewer I can recall a time when WGN obviously installed some new automatic color correction gear, because the film material got a new look and you could see the color wandering around during individual scenes (IIRC, sensitive to actor movements or other scene changes, but also wandering even in mostly static scenes).

W.B. thanks for your reply and info. I thought that WOR-TV went with GE color cameras. I know that WNAC-TV in Boston did and it was a RKO General station. I also thought that WOR-TV was a RKO General station so I would think both would purchase the same equipment.

I remember having a tour of WNAC-TV back around 1967 and they had GE PE-250 live color cameras and a slug of GE PE-240 color film cameras. I think they had something like 5 color film islands. They had also replaced their RCA TP-16 projectors with Eastman 285 16mm projectors.

To be sure, WOR-TV did use GE PE-250's for their live studio camera setup, beginning in 1967 . . . it was with their film chains that they were RCA. Same thing with WPIX.

Hi all-

John, the September 1963 date as the commencement of ABC color film was obtained from a retired ABC engineering manager on the WC. I did no research to confirm that date, so my apologies.

Color film origination had its pitfalls in the early days. Somewhere, I have an NBC memo about the colorimetry on "Bonanaza" and its overall red cast. It turns out that the film stock was passing a large amount of near IR light, so a correction filter was added on TK-26s for that show.

It was generally regarded at NBC and ABC that the TK-26 was a superior camera than the TK-27 in most respects, and they were assigned prime time network programming. Considerable work went into improving both designs in the field. In the case of the 26, new SS preamps were installed (reports at both the network level and at ambitious affiliates), adding 2H enhancers, and replacing the encoder. NBC even designed a polarity reversing amplifier for color negative film for a few 26s.

The TK-27 could operate in automatic mode using "auto target." Many users were not pleased with results, as tracking among channels was not uniform. A small company, Beston Electronics, developed an ND wheel and servo kit for cameras using auto target such as the TK-27. This was a big improvement in color tracking, I thought, but a former RCA field engineer said that the ND wheel was not neutral throughout its range. Many customers added 2H image enhancers, and you could replace the proc modules in the color channel with Proc D modules designed for the TK-42. This gave you variable gamma control in the color channels. Color trim filters were also modified.

The TK-27 never registered very well, and the tubes made in Lancaster suffered badly in quality after a strike in the late 1970s. I know some NYC stations were buying their vidicons from EEV, and even as late as the TK-29, EEV tubes were sold by RCA if the customer so requested.

Some users felt that lag on the 27 was far better than on the 26 and 28/29s, since there was no ND wheel, and the vidicons were being hit with higher light levels.

RCA sold over 1100 TK-28/29/290 telecine cameras by the time the company closed its doors in October 1985.

Regarding the ABC archive, I can ask about it. It was mostly Kodachrome slides of TK-41s on remotes, but also some B&W prints about the early days of color.

Regards,
JB

J. Ballard,

I'm old enough to remember when NBC color film series aired in the early 60's. Shows like Bonanza, Tales of Wells Fargo, Laramie ect. did have a red/brownish cast. I mainly point out western series as they tended to have more red/brown in scenes. Wooden structures, saloon & cabin interiors, barren ground and such. This seem to improve during the later 60's & on:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bizY20UIDg



-Steve D.

Steve,

I'll have to drag out that memo concerning "Bonanza." This was a highly rated program for NBC and it generated a lot of concern.

Bonanza might have been shot on Technicolor, where the 26s might have been more sensitive to IR, as opposed to Eastman print stock.

I promise everyone an answer.

BTW, RCA made a low cost color film camera, the PK-610 , later rebranded the TK-610, that also used auto target for stand alone operation. The results and relaibility of this low cost camera were medocre, at best.

Regards,
JB

JB

Steve,

I'll have to drag out that memo concerning "Bonanza." This was a highly rated program for NBC and it generated a lot of concern.

Bonanza might have been shot on Technicolor, where the 26s might have been more sensitive to IR, as opposed to Eastman print stock.

