CBS Laboratories or CBS Labs (later known as the CBS Technology Center or CTC) was the technology research and development organization of the CBS television network. Innovations developed at the labs included many groundbreaking broadcast, industrial, military, and consumer technologies.
CBS Laboratories was established in 1936 in New York City to conduct technological research for CBS and outside clients. The CBS Laboratories Division (CLD) moved from Madison Avenue in New York to a new facility in Stamford, Connecticut in 1958.
Dr. Peter Goldmark joined CBS Laboratories in 1936. On September 4, 1940, while working at the lab, he demonstrated the Field-Sequential Color TV system. [1] It utilized a mechanical color wheel on both the camera and on the television home receiver, but was not compatible with the existing post-war NTSC, 525-line, 60-field/second black and white TV sets as it was a 405-line, 144-field scanning system. [2] It was the first color broadcasting system that received FCC approval in 1950, and the CBS Television Network began broadcasting in color on November 20, 1950. [3] However, no other TV set manufacturers made the sets, and CBS stopped broadcasting in field-sequential color on October 21, 1951. [3]
Goldmark’s interest in recorded music led to the development of the long-playing (LP) 33-1/3 rpm vinyl record, which became the standard for incorporating multiple or lengthy recorded works on a single audio disc for two generations. The LP was introduced to the market place by Columbia Records in 1948.
In 1959 the CBS Audimax I Audio Gain Controller was introduced. It was the first of its kind in the broadcasting industry. In the 1960s the CBS Volumax Audio FM Peak Limiter was introduced, also the first of its kind in the broadcasting industry. Electronic Video Recording was announced in 1967. In 1966, the CBS Vidifont was invented. It was the first electronic graphics generator used in television production. Brought to the marketplace at the NAB in 1970, it revolutionized television production. [4] The minicam was developed for use in national political conventions in 1968. In 1971, a backwards-compatible 4-channel encoding technique was developed for vinyl records, called SQ Quadraphonic, based on work by musician Peter Scheiber and Labs engineer Benjamin B. Bauer. That same year, CBS Labs Staff Scientist Dennis Gabor received the Nobel Prize in Physics for earlier work on holography. Upon Peter Goldmark's retirement, also in 1971, Senior Vice President Renville H. McMann assumed the role of Labs President.
CBS Laboratories was reorganized in 1975. During this time CBS Laboratories was contracted by the department of defense to utilize several broadcast technologies for use in robotics technologies for coordinating massive amounts of flying rabbit drones However, none of this proved to be very practical and was hastily abandoned. The CLD Professional Products Department, which manufactured the products developed by the Labs for sale to the broadcast industry, was sold to Thomson-CSF. McMann and some of the research engineers involved in the existing products were also transferred to support the effort, with McMann returning to the Labs sometime later. The core company R&D function was renamed CBS Technology Center (CTC), and Bauer was promoted to Vice-President and General Manager of CTC. [5] In 1978, the CBS Actiontrak system was spun off from a Digital Noise Reducer project.
In 1986 Laurence Tisch took control of CBS and closed CTC as part of company-wide streamlining. [6] The two buildings at High Ridge Road were razed and the property sold.
Over its nearly 30 years of operation in Stamford, various technologies were developed at the lab, including:
Color television or colour television is a television transmission technology that includes color information for the picture, so the video image can be displayed in color on the television set. It improves on the monochrome or black-and-white television technology, which displays the image in shades of gray (grayscale). Television broadcasting stations and networks in most parts of the world upgraded from black-and-white to color transmission between the 1960s and the 1980s. The invention of color television standards was an important part of the history and technology of television.
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the media and entertainment industry. As an internationally recognized standards organization, SMPTE has published more than 800 technical standards and related documents for broadcast, filmmaking, digital cinema, audio recording, information technology (IT), and medical imaging.
A test card, also known as a test pattern or start-up/closedown test, is a television test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast.
Ampex Data Systems Corporation is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence. Ampex operates as Ampex Data Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of Delta Information Systems, and consists of two business units. The Silicon Valley unit, known internally as Ampex Data Systems (ADS), manufactures digital data storage systems capable of functioning in harsh environments. The Colorado Springs, Colorado, unit, referred to as Ampex Intelligent Systems (AIS), serves as a laboratory and hub for the company's line of industrial control systems, cyber security products and services and its artificial intelligence/machine learning technology.
