Alan Rucker of CVTV tapes Rocky's testimony

Those who remember The Lord ofthe Universe - a 60-minute docu-mentary whose subject was theyoung guru Maharaj Ji's descentupon the Houston Astrodome inNovember '73 will recognize thesame video verity touch applied toTop Value Television's latest ven-ture - Gerald Ford's America. It'spart of a year's experiment backedby WNET and The TelevisionLaboratory to work with TVTV indeveloping new ways of workingwith low cost portable videotapetechnology . Five or more experi-mental projects are intended to becompleted by the end of the yearwhich will explore new approachesto broadcast journalism, the video-tape magazine, late night informa-tion-as-entertainment shows, fast-breaking news events, and short

They Found a New Guru

journalistic features . Gerald Ford'sAmerica is the first project to getunderway (with additional supportfrom WGBH in Boston) and it ishoped that by taking a closer lookat the traditional styles of broad-cast journalism to date, new andmore effective ways of presentinginformation may be developed .

TVTV, who first gained recogni-tion with their unconventionalporta-pak coverage of the 1972Republican and Democratic Nation-al Conventions, collaborated withthe Lab last year to produce TheLord of the Universe - television'sfirst nationally broadcast programrecorded entirely on half-inch tape .This past August, the fifteen mem-bers of the group began to preparefor Gerald Fords America by trav-eling to Washington to set up an

Betsy Ross

alternate news bureau which wouldfocus its attention on America'spolitical hub and the people withinthe new Ford Administration . Pack-ing equipment into the WhiteHouse, press conferences, meetingsof Con&Tess and embassy parties,TVTV is promising to furnish aglimpse of the Washington we don'tordinarily see - in a way we don'tordinarily see it .

Gerald Ford's America is beingrecorded on half-inch tape - 80 percent black-and-white and 20 percent color - to perhaps change theeconomics of broadcast journalismas well . The final 120 minutes oftape will be divided into four pro-grams : the first will examine thepublic image of Gerald and BettyFord and the intriguing process by(Continued on Page 7)

The New York State Council on theArts has awarded funds to theTelevision Laboratory for thefourth consecutive year since theLab's formation in February, 1972.The support, which totals $94,000,will be used primarily for the pro-duction of a first-of-its-kind 26-week series to air over WNET/13 .The series, which is scheduled tobegin airing in January, will show-case works by the video commun-ity, concentrating mainly on thoseproduced by New York State-basedartists.

Said Lab's Director DavidLoxton, "This grant from the Coun-cil for such a series enables us toexplore something we've believed infor a long time - that there is asignificant body of works beingproduced by independent videomakers that warrants weekly ex-posure on the public televisionsystem. We feel that audiences aredemonstrating an ever increasingawareness in the possibilities oftelevision and that this series willprovide a

me°ting place for the

Early dollars from NYSCA helped build Studio 46.

growth of such awareness."Funds were also made available

for the continuation of a short-termresidency program for several NewYork State artists (to be selectedlater in the year - see page 3), andfor the purchase of ConsolidatedVideo Systems' new time base cor-rector .

The New York State Council onthe Arts has played an importantrole in the Lab's'development as acenter for experiment and tech-nology . The first grant in 1972,made possible the purchase ofequipment needed to transformStudio 46 into a working labora-tory -- items included cameras,monitors, recorders, editing decks,and the Paik/Abe Synthesizer.Funds were also made available foran artist-access program whichenabled artists of all walks to ex-plore the Lab's facilities on a shortterm basis. In 1973, a subsequentgrant enabled the purchase of addi-tional equipment, a stipend for theresidency of Nam June Paik, andproduction funds for tie Lab! cow

Lydia Silman, NYSCA

tribution to the Council-fundedPBS series, CAROUSEL. The artist-access program continued throughthat year with Council support. In1974, NYSCA supported the pro-duction of the 90-minute livespecial, The Klevhion Sbow -- apanoramic look at the history oftelevision which explored, new ap-proaches to the information-as-entertainment format . It also madefunds available for the purchase ofthe CVS-500 time base corrector -a revolutionary piece of equipmentwhich = the high ualitytransfer of half-inch black-and-white tape to two-inch broadcasttape . Under the same grant, sixNew York State artists were chosento spend an extended period oftime in the Lab completing innova-tive projects . And a PIP-8 com-puter was purchased in order tomaximize the efficiency of studiofunctions while reducing andhumanizing the technology - asystem conceived by Nam JunePaik .