I promise everyone an answer.

BTW, RCA made a low cost color film camera, the PK-610 , later rebranded the TK-610, that also used auto target for stand alone operation. The results and relaibility of this low cost camera were medocre, at best.

Regards,
JB

JB


JB,

I found this reply to a post on an old VK thread: "Bonanza was processed by Consolidated Film Industries in Los Angeles. Not by Technicolor. They have always been Eastmancolor. Around 1990, Republic Pictures, the owner at the time of Bonanza, had new master prints made from the original Eastman camera negatives, which had faded slightly. They looked vastly better than they had in the past. These were 35mm. The printing negatives were worn out over the years from use and title changes, etc.
Remember when Bonanza went into re-runs, and was retitled "Ponderosa?" I still have some film reels with the name Ponderosa printed on them in white lettering. Nice.

I ran Bonanza in syndication for a number of years on 16mm film prints. They were always a bit reddish, but usually looked very nice on the air.

Now, Bonanza is on digital product and is way-over sharpened up, to me. It almost looks gritty on screen.

As for old TV film cameras, NBC used RCA chains. They needed regular attention, which I'm sure they got when someone complained about the lag issues. I can recall several times when I could see camera registration errors on network films.

Our station used RCA TK-27, and TK-28 film cameras, and TP-66 projectors. These cameras were 'tweeked' weekly. They went out of service in the mid-90's when everything went to tape. I do miss film on TV."

I have also read that Bonanza was shot in Technicolor and processed by CFI.
Seems to be some room for confirmation on what color process was used and perhaps, over the show's run, that different color processes were used.

-Steve D.

Here is a clip form "Music Scene" which aired on ABC, this is form 1969 and is of "The Archies" "Sugar Sugar" which would have been on film. Sure is a lot softer then the Live video, which would have been PC-60/70's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKywSgQ4OHE

Matt

So, is this a 4-tube telecine? Sure looks like the color is off register from the luminance in the upper right especially. The lesser smears elsewhere could just be from the multiple generations of transfer/coding the video has been through.

Hi All-

I looked for the NBC "Bonanza" memo this past weekend, and was unsuccessful, but I did locate two pieces of documentation related to this issue.

The first is a paper from the SMPTE "Color Television" collection dated November 1964, p.80, by Hank Kozanowski, head of advanced camera development at RCA, and the lead engineer on the TK-26. The paper is titled,"Infrared Transmission Characteristics of Various Color Release Prints and Their Effects on Color Television reproduction."

To receive the attention by Dr. Kozanowski, this subject had to have been of major importance. I have no doubt this was related to "Bonanza," as that show was likely NBC's biggest cash cow film program.

He describes tests done at NBC Burbank by Ken Erhardt on changes in telecine red channel black level adjustment when switching between Technicolor Imbibition print stock and Eastman 5385 film. Later, NBC-NY performed similar tests, affirming the Burbank results, showing a predominant red "haze" (elevated black level) from the Technicolor film.

Spectral measurements conducted in Camden revealed a 5-6 fold greater transmittance of near IR light in the 700-750 nM region of Technicolor print stock than the 35mm Eastman version. In addition, the original 1954 TK-26 red filter did not have a steep cutoff chaarteristic below 700 nM, but remained at about 20% transmittance beginning at approximately 650 nM.

Tests were conducted with a Technicolor T-1247 filter and also a filter from Fish-Schurman, both correcting the IR transmittance issue. The Technicolor filter began cutoff around 640 nM, and the F-S not as drastic. The final design was a combination red trim and IR cut filter, tested at NBC NY by Ed Betero, and installed in all NBC TK-26s, made by Fish-Schurman.

The second piece of documentation is an RCA Technical bulletin #G27 applying to all TK-26 models, encouraging customers to replace the original 1954 red filter with the better Fish-Schurman model, availabe from RCA as stock #230098. The change applied even to the TK-26C which was in production before the release of this paper.

