DC Video

02/07/2025

What does IVC 1" videotape, pre-type A 1" videotape, Eddie Harris, Roy Ayres, Joe Brazil, Joe Henderson, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl (Father) Hines and Herbie Hancock have in common? They each were a part of the recent completion of rare, never before seen interviews, performances and audience Q&A in an informal setting from the early to mid 1970's. Each program has been digitized and preserved for posterity.
More details to follow.

DC Video specializes in the transfer and reformatting and digitization of 2 inch Quadruplex, 1/2 inch EIAJ, 3/4 inch Umatic and other legacy videotape formats.

01/28/2025

We attended an invitation-only screening of "Becoming Led Zepplin" last night at the Chinese. What a show! Our two-inch Quad material (two segments) looked pretty good on the big screen and one piece had one of the longer duration songs of this two-hour spectacular.
This movie has a lot of archival material within. I suggest you go and see it if you like Led Zepplin!

Here is a news piece from last night:

https://ledzepnews.com/2025/01/28/heres-who-attended-the-hollywood-premiere-of-becoming-led-zeppelin/

More details to follow.
We are proud to have contributed to this motion picture and our name is on the end credit roll!
www.dcvideo.com

01/23/2025

For those who crave 50 year-old extremely obsolete videotape recordings, here is today's offering. Not pretty but nonetheless, another snapshot of local PBS member stations as we contribute towards a deeper-dive coupled with unique metadata in this preservation of "Public Broadcasting" programming.
Tony Garrett, long-time fixture of North Texas broadcasting, is a part of this production.

This is an off-the-air recording of a segment from the November, 1974 Auction for KERA-TV channel 13, Dallas/Fort Worth Texas. A one-inch Ampex VR series low...

01/16/2025

The tale of the missing source tape: It's who you know in this town that helps a lot!

This past year, we were given a project to transfer a variety series from 2" Quad videotape to file. All went well but I reported early on that one tape had breakup recorded in on a critical performance. There was no way to get around it. It was a two-inch to two-inch master issue. No cutaway such as to an audience shot was possible.

The content owner was advised but had no idea where the source tape was that made this errant E-E master (a cut down version). A DB was pulled. It was the same. A 3/4" office copy was pulled late last year. The same issue existed.

I started to think who might have a rundown of the guests on this particular show that might lend a clue as to what the original air master source tape might be. Only one individual came to mind. This industry colleague across town had years ago acquired the promotional paperwork for this 50 year old production series from a defunct organization's file cabinet. So on a hunch, I reached out to this contact just before Christmas, giving him the show guest list and performances as seen on this bad tape just in case he comes up with some idea.

About a week later, he lets me know that the information I provided matched a certain edited master's original air date rundown. Voila! Maybe we have something here. But the client had no record of this element in his vault here in Los Angeles. Zip. Nada.

I had worked with a gentleman in this particular client's vault before and asked him if and only if he had the time, could he do a visual search of the inventory item by item over multiple shelves and see if he could see an original element with this exact show number and air date as seen on the rundown paperwork? One must understand that this effort in a cold/dark vault is not easy and was not an officially mandated task. But he did it anyway, thanks to our previous working relationships. A while later, he surfaces with the exact tape as I had described! I could not believe it. Immediate contact was made with the content holder for a release of this material to us for pickup. This tape was indeed the original E-E master for air and it did not have the breakup-IT WAS CLEAN! Using the third-generation Ampex AVR-1, new files were made across multiple drives. Two drives were hand-delivered yesterday from our office here in Burbank to the A-list talent agency in Los Angeles who had been patiently waiting for this better element. It was a good day!

The moral of the story here is: Keep digging. Your client may end up being very happy!

www.dcvideo.com

01/12/2025

This is what happens when you fire the Chyron department.

12/23/2024

The long wait may be coming to an end in so far as to announcing DC Video's contributions to this film. When the NDA is dropped, we will post it here!

Directed by: Bernard MacMahonWritten by: Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourtyCast: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John BonhamTickets on Sale Now...