Lydia Silman, the Council'sActing Director of the TV/MediaProgram stated, "The New YorkState Council on the Arts has longsupported facilities such as the Lagin their encouragement of indepen-dent artists. We feel that this grantis a very timely one - artists andaudiences alike are ready for thekind of exposure the Lab's_ _weeklyseries will make possible ."

Weekly Series . . . . .In January, the Television Laboratory plans to begin aweekly series on WNET/13, showcasing a broad rangeof examples of innovative and creative utilization ofvideo and the television medium. This series will beoffered to as large an audience as possible, through thecooperation of the public television system. (Seeopposite page .)We are inviting everyone who is interested in

participating to send us their tapes. The TV Lab isequipped to handle most videotape formats, within thecurrent capabilities of time base correction to broad-cast quality. All tapes submitted should be originalmaterial or as high-quality dubs as possible .

Every tape submitted will be screened and consider-ed for broadcast on the series, which will run fromJanuary to June, 1975 . After screening, and, ifnecessary, transfer to 2" tape is completed, we willreturn your tapes as quickly as possible . If we decideto include your tape in the series, we will contact you.Any

tapeyou submit must be yours or material which

you have full permission to use, includingall

necessaryrights and clearances for public television broadcast .

Please send your tapes to Carol Brandenburg,Television Laboratory at WNET/13, 304 West 58th St .,New York, N.Y . 10019. Be sure to include thecompfeted form below and please allow at least sixweeks for return delivery . WA

Name

I Address

I

Title of Taps

Address

(If tape should be returned to a different address, please note.)

Phone Number

Running Time

Format

Artists-In-Residence . . . . .Following the successful initiation of a short-termartist-in-residency program last year, the TelevisionLaboratory at WNET/13 'Mshes to

offeragain this

season an opportunity for several artists to each spenda few weeks at the Lab working on a project of theirown design . Development, rehearsal and productioncosts and a stipend to the artist will be covered by theLab .We would like to receive written descriptions of

proposed projects, including estimates of equipment,amountVstudio time required and other people whomight be involved in a project, etc. Though we realizethis will be difficult, we would appreciate the pro-posals being as specific as possible, In addition, pleasesend resumes and information about any previousexperience and work.,

proposals will be submitted to an advisory panelfor evaluation, with final selection to be made by theLab staff as soon as possible thereafter. This artist-in-residency program will run between now and June of1975 and is open only to New York State residents. Itis funded by the New York State Council on the Arts .

Send your proposals and accompanying material toCarol Brandenburg, Television Laboratory atWNET/13, 304 West 58th St ., New York, N.Y . 10019.If you have any questions, please call the TV Lab at(212) 2624248.-4A

Peter Crown, Ph.D .

A vast amount of research has beendone to study the effects of televi-sion program content uponaudiences. A frequently employedmethod of study involves classi-fying shows according to contentcategories (such as Crime-Detective,Western, Comedy-Variety, Gameshows, etc .), and then assessingviewing patterns as to the amountof viewing done in each category bygroups of different ages, educationevels, places of residence and soon.

This method implies a basicpremise which states that the ef-fects of programming on viewinghabits are due to the overt contentof the programming . Radicallydifferent approaches to assessingviewing patterns have recently beensuggested . One of these approachesappeared in a recent article publish-ed in Wommunications Reseamb"entitled "An Information Theorytreasure for Television Program-ming" by James H. Watt, Jr . of theUniversity of Connecticut andRobert Droll of Rensselaer Poly-technic Institute .

