Dwight Eisenhower dedication to WRC-TV May 22 1958 presentation available on Veoh.com

[Aussie Bloke]

G'day all.

It looks like this fantastic colour videotape footage of Dwight Eisenhower's dedication to WRC-TV May 22nd 1958 has finally been somehow leaked out into the public, I have been searching for a copy of the this presentation in any form for a while and I saw a DVD copy go on Ebay which the auction ended, but with a little more Googling I found the entire presentation on the video site Veoh.com on this page http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/ca...1020606nr3MbJG , and it gets better, if you install Veoh Web Player, you can download the whole presentation which so happens to be in DVD MPEG 6000kbps variable bitrate quality interlaced. I did that and put it to disc and watched it on my telly in fantastic quality, it was thrilling to watch and see how fantastic colour television looked way back in the 50s, the quality is compariable to 70s/80s plumbicon pictures, the colours were nice and rich too.

Also on YouTube someone has uploaded the colour videotape recording of Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev Kitchen Debate from July 24th 1959 which can be viewed here:
Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7HqOrAakco
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6RLCw1OZFw

I have to admit I was a bit cagey in telling you's about it as I understand that it is heavily copyrighted material that somehow got leaked out and Ed Reitan whom had a major role in the restoration of this presentation might be concerned knowing about this because of the copyright, but you's would of came across the video sooner or later anyhow and seeing I'm the first to find it, I'm the one to inform you's so anyways the video is up on Veoh for everyone to download for their own enjoyment of the feel of 50s living colour and the presentation!

Lastly as a side note a lot of this copyrighted archive footage does get leaked out to the public all over the globe, whilst it infringes the copyright laws, it's good that this wonderful footage is made available to those who want to see it as for stuff like this to be commercially be released would be unpredictable and could take probably take years or decades or may not at all get released at all due to low public demand as it is acquired taste material. This was the case with Soul Train, Don Cornelius was pissed off that bootleg copies of the show were going around worldwide on VHS tapes and DVDs getting sold on Ebay, however it was a good thing for all those who loved classic Soul Train and wanted to see those great shows again including myself, in recent years Don has sold the rights to MAD Entertainment and they are planning DVD releases of classic episodes by public demand http://www.soultrain.com/ .

[colortel]

Hi,
I was very pleased that all can now see this historic videotape. This is the earliest known surviving 2-inch color videotape.

The tape was restored by Don Kent and Ed Reitan (myself) under the auspices of the UCLA Film and Television Archive (Dan Einstein). We used the process I developed, during the "Evening with Fred Astaire" restoration, for playing the earliest color recordings, . The recordings used a color recording process developed by RCA Labs. RCA Labs created the first Color videotape recorder by making significant modifications to a baseline Ampex b&w Videotape recorder. The RCA Labs process preceded the eventually adopted "Low Band Color" standard. My modification involved 10 boards in an AMPEX AVR-1 (the greatest 2-inch recorder ).
It was a joy to see the gorgeous color that the TK-41 camera and TK-26 slide camera could produce - it looks like Technicolor. As Sarnoff said "We want everyone in the world to see America in its true and natural colors".

[Aussie Bloke]

Hi Ed.

Glad to hear you're happy that this historic footage is available to all to see .

And thank you so much for your all your work in the restoration of these early colour videotape recordings with your innovative electronic modifications to the AVR-1 to play these tapes and my thank you also goes to Don Kent and whoever else is involved in restoring all of this historic footage!!!

It's amazing how 2 inch videotape recordings can last for over 1/2 a century, makes me wonder if they can outlive DVDs lol even though the stated life expectancy of a DVD is supposedly 100 years.

Even I was thinking too colours produced from the TK-41s looked like a Technicolor movie but in fluid motion, personally I am so amazed on the quality of colour television in the 50s in general as I'm so use to seeing 16mm B&W kinescope recordings of programs from that era.

Anyways I'm glad to finally see this wonderful footage and thank you once again Ed and Don for the restoration work on preserving this historic recording .

[ohohyodafarted]

OMG Ed! That was just incredible!

Thank you for a magnificent effort to bring this to all of us.

Can you give us some idea of how involved it was to get the old Ampex machine up and running and to make the mods to color? How long did this project take? Where was the equipment located? Etc.

Please tell us the rest of the story.

[Greg B.]

Ed, thank you for your efforts in this project. I have seen the short clip of the "Evening With Fred Astaire" that is available on the net that you helped bring back to life, and I was wondering if the entire broadcast, including the Chrysler Corporation references I see in the clip, has ever officially been made available for purchase? It would be a fascinating artifact of the 1950s.

[Electrohome]

That was just an awesome tape I would love to get a DVD copy of this tape if that's possible-thanks I collect and research vintage and historical TV programs as well.

[Aussie Bloke]

Originally Posted by Electrohome

That was just an awesome tape I would love to get a DVD copy of this tape if that's possible-thanks I collect and research vintage and historical TV programs as well.