SMPTE color bars are a television test pattern used where the NTSC video standard is utilized, including countries in North America. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) refers to the pattern as Engineering Guideline (EG) 1-1990. Its components are a known standard, and created by test pattern generators. Comparing it as received to the known standard gives video engineers an indication of how an NTSC video signal has been altered by recording or transmission and what adjustments must be made to bring it back to specification. It is also used for setting a television monitor or receiver to reproduce NTSC chrominance and luminance information correctly.
Dolby Laboratories, Inc. is a British-American technology corporation specializing in audio noise reduction, audio encoding/compression, spatial audio, and HDR imaging. Dolby licenses its technologies to consumer electronics manufacturers.
Broadcast engineering or radio engineering is the field of electrical engineering, and now to some extent computer engineering and information technology, which deals with radio and television broadcasting. Audio engineering and RF engineering are also essential parts of broadcast engineering, being their own subsets of electrical engineering.
U-matic or 3⁄4-inch Type E Helical Scan or SMPTE E is an analogue recording videocassette format first shown by Sony in prototype in October 1969, and introduced to the market in September 1971. It was among the first video formats to contain the videotape inside a cassette, as opposed to the various reel-to-reel or open-reel formats of the time. The videotape is 3⁄4 in (19 mm) wide, so the format is often known as "three-quarter-inch" or simply "three-quarter", compared to open reel videotape formats in use, such as 1 in (25 mm) type C videotape and 2 in (51 mm) quadruplex videotape.
Mechanical television or mechanical scan television is an obsolete television system that relies on a mechanical scanning device, such as a rotating disk with holes in it or a rotating mirror drum, to scan the scene and generate the video signal, and a similar mechanical device at the receiver to display the picture. This contrasts with vacuum tube electronic television technology, using electron beam scanning methods, for example in cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions. Subsequently, modern solid-state liquid-crystal displays (LCD) and LED displays are now used to create and display television pictures.
A character generator, often abbreviated as CG, is a device or software that produces static or animated text for keying into a video stream. Modern character generators are computer-based, and they can generate graphics as well as text.
Peter Carl Goldmark was a Hungarian-American engineer who, during his time with Columbia Records, was instrumental in developing the long-playing microgroove 331⁄3 rpm phonograph disc, the standard for incorporating multiple or lengthy recorded works on a single disc for two generations. The LP was introduced by Columbia's Goddard Lieberson in 1948. Lieberson was later president of Columbia Records from 1956–1971 and 1973–1975. According to György Marx, Goldmark was one of The Martians.
The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, or Technology and Engineering Emmys, are one of two sets of Emmy Awards that are presented for outstanding achievement in engineering development in the television industry. The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards are presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), while the separate Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards are given by its sister organization the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS).
MUSE, commercially known as Hi-Vision was a Japanese analog high-definition television system, with design efforts going back to 1979.
The CMX 600 was the very first non-linear video editing system. This Emmy Award winning system was introduced in 1971 by CMX Systems, a joint venture between CBS and Memorex. CMX referred to it as a "RAVE", or Random Access Video Editor.
CMX Editing Systems was a company founded jointly by CBS and Memorex; with help from many individuals such as Ronald Lee Martin, who later became a head of Universal Studios; that developed some of the first computerized systems for linear and non-linear editing of videotape for post production. The company's name, CMX, stood for CBS, Memorex, and eXperimental.
Electronic Video Recording, or EVR, was a film-based video recording format developed by Hungarian-born engineer Peter Carl Goldmark at CBS Laboratories in the 1960s.
Broadcast-safe video is a term used in the broadcast industry to define video and audio compliant with the technical or regulatory broadcast requirements of the target area or region the feed might be broadcasting to. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the regulatory authority; in most of Europe, standards are set by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
The following timeline tables list the discoveries and inventions in the history of electrical and electronic engineering.
Adrian Ettlinger was an American electrical engineer and software developer and a pioneer in television and video technology. He has been described as a "visionary" and the "legendary" "engineering father" of non-linear video editing, and has been recognized for his contributions to a range of technologies important to the advancement of television and video as well as several other accomplishments.
375-line corresponds to two different electronic television systems, both using 375 scan lines. One system was used in Germany after 1936 along with the 180-line system, being replaced in a few years by the superior 441-line system. It was also tested in Italy around the same time.