Their method of approach is toconsider the lower-order elementsof program form, such as the fre-quency of occurrence of a given setlocation, and then to base a mea-sure of programming on the leastabstract elements that can be de-fined- In other words, a televisionprogram can be construed as asequence of visual and auditorystimuli over time, an approachwhich does not depend on inter-pretation of content .

The five basic measures used areVerbal Incidence (i.e . frequency ofcharacter verbalizations), VerbalTime, Set Time, Set Constraint, andNonverbal Dependence (i.e . visualemphasis) . These measures are com-bined with the concept of "en-tropy", which is defined as thedegree of uncertainty reduction inthe receiver (viewer) . The impor-tance of the entropy concept canbe illustrated by considering twoidentical camera shots of an emptymorn, one lasting twice as long as

Pear Crown

the other . After sedpg the room fora given amount of time, the viewercannot gain any additional informa-tion from the shot . Entropy, then,reflects both the form of the pro-gram in stimulus terms, and infor-mation processing by the viewer .

Putting this together, a programwith a Righ score on Verbal In-cidence Entropy would indicate "alarge number of character verbaliza-tions being randomly interspersed ."From the viewer's standpoint, thiswould imply a greater difficulty indiscriminating among charactersand in keeping up with their inter-relationships . Similar reasoning isinvoked for the other measures . SetIncidence Entro

for example,g,relates to the difficulty in recog-nizing spatial or visual locations .

These measures of rograni forumwere applied to 168 sows from 58series broadcast by the three com-mercial networks . In order to beuseful, the measures should bestable for different shows withinthe same series . This in fact is whathappened . Correlations for entropymeasures of different shows werefairly high, and were statisticallysignificant.

Usinv a statistical techniquecalled factor analysis, it was foundthat the entropy measures boiled

down to two factors . A show whichscored high on the DYNAMICSfactor would have many sets, muchintercutting, and a large number ofcharacters who speak frequently,but for short periods of time . TheUNFAMILIARITY factor has to dowith the degree familiarity withboth visual surroundings and withthe character on the screen . Thesetwo measures combined are re-ferred to as DYNUFAM.When applied to the 58 TV

series, the DYNUFA.M measuregives similar scores to shows thatseem to be similar on an intuitivebasis . There are in addition, differ-ences between shows in the same apriori category, such as situationcomedies . For example, Mary TylerMoore and That Girl are low onUNFAMILIARITY as comparedwith the Beverly Hillbillies andHogan's Heroes which are higher onUNFAMILIARITY . The authorspoint out that it is these non-intuitive differences which can bevaluable when the measure isapplied to the prediction of behav-ior, such as viewing preferences .As a test of DYNUFAM. as a

measure of program form, theauthors compared DYNUFAM withtwo other measures of program-ming - one assessing violencecontent and the other using a prioricategories (e.g . Westerns, - Quizshows, etc.) . Actual viewing pat-terns for these series were relatedmore closely to the DYNUFAMmeasures than to the other twomeasures .The implications of this researchare quite interesting . For example,

if it is known that a viewer has apreference for shows with certainDYNUFAM scores, one could moreaccurately assess which show hewould prefer from a choice ofseveral if the DYNUFA.M scores forthese other shows were known .Also, the fact that viewing patternsare related to a measure which iscompletely non-content oriented isin itself fascinating . This does notmean that DYNUFAM character-istics are the only ones which in-fluence a viewer's selection ofshows. It does mean that on astatistical level, viewing is related tonon-content variables.

On December 2nd, public televisionaudiences viewed an intimate por-trait of an intriguing country paint-ed skillfully by the three membersof New York City's DowntownCommunity Television Center .Cuba was the subject of the un-precedented 60-minute documen-tary entitled Cuba - The People,taped in half-inch color last springby Keiko Tsuno, Jon Alpert, andYoko Maruyama. They were one ofthe few American television crewsto enter Cuba since Fidel Castro ledthe country to revolution in 1959 .Keiko, Jon and Yoko's six weekstay in the island country resultedin 45 hours of color tape which wastime-base corrected at the Televi-sion Laboratory using the newCVS-504 time base corrector .The Downtown Community