You can mate. All you have to do is download Veoh Webplayer so you can watch the program in full, then on the page of the video there is a download button which you click on and the original video will download and it so happens to be in SP DVD quality interlaced picture and is 6000kbps variable and you can with your DVD authoring tools put it to disc and watch it in great quality. That's what I done and the picture is fantastic when watching it !!!

[Sandy G]

Amazing....Simply amazing ! Like maybe going for a ride in the 1886 Benz "Patentmotorenwagen" or somesuch...

[colortel]

Originally Posted by ohnoyoda

OMG Ed! That was just incredible!

Thank you for a magnificent effort to bring this to all of us.

Can you give us some idea of how involved it was to get the old Ampex machine up and running and to make the mods to color? How long did this project take? Where was the equipment located? Etc.

Please tell us the rest of the story.

Hi Bob,

The entire restoration of the Astaire Specials took some three calendar years.
It is surreal to see color video from the 1950's that looks so live (unlike film kinescope recordings). The Emmy award we received was for "Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development; 1988-1989 Emmy Awards".

We used a late 1970's era Ampex AVR-1 for playback of these precious tapes. The AVR-1 is the last and the greatest performing two-inch vtr. It was then operational at KTLA, Hollywood and is still fully operational today in CBS Jurassic Park at CBS Television City.

I designed modifications to allow the AVR-1 to play the RCA Labs Color Format. I was able to get original schematics of the RCA Labs design from one of its original engineers, modeled it using computer circuit analysis software, and then designed and implemented the modifications for the KTLA AVR-1.

The Library of Congress contacted us as they had heard of our underway Astaire Restoration. We did play their two-inch of the Eisenhower Dedication. The LOC Eisenhower tape had been greatly damaged because of their many attempts to play it (the recordings are gibberish when the Low-Band Standard is used).

So I searched down and found the second two-inch copy at the Eisenhower Library. Dan Einstein arranged its transfer to UCLA. The tape was virgin and apparently never been played.

Transfers were made by Don Kent to the digital D-2 format (the Sony digital vtr machines were so new, they came directly from the floor of the NAB Convention). Post editing was done at AME, Hollywood (the first digital edit!). The resulting digital masters are deposited at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

The final edited D2 recordings are many steps above what you saw - we wanted to preserve it just as we saw it coming off the two-inch machine. The color resolution of Eisenhower's ruddish face is amazing. But the color from the Burbank TK-41's for "An Evening with Fred Astaire" is even better.

The three Astaire specials were restored and preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. They have never been available on DVD and face many seemingly unsurmountable rights issues.

Thanks for your interest and appreciated comments.

Ed Reitan

[W.B.]

The audio on the Eisenhower dedication, from what I've read on this site, was 5 kHz telco audio - which would not be surprising, given its being recorded in Burbank. As for that sound, I've learned from this page that the frequency response - or if you prefer, "bandwidth" - was 50 Hz - 5 kHz. In any event, it sure looked good for something 51 years old. And the picture looked rather coming from the TK-41, from what I've read of the varying quality from studio to studio.

Meanwhile, I was marveling at the replication of the color slides courtesy of the TK-26 film chain. I've understood that not even their 1960's TK-27 came close to this level, but GE's PE-24 and later PE-240 did that decade.

[classicradios]

That was great, Thanks for the links! I just downloaded and watched the program on the Roundie.

[kvflyer]

Originally Posted by classicradios

That was great, Thanks for the links! I just downloaded and watched the program on the Roundie.

How cool is that? Great...

[Sandy G]

Something I've often noticed is how much BETTER color TV pictures looked than corresponding B&W ones did...Even the earliest ones like this, seemed so much more "stable", & less prone to overloading from light sources, reflections, etc, & didn't have that harsh, stark, "Copy of a copy of a copy of a copy" look to them.. and no, I don't think its that B&W was for the most part recorded on "kinescopes", either... It's a subtle thing,& kinda hard to describe...

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Something I've often noticed is how much BETTER color TV pictures looked than corresponding B&W ones did...Even the earliest ones like this, seemed so much more "stable", & less prone to overloading from light sources, reflections, etc, & didn't have that harsh, stark, "Copy of a copy of a copy of a copy" look to them.. and no, I don't think its that B&W was for the most part recorded on "kinescopes", either... It's a subtle thing,& kinda hard to describe...

As has been discussed somewhere else on the forum, a good part of this is due to running the image orthicons "below the knee" in the color cameras plus using gamma corrector circuits in the color cameras.

Black and white cameras depended on an approximate gamma correction from the effect of secondary electron redistribution in the image orthicon, which resulted in bright objects being surrounded with a dark halo, and dark objects having a washed-out central area away from the edges. This wouldn't do for color, because, for example, a red object would have a cyan halo. This same kind of charge redistribution occurred in early Xerox machines, hence the "copy of a copy" look.

[old_tv_nut]

There were some illustrations of image orthicon halo in this thread:
http://www.videokarma.org/showthread...ee#post2365603
but the attachments seem to have disappeared.