[BC] Re: TV Network Audio

[dcfwtx@aol.com]

When I was at NBC Burbank, the daytime Today Show, game shows, soaps, and the Nightly News, were tape delayed from the east incoming telco feed, zone delayed three hours, and replayed to the west coast stations. Two 2" copies were made of each program (however, sometimes half hour game shows that were back to back, were taped on a sixty minute or ninety minute reel, and played in a sixty or ninety minute chunk).  When airing was finished, usually one of these 2" copies went to Hawaii for a one week delayed airing, and from there, it went to Alaska. The 2" tape stock eventually came back to Burbank for more re-use. By the way, the first frame store, as I understand it, was at NBC Burbank, for synchronization of the incoming feed from the east. It was an NEC FS 10. It stood in one vertical rack, full! There were two of them there. I remember seeing that introduced at the NAB in Houston in the mid seventies. At NBC, it tended to burp and freeze up many times when the video and/!
or sync incoming from New York was distorted. Transmission would dump the frame store (bypass) when it was acting up, causing huge servo disturbances on the RCA or Ampex 2" VTR's. 
 
The prime time shows that were on tape or film originals, played from Burbank for the west coast copies, with better quality. Basically, when a master tape show was delivered for use, three 2" copies were made, with the edited master and a dub sent to New York, and the other two 2" dubs were aired in Burbank. TCR 100 cart machines rolled in all spots, paired such as the 2" reel to reel machines: one primary, one backup. So, basically, Los Angeles had good wide band audio on most of the prime time programs that were tape or film origination (not delayed from the east). This improvement probably was somewhat realized all up and down the west coast. I believe that San Diego had the same good audio as LA due to a direct microwave link from Burbank transmission. 
 
As I understand it, the outgoing dedicated circuit going east, from Burbank to New York, for the Tonight Show (during it's Burbank origination days) and for other uses such as network news, was an experimental arrangement with AT&T to diplex full bandwidth audio, as opposed to the standard 5 kc (or so) audio. Some one else here, such as Peter, may have more clarification on this arrangement. Eventually, all AT&T audio was diplexed, as also the wide use of domestic satellites for network distribution became common practice. Then, shortly thereafter, NBC went to a full Ku band network distribution system. 
 
In Texas as a youth, the audio on the three network feeds into the affiliates, was pure garbage. When I finally heard the Tonight Show band in full TV high fi later, I was amazed at the improvement. 
 
Was Miles City, Montana the longest in circuit miles from NYC?
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey Kopp <jeffreykopp at att.net>
To: broadcast at radiolists.net
Sent: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 01:22:26 -0700
Subject: [BC] Re: TV Network Audio


[Hultsman quoting Adams:] 
 
>>...do any of you buckeroo's or buckerette's remember when the networks >>went from the poor 8kc loops (at best) to better multiplexed audio even >>before satellites? 
> 
>That was when the regular networks switched to the video imbedded audio as >PBS had done to get the NPR radio network going. I remember locally when >the Johnny Carson theme was played... 
 
When Carson was still in NYC, the audio here at almost the far end of the network was awful, even unintelligible at times. 
 
Early one morn in the late sixties, a space launch was scrubbed unexpectedly, and we were treated to half an hour of undelayed network schedule feed (a "Beverly Hillbillies" rerun). It was quite ghosty and also had nearly-unintelligible audio. Three hours later, the same episode appeared again, sharp and clear as usual. 
 
I then realized that most of what we saw in the Northwest originated in Los Angeles from separate copies of tape and film shown the same day in the East, shipped one way or the other in advance, similarly to how Hawaii was served. 
 
But the other same-day, tape-delayed network programs we saw (news, Today Show, etc.) were not so obviously degraded as Carson. They must have been engineered to compensate for the cross-country haul: simple sound, plain, highly-lighted sets, and restricted motion. 
 
(Trivia Q. What city was the furthest in circuit-miles from NY? Hint: A'ways east of us.)  
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