Television Center, situated in theheart of New York's lower cast sidewas founded by Keiko, Jon andYoko in 1970 ". . .to provide neededservices for an exploited, mediastarved community. Using porta-ble videotape equipment to pro-duce informational programs theyworked to give the community "thethenecessary intercommunication ithas lacked for so many years." In1972, curious about how a socialistcountry might handle the socialproblems they encountered duringtheir work in New York's meltingpot, Keiko and Jon ventured intoThe Cubans loved to entertain for the camera

Cuba only for a few days . Althoughtheir visit was restricted, their inter-est had been piqued enough towork toward gaining full permissionfrom the Cuban government tomake an eventual prolonged stay .

After two years of correspon-dence and clearances, the Down-town Community Television Centerwas granted unrestricted access toCuba . Shortly before official per-mission was granted, however, JVChad introduced the first half-inchcolor videotape system on the mar-ket . The group tried to obtain themodel in the States for the expedi-tion, but found that only threeexisted hue -- and were

allfor

demonstration purposes . Deter-mined to use the camera in Cuba,Yoko Maravarna flew to Tokyo topurchase the system and arrivedback just in time to make thescheduled departure from theUnited States . Accompanied byinterpreter Carlos Diaz, they madetheir entry into Cuba in April 1974 .

The first days in Cuba were spenttest taping and experimenting withthe equipment which included theJVC color camera and deck, twohalf-inch black-and-white camerasfor back-up, a Panasonic deck, twomonitors for playback, and a micro-phone . The Cubans, who "sincerelylike Americans", treated the fourand -their collection of equipmentwith good-natured curiosity, al-

though they were surprised to seethe two tiny women carrying andoperating their share of the gear ."We handled that camera like ababy", says Keiko, "holding it care-fully between our knees on bumpycars and trains . We were so afraid itwould break, and then how wouldwe get parts?"

During their six week stay, theytoped interviews with people fromtoped interviews

of Cuban life - doctors,students, teachers, farmers, house-wives, children - in hospitals, hous-ing complexes, fields, bars, uni-versities - asking sometimessensitive questions . Unlike indepen-dent journalists Frank Mankiewiczand Kirby Jones who were ad-mitted to Cuba in July to film aninterview with Fidel Castro, theDowntown Community Television(Center was not particularly inter-ested in speaking with governmentauthorities and officials . Theirattention was focused more towardshowing what life was like for theaverage person . "Had we been givena choice between an interview withCastro and an interview with a lessergovernment official," says Jon, "wewould have chosen the latter ."

The

up was able to achieveremarkable rapport with the Cubanpeople, due in part to the subtletyof the equipment and to their ownenthusiasm . "We were taping(Continued on page 7)

Peter Crown, MIT, resident at the Lab whose work has focused mainlyon the physiological and psychological effects of television, was invited todeliver the keynote address at Video Expo V held at Madison SquareGarden October 1-3 . Dr . Crown spoke about the psychology oftelevision-watching and how applications of the new video technology canbenefit work in that area .

The Center for Media Study in Buffalo, New York sponsored a conferencein Albany, New York on the C.U.N.Y . Campus Center BallroomNovember 21., 22 . The conference theme was Educational CommunicationCenters and the Television Arts . Among the participants were thedirectors of the country's three video centers : Fred Barzyk of WGBH'sExperimental Workshop, Paul Kaufman of the National Center forExperiments in Television, and David Loxton of The Television Labora-tory at WNET/13 .

Howard Klein, Director for the Arts of The Rockqklkr Foundation,testified before the Subcommittee on Foundations of the Senate FinanceCommittee. Mr. Klein delivered his testimony on the role of privatefoundations in public broadcasting and summarized The RockefellerFoundation's funding activities in public television since 1962. He statedthat since the foundation did not have sufficient funds in the area tounderwrite a major series such as Sesame Street, it made the decision toconcentrate monies on the pre-production aspects of television . "Recog-nizing the concentration of artists in the New York area and the fact thatWNET713 at that time reached 25%) of the total U.S . audience for publictelevision, the Foundation cooperated with the station in establishing theWNET Television Laboratory - the first such major laboratory with itsown facility."

