Another Beauty Shot…Norelco PC60
Here is another of Parker Smith’s portraits of a few of my cameras. This PC60 began life at CBS Studio 52 in New York, just around the corner from Studio 50, The Ed Sullivan Theater. It later went to CBS Washington and was used on the White House mobile unit. Enjoy and share!
The Wildest Camera Hustle You Have EVER SEEN! Just in case you missed it, here’s ‘Tonight’ camera man Kurt Decker handling his pedestal camera like a jitterbug partner! The action starts as 1:09 and is frankly, amazing. This was posted in the comment section on the earlier story on Kurt. Thanks to Andy Rose for […]
State Of The Art Television: 1961 & The Ampex Editec System This great 1961 demo tape from KTTV in Los Angeles gives us one of the most thorough run throughs of video switching effects and video capabilities of that era available. Keep in mind though, videotape was still a cut and splice process till 1963 […]
This the first time I have ever seen close ups like this and we even have a photo of the camera in it’s carrying mode. This is the second version of this camera and is probably from 1942 or ’43. In the last photo, we see the early, 1940 version of the camera with it’s […]
A Guided Tour Of Television’s First Studio…NBC’s 3H, 1939 The things I have learned from NBC vets, and visits to 30 Rock, allow us to see this old video with new eyes. This is an RCA promotional film from 1939 designed to introduce television to the public and would have been broadcast on NBC during […]
you should have a small book made of these…available for purchase. Include info and the photos. đ
Wish I had these when I was drawing cameras in high school, excellent detail.
If only they could talk about the things they’ve seen….
Got me wondering which camera (and operator) got the infamous shot of Nixon leaving on the helicopter in August 1974? Any guesses?
When I taught at Columbia College in the television department back in 1980 s, we inherited a set of three of these cameras from WTTW, the Chicago PBS station, where our chairman Edward L. Morris had been in charge for many years. They looked great, but had to be maintained like Ferraris!
Bouncing letters….C…B…S….eye wipes and …”This CBS program is brought to you in COLOR !!!”
Bruce Ferrell …made edgy and cool by the Identitones audio logo performed on a Moog by the legendary Eric Siday. That was a creative time.
Looks like it could be [should’ve been] the cover photo for the PC-60 brochure!
When I was at CBS Wash, the company kept a “sports” truck based there to deal with major White House and Capitol events. When I started it was the 4A, which was sent to California to serve as studio control room while new ones were built. We then got the 1A after its appearance in the movie “Black Sunday”. We eventually got Thompson triax cameras on that truck. Chances are I’ve had my hands on that camera. Glad to see she’s looking good and enjoying her retirement!
Dan Cooper: Nowadays it’s cam ops on their smartphones during a broadcast. Generally Facebook.
One major advantage was that they operated at lower light levels which made studios much more comfortable.
I’m also diggin’ the cam head . . .
Aaaaah…! me encanta este tipo de cĂĄmaras NORELCO, desearia poder tener una en casa…
Mechanical zoom and focus.
On looking at this again, I am amazed at the size of the “Norelco” logo, it is proportionately much larger than the “RCA Color Televison” logos on the RCA cameras. The Philips logo on the Philips version was only about an inch high.
The hardware looks like an NBC setup meaning the focus was on the left panhandle and the crank on the right.
I love the “CBS gray” treatment the network gave to its Norelco cameras — at least to the PC-60s. I’m unsure whether their PC-70s were painted this way, too. I gather CBS painted the cameras after receiving them from Norelco versus having the job done at the factory. Soon after CBS migrated to SK-110s, a camera that CBS co-developed with Hitachi, I visited a maintenance shop in the basement of Television City. While chatting with a friendly engineer, I mentioned how much I admired the “CBS COLOR” placards that adorned the Norelcos. He attempted to find one for me, thinking a stash of them existed, but came up empty handed.
C H 4 in Dallas was a was not an O & O so we did not have that fun our first color cam were GE, took 4 to Carry it.
This is one of the best TV cameras ever!