12/19/2024

If you like seeing vintage TV equipment such as the GE PE-400 cameras, the GE PE-240 vidicon film chain, Sarkes-Tarzian switchers and the second & third-generation Ampex VTR's, all the while shot with an early S/N RCA TK-76, then we have a show for you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAb4YldvEl4

www.dcvideo.com

DC Video specializes in the transfer and reformatting and digitization of 2 inch Quadruplex, 1/2 inch EIAJ, 3/4 inch Umatic and other legacy videotape formats.

12/14/2024

Low-band monochrome 7.5 I.P.S. recording made on an RCA TR 5 VTR in 1974. The record engineer had no idea that color information was being laid down to tape! Thank you Ampex AVR-1.

https://youtu.be/A6cr8SWSRJU

11/21/2024

Now, how many 2" dupes using the second generation Ampex VR-1200's did you say you needed right away?

Today, we have enough AVR-1's to replicate this photo but not enough floor space!

www.dcvideo.com

11/01/2024

We are always grateful to be involved in a restoration project. We have not seen the BluRay product yet nor have we seen the completed "bonuses" as listed below:

Product Extras :
Interviews with Mark Quigley (John H. Mitchell Television Curator, UCLA Film & Television Archive), Maya Montañez Smukler (Head of the UCLA Film & Television Archive Research and Study Center), and Amanda Reyes (Made for TV Mayhem)
Demonstration of 2" video technology, featuring David Crosthwait (DC Video)

If you have a chance to watch this production, please let us know what you think. Thank you.

Virtually unseen since their late-night airings on ABC television in 1973, The Classic Ghosts is a series of five feature-length teleplays, shot live on videotape.

10/12/2024

For Mark, Kris and others: Here are two vector scope displays. See individual picture descriptions.

www.dcvideo.com

10/12/2024

C.I.S. Composite Image Systems. R.I.P. 2011.

10/12/2024

Today was a good day. Why? The client's D-1 demo tape played fine. No, this tape had not been stored in a climate controlled vault but rather, in a closet. You see, D-1 tape is very thin and this format, which was one foot in the grave even when it was the "hot thing" 30 + years ago, is very unforgiving. For good playback today, it takes luck, proper alignment of the planets and the correct "phase of the moon". Optimal tracking is very finicky. Sometimes you can not get audio and video peaked simultaneously. But this afternoon, we had green channel condition lights.

Life is good!

www.dcvideo.com

10/11/2024

A new client sent to us several 2" Quad reels consisting of low-band mono and high-band color standards on both 7.5 and 15 I.P.S.
One reel had the unthinkable combination of the following:
7.5 I.P.S. speed
Low-band monochrome standard
Color information (with burst)

The AVR-1 (with one of the rare 5 mil MK XX heads) was able to fully recover a good looking color playback. I had done this before with the 1964 Tonight Show but not at 7.5 I.P.S. I don't think our client ever thought he'd ever see this recording playback in color, but he did and said the following:

"Received the tapes and files today. Truly amazed that they played at all and how good the quality is considering. Very much appreciate the time and effort you put in.

Thanks again for resurrecting these!"

We will raise a glass to this client and to the AVR-1 design team tonight!

DC Video specializes in the transfer and reformatting and digitization of 2 inch Quadruplex, 1/2 inch EIAJ, 3/4 inch Umatic and other legacy videotape formats.

10/09/2024

Looks like Ft. Myers Florida will be just on the southern fringes of this hurricane.
Let's hope WBBH stays dry!
www.dcvideo.com

09/25/2024

Today's client project. Let's see if anyone can guess what's going on here!

www.dcvideo.com

09/17/2024

Jerry Lewis in "The Jazz Singer"

Many of you already are aware that every project we work on has it's own challenges and rewards in this business of archival videotape recovery and preservation. Here is one such endeavor that encompassed Two-Inch Quad videotape, kinescope and audiotape playback.

We were fortunate that it all came together and Mr. Jerry Lewis himself was pleased with the end product!

www.dcvideo.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1KFWgHNU2Y

A little featurette about the restoration of Jerry Lewis' "The Jazz Singer", at DC Video, Burbank, CA.

09/10/2024

The miracle of videotape!

www.dcvideo.com