Studio 46 was closed for a period of time primarily to remove the videomonitoring system from the control room, to install the new RuttlEtrasynthesizer and to complete the interface of the PDP-8 computer. Thehardware aspects of the renovation are almost complete and softwareprogramming will commence shortly.

Candi Harper has joined the Lab staff as coordinating producer of the new26-week video series which will begin airing in January. Candi, who waspreviously associated with WNET as a production assistant and thenassociate producer on several series' now works with Grass Roots Videooutside of Denver, Colorado . Her knowledge of broadcast television andhalf-inch formats will be of valuable assistance in the preparation of theseries . Russell Connor, Director of The Cable Arts Foundation, will be theseries host .

Vision News is inviting essays and opinion pieces from readers. Contribu-tions should be from 300 - 500 words. Include self-addressed stampedenvelope . $50 upon publication. Send to Editor, Vision News, 304 W.58th Street, New York, N.Y . 10019.4k

(Continued from Page 1)Which that image is maintained; thesecond program will turn thecameras on the press, "recordingthe news media as it records theevent" ; the workings of Congressand elections are the topics of thethird program ; and the last programtakes an intimate look at the whirl-wind social style of Washington.

Those who are looking for theconventional news reporter will notfind it here . Instead, TvTv pre-sents "impressionistic politicalreporting", appearing on cameraalmost as actors in a news drama .

TVTV's Anda Korsts and the IranianAmbassador in "A Night at the Embassy" .Plus, the same innovative use ofgraphics and structure which is adistinctive mark of TVTV's work inthe past will be an integral part ofGerald Ford's America. The goal isto present information in a morecreative and interesting way.

Recently, Ron Powers of theChicago-Sun Times said of TVTV,". . .its use of ports-pak videotapesand its anticonventional blend ofart, journalism, politics, and satire,is easily one of the most creativeforces in American TVs mostlystagnant universe." In announcingthe project, Lab Director DavidLoxton stated, "it is hoped that theover all demonstration of the proj-ect will help set new standards" ofprofessionalism for independentvideo and ports-pak users across thecountry who are all potential andvalid sources of broadcast informa-tion."

(Continued from Page 5 )

crowds in the stands at a baseballgame one day", relates Jon, "andwe were using a sun gun which wasapparently blinding the players on

e field . The Cuban televisioncameras turned into the stands onus, taping them, and from then on,wherever we went, we were recog-nized from our appearance onCuban TV."The group feels that it has paint-

ed a true picture of the Cuban andhis country, having explored justabout every facet of life fromgovernment to the status ofwomen. Had they been able toremain longer, they would havefollowed up on several stories . Buttime was short, as was the moneywhich came from their own person-al resources .Upon returning to the States,

Jon, Keiko and Yoko tried to selltheir documentary to CBS, ABCand NBC news . All three networknews units rejected the tape mainlybecause they are held responsiblefor what they broadcast and adhereto a policy of not accepting workby independent journalists . TheDowntown Community Centerthen brought the rough edit to theLab who presented the project tothe WNET programming depart-ment. The Lab and WNET thenco-ordinated arrangements forunderwriting, tape transfer, editingfacilities, and national distributionover public television .

Hopefully, the success of CUBA- THE PEOPLE will demonstrateseveral things to the television in-dustry, summarized by Lab Direc-tor David Loxton : "There is nodenying that half-inch tape hascome of age . Out of it has grown avery new personal sort of journal-ism - one which must now beseriously considered by all the net-works as an inexpensive and veryviable means of distributing infor-mation."The Downtown Community

Television Center is supported bythe New York State Council on theArts . Funds for CUBA - THEPEOPLE were supplied by TheCorporation for Public Broad-casting and Ford Foundation.A

Editor/WriterDiane English

DesignJoel Shukovsky

DirectorDavid Loxton

SecretaryStephanie Wein

EngineerPhilip Falcone

US!WS

Fn

December, 1974 Vol. 2, No . 2

The Television Laboratory News ispublished by The Television Labora-tory at WHET/13, a division of TheEducational Broadcasting Corporation,at the corporate address, 304 West58th Street, New York, New York10019. Telephone 212-262-4248 .