The filter replacement addresses 4 items, according to the Tech Bulletin:

The modification was designed to improve the color fidelity and color balance tracking.

The amount of infrarared light transmitted through color film varies with the technique used in processing the film.

The red trim filter filter modification greatly reduces the amount of infrared light reaching the vidicon photo cathode.

The "red channel" pedestal shift, with changes in film of various processing techniques, is greatly produced. Thus the need to rebalance the equipment signals for changes in good color film is greatly reduced.

Again, I'm 99% certain this change was related to "Bonanza" and I'll keep searching for the NBC memo.

Regards,

JB

To be sure, WOR-TV did use GE PE-250's for their live studio camera setup, beginning in 1967 . . . it was with their film chains that they were RCA. Same thing with WPIX.

W.B: Actually, here is an ad for GE from August 1965 stating that WOR-TV did purchase GE PE-24 4 Tube color cameras. If they did use RCA film chains, they must have been later on.

I know that WNAC-TV in Boston (An RKO station) had GE PE-24 cameras on their film chains around 1968 or so. As I recall there were three film chains that used RCA projectors and one that used Eastman 285's. The RCA chains also had a black and white RCA vidicon camera, so you could select either color or B&W to put on the air, depending on program content.

W.B: Actually, here is an ad for GE from August 1965 stating that WOR-TV did purchase GE PE-24 4 Tube color cameras. If they did use RCA film chains, they must have been later on.
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=184644&d=1413766026
The ad did not explicitly mention that WOR used PE-24's, just that they first used "the 4-V type" starting in late 1964 (apparently an RCA TK-27; kind of like RCA's Broadcast News, whenever they spoke of a TV station's equipment, occasionally failing to bring up videotape recorders which is a tipoff that the VTR's were Ampex). I did read in one of the trade papers (Broadcasting? - no, on second thought, it was an earlier 1965 Broadcast News) that WOR had placed an order for RCA TK-27's in 1965 (those were definitely fully operational by the time the station moved their entire kit 'n' kaboodle - studios, VT, telecine and master control - to 1481 Broadway in 1968). That GE ad mentioned only two RKO stations ordering PE-24's - WNAC and WHBQ. KHJ in Los Angeles, from what I read in another forum, used vintage RCA TK-26's (the 3-V variety) well into the 1980's (and from what I saw of one of the slide replications, apparently a TK-27 or two). As did WOR - at first; besides what they first got in 1960, they also got at least one, possibly two, TK-26's from RCA's 1964-65 World's Fair exhibit after the fair ended. Then CKLW-TV (now CBET) may have also had RCA 4-V's.

RKO's other major GE order, in 1966, was for a huge bank of PE-250 color cameras, the lion's share of which went to WOR-TV (six for use at Shea Stadium for Mets broadcasts, three for their studios), others went to WNAC (five, I.I.N.M.) and WHBQ (two).

No, in terms of film chains, apart from WCBS and the GE PE-240's that were shared with CBS network at the vast Broadcast Center, New York was otherwise generally RCA territory from the mid-'60's and into the '80's.

Hi all-

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the Museum of Broadcast Technology (Woonsocket, RI) would be receiving a GE PE-240 color film camera shortly. Sure enough, last week a shipment arrived with the GE in good cosmetic condition, but when the top access door was opened, it was completely absent yokes, tubes, and optics! Plus the dreaded encoder .Groan.

Still, some observations can be made about this camera. First, the build quality is excellent. As with RCA, GE Electronics Park was a defense contarctor, so the wiring and layout were of top quality. The optical bedplate had to be 5/8"-3/4" thick aluminum.

There were test points on one card for masking (color matrix), suggesting a variable matrix-something not available on the TK-27. Also, there was reference to the GE "AutoTrast", unless this was a module also used in the live camera. This was an auto knee circuit that became common on Japanese and European ENG cameras.

But, there was a muffin fan on the ear of the upper housing, and from photos seen of the GE 4V design, the deflection assemblies and optics were not enclosed, as in the RCA designs. If so, I bet dust was a serious problem.

