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	  	         === Last Update 1/17/95  ====





	    [removed]   Volume 96 : Issue 240


Articles in this issue of [removed]:

	 Digest V96#198 - Escape Title
	 NILE not LIME ---  Mea Culpa
	 [removed] Palmer Dies
	 Coming of tape-Les Paul version

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:41:17 -0400
From: RadioClass@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Digest V96#198 - Escape Title
Message-ID: <960707174115_351455791@[removed]>

Back on June 2 Mort asked for the name of an Escape show with a plot about a
family
trying to escape from tyranny to the other side of the river.  The show was
set in 1972
and at the end of the show, you find out that the river is the Mississippi.

Well, I knew I had this show but not from Escape.  I finally found it.  This
show was 
from Hollywood Star Playhouse and was broadcast in 1952.  The name of this
episode
is "The Frontier."  I do not have the exact broadcast date.

Anne Walker

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 19:03:23 -0400
From: KENPILETIC@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: NILE not LIME ---  Mea Culpa
Message-ID: <960707190323_232635758@[removed]>

Hi Gang -                                   July 7 - 1996 -- Sunday - 6 PM
cdt 

I just read my posting from issue 239 about the REPS Convention.

I made a BIG mistake which I'm sure I'll hear about. 
It is Harry NILE, not Harry Lime (The Third Man).  

I'm such a stickler for accuracy, and I made a big mistake like that.

Mea Culpa - I apologize for getting the Harry's confused. 

Moral of the story - Don't write when you're tired. 

Happy Taping -- Ken Piletic - Streamwood, Illinois
kenpiletic@[removed] 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 21:04:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: roy547@[removed] (Roy Trumbull)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: [removed] Palmer Dies
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

>I'm passing along an obit on [removed] Palmer done by my friend Pete
Hammar who was associated with Palmer these last few years. He was
a remarkable person and quite a bit of broadcasting and film history
has been lost with his passing. He was the major force behind the
acceptance of 16mm for TV film work - Roy Trumbull

> For more information contact:
> Peter Hammar
> (415) 508-8182; fax (415) 508-1046
> E-mail:  PeteHammar@[removed]
> 
> 12 June 1996
> 
> WILLIAM A. PALMER:  AUDIO & FILM INVENTOR AND FILMMAKER, 1911-1996
> 
> Veteran San Francisco filmmaker, inventor, and audio recording pioneer Bill
> Palmer died of a stroke on Thursday, 6 June 1996, at his home in Menlo Park,
> California, at the age of 85. Palmer founded [removed] Palmer & Co. in San
> Francisco in 1936, later renamed [removed] Palmer Films, Inc., a business over
> which he actively presided until his death.
> 
> Working with Bing Crosby, ABC, and Ampex just after World War II, Palmer was
> the essential catalyst that began the era of high-quality audio magnetic tape
> recording in America. Palmer and his colleague, John T. (Jack) Mullin of San
> Francisco, perfected an American version of the German "Magnetophon"
> high-fidelity audio tape recorder in 1946. A memorable Palmer-Mullin
> demonstration of their magnetic recorders at the MGM studios in Hollywood in
> October, 1946, grabbed the town's attention with a stunningly clear recording
> of a studio performance by Jose Iturbi, George E. Stoll and the MGM Symphony
> Orchestra. The new medium was demonstrably superior to the then-new method of
> optical film recording for the production of film sound tracks, the MGM
> 200-mil push-pull system. In just one year, Palmer and Mullin took audio
> recording from "poor" by today's standards to contemporary analog quality. A
> critical listening test of the early MGM and Bing Crosby recordings made on
> the modified Magnetophons reveals sonic quality perfectly acceptable for any
> network or local FM broadcast today.
> 
> Using the Mullin-Palmer tape machines in 1946, Merv Griffin in San Francisco
> was the first [removed] performer to master a commercial disc on tape, "Songs by
> Merv Griffin", with Lyle Bardo and his Orchestra. The next year, crooner Bing
> Crosby became the first to go on the air coast to coast with magnetic tape,
> using the Mullin-Palmer tape decks to record and edit his "Philco Radio Time"
> show on the ABC Radio Network for the 1947-48 season, a revolution in an era
> of "live", unedited broadcasts. By the summer of 1948, using the new Ampex
> version of the Mullin-Palmer machines, all of the radio networks were
> producing shows on tape, as well as using the new medium to time-shift
> programs for daylight savings broadcasts. Burl Ives, Les Paul, and other
> performers quickly adopted tape to produce their shows and record albums. The
> work of Palmer and Mullin led to an almost immediate acceptance of tape as
> the standard American recording method for radio, film sound tracks, and
> records, a sweeping technical revolution.
> 
> Meanwhile, the two engineers provided Ampex Corporation in Redwood City,
> California, with essential help in perfecting that company's Model 200, the
> first [removed] commercial professional audio tape recorder, introduced in 1948.
> The Palmer-Mullin and Ampex machines also spawned magnetic data recording for
> computers and instrumentation (1949), and later, videotape recording (1956).
> Without the incredible headstart that the two engineers gave to Ampex and the
> rest of the industry, we probably would not have had high-quality magnetic
> audio recording until the Germans came back into the world market in 1950.
> Mullin would not have gone to work for Bing Crosby and built for Crosby
> Enterprises the world's first working videotape recorder prototype (1950),
> and Ampex (which might not even have existed by that time) would not have
> built their successful videotape recorder (VTR) in 1956, the VR-1000. With
> all of his wartime Hollywood connections, Palmer was the catalyst that made
> it all happen and set in motion a new industry. Jack Mullin says, "I was just
> an unknown engineer in San Francisco. Without Bill Palmer, I never would have
> been able to get my tape recorders known among broadcasters and film
> producers."  
> 
> In the early 1950s, before the successful introduction of the VTR, Palmer
> invented a unique system for recording the TV image on 16mm film, a modified
> "kinescope" process, the Palmer Television Film Recorder, which eliminated
> the "kine" shutter bar problem was used around the world even after video
> tape. The 3-2 pull-down system used a "blending" shutter device that
> eliminated the characteristic "shutter bar" that plagued kine recordings.
> During the pre-videotape era, Palmer also recorded television shows on film
> (kinescopes) for San Francisco Bay Area TV stations, including the
> award-winning series, "The Standard Hour", broadcast on ABC's KGO-TV in 1951.
> 
> The accepted standard for professional motion picture production in the 1930s
> and '40s was 35mm film. 16mm was considered an amateur format. Palmer was
> among the first in the country to use 16mm film for commercial productions.
> During World War II, his compact 16mm technology enabled him to produce color
> sound films made aboard aircraft carriers at sea that greatly reduced the
> training time required for [removed] Navy pilots and their crews. 
> 
> Palmer was one of the first filmmakers in the United States to use optical
> sound on film for commercial and educational productions, developing in 1933
> his own design for a 16mm sound-on-film camera. Since the 16mm
> black-and-white film would need synchronized sound, Palmer built his own
> light valve, as well as the necessary amplifiers with the help of Jack
> Mullin. In 1934, he received an exclusive contract from the Columbia Steel
> Company to document on film the construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay
> Bridge, an industrial film classic. Over the next 60 years, Palmer and his
> company produced hundreds of 16mm industrial and made-for-television films,
> as well as provided film production and laboratory services. 
> 
> Bill Palmer was born in Oakland in 1911, and was descended from a family of
> early California settlers who came from Maine to enter the foundry, farming,
> and dredging businesses during the Gold Rush of the 1850s. Shortly after his
> birth, his family moved to Palo Alto, where he was raised and educated. He
> graduated from Stanford University in 1932 with a [removed] degree in engineering.
> He held numerous film, audio, and video patents. He was a Fellow of both the
> Audio Engineering Society and the Society of Motion Picture and Television
> Engineers, and was an active member of the San Francisco Bohemian Club.
> 
> He is survived by nieces Nancy D. Palmer of Palo Alto and Nancy Phelps of
> Felton, nephews Hall Palmer of Palo Alto, Bruce Palmer of Los Altos, and
> Barton P. Phelps of Sunnyvale, and several grandnephews. 
> 
> An organ recital in his memory was held at the Stanford University Memorial
> Church in Palo Alto, California, on Wednesday, 26 June 1996. The family
> encourages donations in Bill Palmer's honor be made to the Organ Concert
> Fund, Stanford Memorial Church, Stanford, CA 94305-2090.
> 
> 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 10:21:29 -0400
From: JRayb71827@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Coming of tape-Les Paul version
Message-ID: <960708102128_352095827@[removed]>

