The Golden Age of Television

Although there are several video to film technologies available, the most widely used method has been kinescope process. The performances contained in this set were shot live, and the video feed, displayed on a monitor, was photographed with a film camera using positive or reversal stock. Although this may seem like a simple and straightforward process, a number of problems had to be overcome to obtain acceptable results. First, in 525/60 NTSC video systems, theme must be compensation for the difference in frame rates between the film, recording at 24 fps, and the video, at 30 fps. This was accomplished by systematically eliminating 12 video fields each second. Second, the camera's shutter had to be synchronized between the video fields to avoid the appearance of a thick black bar at the top of the frame. Third, the inherent loss of resolution in the video monitoring display had to be compensated for by the use of video image enhancement circuits, which add sharpness. Finally, the difference in gamma characteristics between the film and video system had to be reduced before it reached the kinescope. This provided a light-transfer characteristic that was appropriate to the film's gamma curve. Once the camera's film stock was exposed, it was sent to the lab for ultrafast developing and printing to facilitate quick transmission of the program to other time zones.