If anyone has the missiing pieces to a PE-240, please contact off list-TK41C@aol.com.

Regards,
JB

I received word from a former ABC colleague who confirms that ABC did indeed have 3 GE color film cameras at the Union City, NJ site. These were located in NJ to avoid the 35mm exhibition tax in NYC (NBC had a similar arrangement in Englewood Cliffs), and the signals were microwaved back to the NY TOC. Being in NJ is probably the reason why photos don't exist (I've been through the ABC Technical Photo archive, and don't recall seeing any GEs).

However, in NY, ABC had 10 TK-27s and 4 TK-28s. These telecines also supported WABC-TV's newsgathering efforts.

A former ABC Hollywood manager confirms that ABC's first color programming originated in Hollywood in September 1963 [NOTE: actually 1962] on an RCA TK-26. Two years later, a second TK-26 was added, followed by seven TK-27s and later, a TK-29.
I figured that origination of filmed TV shows and presumably The ABC ___________ Night Movie would have been in Union City, and thus via PE-24's. I presume that local film and slide capacity for WABC-TV would have come from the TV Center on 66th Street, and thus projected through TK-27's and later -28's (not just for WABC's newscasts). However, my question has to do with from which outpost would WABC's local movie shows (including and notably The 4:30 Movie) have originated.

Here is a clip form "Music Scene" which aired on ABC, this is form 1969 and is of "The Archies" "Sugar Sugar" which would have been on film. Sure is a lot softer then the Live video, which would have been PC-60/70's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKywSgQ4OHE
Seeing that clip, it looks like the film transfer would have been put through one of the two TK-26's that ABC's Prospect & Talmadge setup would've had.

To bring this back to life, it appears CBS's first GE color film chains would have been the PE-24 class - as they delivered their first 4-V color chain to the network's Broadcast Center in New York per this link to a Broadcasting magazine article in its April 26, 1965 issue when their line was the PE-24 (and about a year before they developed the PE-240 - the first references to which were in a GE ad in the March 21, 1966 Broadcasting):

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Magazines/Archive-BC-IDX/65-OCR/1965-04-26-BC-OCR-Page-0052.pdf#search=%22cbs%20general%20electric%22

I was right, though, about both BC and Television City using GE chains.

But Broadcasting has also been illuminating in other ways. A July 18, 1966 article noted that while WCBS-TV, having access to network facilities, was already loaded for color, WCAU-TV ordered RCA TK-42 cameras; WBBM-TV, KMOX-TV and KNXT all ordered Marconi Mark VII's - and all four would receive or had received RCA TK-27 film chains:

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Magazines/Archive-BC-IDX/66-OCR/1966-07-18-BC-OCR-Page-0054.pdf#search=%22rca%20tk-27%22 (p. 54)
https://www.worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Magazines/Archive-BC-IDX/66-OCR/1966-07-18-BC-OCR-Page-0056.pdf#search=%22knxt%20marconi%22 (p. 55)

WCAU had not just TK-42s but was pretty much full turnkey RCA in the late '60s - surprising for a CBS O&O. RCA Broadcast News from June 1969. Story starts pg. 24:

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/ARCHIVE-RCA/RCA-Broadcast-News/RCA-142.pdf

(And elsewhere in that issue is the wrapup from the 1969 NAB show that highlights the new TK-44A cameras and TCR-100 "cart" carousel some of you may be well familiar with.)

WCAU had not just TK-42s but was pretty much full turnkey RCA in the late '60s - surprising for a CBS O&O. RCA Broadcast News from June 1969. Story starts pg. 24:

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/ARCHIVE-RCA/RCA-Broadcast-News/RCA-142.pdf

(And elsewhere in that issue is the wrapup from the 1969 NAB show that highlights the new TK-44A cameras and TCR-100 "cart" carousel some of you may be well familiar with.)
Notice they didn't mention what videotape equipment 'CAU used, though by the photos it looks like Ampex VR-2000's.