Just a note re lewis@[removed] about Frank Beacham's article on Les
Paul's version of the tape recorder arrival.  An article in the July/August
issue of my newsletter, "Thrilling Days of Yesteryear," dicusses that.  In
part, it says:
   "Famed guitarist Les Paul has been quoted as saying that he ran into a
Colonel Richard Ranger who had gotten interested in the Magnetophon and was
working on building his own tape recorder.  He told Crosby, who said to bring
the guy out to California.  Ranger apparently demonstrated the machine at KNX
and Crosby said he'd take 50 of them.  Ranger said he could make only one a
year so that let him out.  Les Paul said they then heard about John Mullin
and Ampex and that Ampex asked Bing for help to the tune of $50,000.
 Supposedly Bing wrote out a check for that amount at no interest and told
them he didn't want any part of the company, just the machines,  The only
thing wrong with that part of the story is that Bing Crosby Enterprises, Inc.
became international sales agents for Ampex and remained so until the mid
'50s when they dropped their electronic activities.  The discrepancy was
perhaps best explained by Mary Alice Shaughnessy in her book, "Les Paul, An
American Original."  She pointed out that Les was noted for remembering
events in, shall we say, a less-than-accurate way and would frequently tell
embellished tales to suit his own fancy or faulty memory.  By the way, and
this memory DOES seem to be correct, Les Paul added that he worked with Bing
on the very first taped broadcast, "Philco Radio Time" in 1947."
   That's just a small part of the article, which also includes the story of
how Ampex got its name.  A company headed by Alexander M. Poniatoff decided
to make tape recorders, working from the Magnetophon original idea.  The name
came from "A" for Alexander, "M" for his middle initial, "P" for Poniatoff
and "EX" for excellence.  AMPEX.  That sounded pretty good.  It might even
catch on!
   Incidentally, they finally got away from the paper-backed German tape when
3M came up with some test tapes.  Not one of them was good enough until they
tried one called, for lab purposes, Test Tape 112 RR.  The sound was great,
even better than the German tape and 3M said they could turn it out in
quantity and economically.  Mullin wanted to know what "RR" stood for and was
told "Red Raven."  Why?  Red Raven happened to be the trade name for the iron
oxide used on the tape and it was generally used to color barn paint.
   More info on the newsletter can be found at Lou Genco's web site under
"Sponsors."

------------------------------

    


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---- 
End of [removed] Digest V96 Issue #240

