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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
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