The Television Laboratory at WNET/13 is supported by grants from TheRockefeller Foundation and the NewYork State Council on the Arts, withspecial project support from TheNational Endowment for the Arts .

Administrative AssistantCarol Brandenburg

Production ManagerDarlene Mastro

Supervising EngineerJohn Godfrey

Artists-in-ResidencePeter CrownEd EmshwillerNam June PaikDavid SilverTVTV

@1974 The Television Laboratory atWNET/13 .

Send comments and information to :Editor, The Television LaboratoryNews, 304 West 58th Street, NewYork, New York 10019 .

By John Godfrey,Supervising Engineer

The technology of television ischanging with amazing speed. Itwas only a year ago that the Labhad put its CVS-500 black-and-hvhite time base corrector to thetest with The Lord of the Universe- the first nationally broadcastprogram recorded entirely on half-inch tape . In the past few months,color has appeared on the half-inchscene and the Lab has acquired aCVS-504 color time base corrector- this time having not one, but twoopportunities to test the system .Top Value Television (TVTV5, urithGerald ,Ford's America, and TheDowntown Community TelevisionCenter with Cuba - The People,have both chosen to use two sepa-rate half-inch color cameras, theSony and the JVC respectively, fortheir individual programs, providingus with a unique op ortuniry tocomment on the performances ofthese pioneer systems . Althoughboth are a breakthrough in tecll-nology, there are advantages anddisadvantages to the Sony and theJVC.The JVC model, GC-48®0-U, used

by The Downtown CommunityTelevision Center for six weeks inCuba was the first JVC color

Jon Alpert and Keiko Tsuno with the JVC .

camera to be used for such exten-sive purposes . its main advantage isthat it's about half the weight ofthe standard porta-pak, making itreally ideal for mobility . It consistsof two 3/4-inch tubes, making ° .capable of excellent definitionof a 400 line resolution under theright conditions . However, therewere some serious drawbacks to theJVC which became apparent duringusage. The first is that it givesmaximum quality image under onlythe most ideal lighting conditions .The automatic gain control (ACC),gears to be too sensitive to han-cl e brightness and shadow in thesame image, or color temperaturechange - causing sometimes a 7line video bounce and a definiteswing to blue . This can sometimesbe corrected by the right nionitor,but is not correctable during trans-fer to two-inch without color cor-rection. The second difficulty is theJVC's loose-wrap deck which justabout rules out any walking or suchmovement while taping . This isquite paradoxical because of thecamera s ideal walking weight.TVTV has been using the Sony

DXC 1.600 color porta-pak with aSony 8400 deck for about sixweeps . This camera is the standardweight, yet it does have a tightwrap deck maF° ;ng it easily more

mobile . Unfortunately, this deckemploys a I3-wind system which issomewhat of an annoyance to windand rewind. Although the Sony hasa single one-inch tine which some-times causes a "ground glass" lookto the image, it is more efficient incompensating for light levels andtherefore gives a better over alltexture to the image. It has a softerACC and so far we have encounter-ed no violent video bounce. TVTVhas found no real problems withthe camera or the deck so far, buthas packed along a black-and-whiteTivicon to compensate for low lightlevels that the Sony might not beable to handle . So far this hasn'tbeen necessary .

Both cameras need a certainwarming up time to break them inand "unstick" the new tubes - butthe Sony tube needs careful han-dling and could burn out easily .

Readers should take into con-sideration that both these systemswere used for the first time byTVTV and The Downtown Com-munity Television Center, and thatthese criticisms are intended only asan impetus to improve the tech-nology early on.The appearance of workable low-

cost portable color systems is a realboon to the medium. Aside fromeffecting eventual change on theecononncs of the television indus-try, it lends new life to the manygroups of people who are workingwith half-inch formats for valuableexperimentation .