1950's: BBC vs Ampex
 

For six years BBC expends unknown public monies & manpower trying to build a VTR

While Ampex solves the problem in a few months at no public expense.

At Ampex , it was just a side project as company was stretched with Audio, Instrumentation recorders
and Mag Film Sound projects.

Even after availability of of practical alternative product, BBC continues to throw Public money
at their doomed project until late 50's.

Yeah, well, Ampex was a company full of young, eager engineers who didn't know/care what they were trying to do was "Impossible"... They took that as a challenge....The Beeb, OTOH, was likely full of old-school British "Empire" types, Lord Plushbottom/Captain Bly characters, who thought they could simply ORDER a VTR to be made, & Thy Will Be Done...

Ampex also started on VT work in 1952 according to that paper. Even the very telented team of Ginsberg, Dolby et al didn't crack the problem in a few months.

Back in 1952 there was no clearcut route to recording video on magnetic tape, it was very much a research problem. Quadruplex machines worked, but were VERY expensive. This cost may have been acceptable to US networks with their timezone problems but was a deterrent to European broadcasters. Had some form of linear recording worked, it would likely have been quite a bit less expensive to build though the tape costs would have been high. I suspect this was the reason why the BBC pursued VERA until 1958.

It would be hard to find the total R&D costs for either Quadruplex or VERA. From what I know of the BBC Research labs the amount of expenditure would have been pretty small. A barely measureable fraction of the BBC's total budget.

If you want a different comparison, look at standards conversion. BBC Research and Designs departments produced the world's first all electronic standards converters between 525/60 and 625/50. They did it in time for the 1968 Mexico olympics where it was urgently needed. I don't know if there was any work at all in the US on this subject.

Yes, time shifting the big catalyst, then using Venture Capital & IPO
for funding in Silicon Valley (before silicon) where critical mass existed.
Wald Selsted (30 patents) had brainstorm for rotating heads.

AFAIK the first use of rotating heads was a for a different purpose. On the Tonschreiber for pitch shifting. Ampex went up some blind alleys before they got to quadruplex. Their first rotating head attempt used what they called "arcuate" scanning. This was with the axis of rotation passing through the tape. The important change was to change the axis to make it parallel with the tape.

OK, that being the case, how were standards conversion accomplished before 1968? Especially for the first Telstar 2-Way exchange when 405 and 819 line video were still around?

Haven't got the exact date to hand but prior to c1963 all conversion was optical. In other words a camera pointed at a monitor. Not very satisfactory but the best that could be done at the time. Even worse if you try to do it in colour. The only other method wasn't real time. It was to telerecord on film, then telecine on the output standard. Not really an improvement on optical conversion.

c1963 the BBC developed the world's first linestore converter. This used analogue methods to store a whole line of video. It was used primarily for 625>405 conversion. In principle this method could be used for any pair of standards that share the same field rate. This design was the basis of the analogue fieldstore converter that was first deployed in 1968.

Hence in answer to your question, the early US<>Europe satellie links used optical conversion.

Well, not urgently enough for marketplace incentive to produce an electronic standards convertor.
Collectivism to the "rescue":
Enter BBC - funded by $6b/yr licensing tax.
What do they do with all that money? Create Public Sector jobs.
What do they do at these jobs? Keep working on a failed VTR project for 2 more years after Broadcast-Quality VTR available.

But they ceased project soon after to focus on money making products only to pick up again very near 1956

...while BBC maintained Money-burn for 6 years

Anyone know of a technical reference on the background on that first U.S./Europe exchange and how it was accomplished? I remember watching both the U.S. to Europe and Europe to U.S. transmissions on one of the local stations in D.C., where I was living at the time. And, I don't recall any artifacts in that program or the other early ones I recall (A program originating from NET and airing on BBC in 1965 about the use of TV in schools ( I saw that while visiting London in May 1965), and of course the Churchill funeral.

Ah, you must be referring to the British Broadcasting Communists, an organisation that is little known this side of the pond. I reckon that $230 per household per year (about 60 cents per day) is pretty good value for 4 national TV channels, about 7 national radio channels, a bunch of local radio stations and what was the pioneering and probably most extensive online offering of any broadcaster anywhere. None of it interrupted by commercials either. (Please note BBC World TV is a commerical operation that carries advertising)

I don't know about current figures but through the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s the BBC had a reputation for being able to produce programmes at a lower cost than its commercial rival in the UK.

When will a US broadcaster stage a music festival that rivals the Proms? When will a US broadcaster run a mainstream radio channel that comes close to BBC Radio 4? Neither of these would be commercially viable but both add hugely to the quality of life over here.

Burning, in the sense of keeping a candle dimly alight. I doubt if figures are readily available but BBC engineering research probably used less than 1% of the BBC's budget and VERA was some small fraction of that. To get some idea of the work done by BBC Research have a look at some of the reports http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/rdreports.shtml As with all research, some of it will have led up blind alleys while other work will turn out to be very useful. No real way to tell in advance.

Laugh-In (NTSC videotape color) broadcast on BBC2-625 1969-1974,
Using their electronic standards converter or B&W 16mm kinephoto?

This is a Regressive Tax that hits the Working Class the hardest (those least interested in BBC programming)

Meanwhile BBC refuses to reveal top salaries - though some are suspected of pulling $3,000,000/yr

Hope those making $3,000,000 pay their $230 License (which goes right back in their pocket :))

This is why we have to keep fighting to eliminate remaining Govt subsidies to PBS

Here we go again -

Tax-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Refuses to release Salary details

Are they matching the obscene 7-figure salaries at BBC & PBS?

Given that the biggest take up of expensive cable/satellite subscription TV packages in the UK is amongst the lowest socio-economic groups it would seem that they are willing to spend a lot more than $230/yr on TV. There is also a rule of thumb that you will see the largest TV sets in the smallest houses. Of course we ALL spend a lot more than that on TV because of the hidden costs of TV advertising. That applies even to those who never watch TV. I don't have any references to hand but some years ago it was reckoned that ITV (the main UK commerical channel) cost the average household more in their shopping bill than the BBC did in licence fee.

Broadcasting has to paid for somehow and in the UK we have the licence fee which ensures that the public service elements of broadcasting flourish as against the tiny PBS ghetto in the US. It's not a perfect arrangement, far from it, but perfection isn't attainable in this world.

The biggest driver of change in the media in the UK, as elsewhere, is the internet. The BBC embraced this early on and now has a very comprehensive offering (NB: Much of this is only available in the UK due to copyright restrictions) that has set the standard for others to follow.