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NBC Television’s First Assignable Control Room, 5H

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Eyes Of A Generation.com

NBC Television’s First “Ingest” Center…Studio 5H

In video production, ingest is a relatively new term which simply means to bring a new program or it’s elements into a studio or facility. In December of 1953, NBC completed Studio 5H to do just that. It was a control room into which breaking news stories and remote broadcast could be fed, and switched directly to air or to another studio’s control room.

Of course fully produced programs that came in from Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago , or other originating cities went right into Master Control, and 5H was not at all in competition with that function. Having a dedicated control room capable of handling multiple live feeds was a huge help in producing shows like ‘Wide, Wide World with Dave Garroway’ which always had several live remote feeds from across the nation.

5H did not have a studio for productions, but it did have a small room that could either do audio only narration or, on camera narration. It’s most remembered as NBC’s flash news studio and in the clip, you can see the very first moments of NBC’s Kennedy assassination coverage coming from 5H. There appears to be two cameras in 5H for this, but usually, there was only one and it was always on, as this was the “always hot” studio.
http://youtu.be/vq_GCuOlLuo?t=32s

This facility also had control of it’s own telecine equipment and could insert film and slides. Starting in the 70s, I think WNBC used this studio for it’s five minute overnight local newscasts. Below is the story of it’s start in the January 1954 issue of “Radio News”.



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5 responses to “NBC Television’s First Assignable Control Room, 5H”

  1. John Schipp

    5H fed the Today Show all videotape and commercials. Tape ops spoke directly to Nick the TD in 5H rather than 3B. This is going back to the early ’70’s, so I might be a bit foggy.

  2. Tim Stepich

    Question for Dennis or Bob, was 5H unique from other production control rooms at 30 Rock because it could better handle remote feeds that, until the late 70s or early 80s, would be non-synchronous video signals? Was that the preferred control room to lock into an external feed?

  3. Bart Dellarmi

    The 2014 definition of “ingest” in the broadcast news world, is to “digitize” raw footage or feed elements into a server….

  4. Dennis Degan

    BTW, behind Ingest (and the former location of Studio 5H) was the location of the small flash studio designated Studio 5HN, used for among other things the early Kennedy assassination news reports: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/11012471914/

  5. Dennis Degan

    I have to disagree with your definition of ‘ingest’ Bobby. Ingest at NBC is where incoming feeds are RECORDED for use by video editors in the area known as DPS: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/13758839593/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/13758822275/ Studio 5H is referred to as a ‘release studio’, where programming is coordinated for immediate production to air. Basically, it’s a control room that has no physical studio, although that’s not a strictly accurate definition in the case of 5H (it had a very small adjacent studio with a camera or two).
    Here’s an NBC drawing showing where Studio 5H was located on the 5th floor of 30 Rock (until 1974). Interestingly, this location is almost exactly where Ingest is now; and my edit room is about 10 feet away: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/12996851123/

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