CBS Laboratories
Encyclopedia
Research and development
The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
organization of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
. Innovations developed at the labs included many groundbreaking broadcast, industrial, and consumer technologies.
History
The Labs moved from Madison Avenue in New York to a new facility in Stamford, Connecticut in 1958.
In the 1960s the CBS Volumax Audio FM Peak Limiter introduced, also the first of its kind in broadcasting industry.
Electronic Video Recording
Electronic Video Recording
Electronic Video Recording, or EVR, was a film-based video recording format developed by Hungarian-born engineer Peter Carl Goldmark at CBS Laboratories in the 1960s....
was announced in 1967.
The minicam was developed for use in national political conventions in 1968.
CBS Labs Staff Scientist Dennis Gabor
Dennis Gabor
Dennis Gabor CBE, FRS was a Hungarian-British electrical engineer and inventor, most notable for inventing holography, for which he later received the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics....
receives Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in Physics for earlier work on holography
Holography
Holography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that when an imaging system is placed in the reconstructed beam, an image of the object will be seen even when the object is no longer present...
.
CBS Laboratories reorganized in 1975. The Industrial Division was sold to Thomson-CSF
Thomson-CSF
Thomson-CSF was a major electronics and defence contractor. In December 2000 it was renamed Thales Group.-History:In 1879 Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston formed the Thomson-Houston Electric Company in the United States....
.
Core company R&D function was renamed CBS Technology Center (CTC).
Actiontrak system spun off from Digital Noise Reducer in 1978.
In 1986 Laurence Tisch
Laurence Tisch
Laurence Alan "Larry" Tisch was an American businessman, Wall Street investor and self-made billionaire. He was the CEO of CBS television network from 1986 to 1995...
took control of CBS and closed CTC as part of company-wide streamlining.
Undated Developments
- GeminiProject GeminiProject Gemini was the second human spaceflight program of NASA, the civilian space agency of the United States government. Project Gemini was conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, with ten manned flights occurring in 1965 and 1966....
spacecraft voice recorder - Vidifont, video character generatorCharacter generatorA character generator, often abbreviated as CG, is a device or software that produces static or animated text for keying into a video stream. Modern character generators are computer-based, and can generate graphics as well as text...
- CBS Loudness MeterLoudness monitoringLoudness monitoring of programme levels is needed in radio and television broadcasting, as well as in audio post production. Traditional methods of measuring signal levels such as the Peak programme meter, and VU meter do not give the subjectively valid measure of loudness which many would argue is...
and LoudnessLoudnessLoudness is the quality of a sound that is primarily a psychological correlate of physical strength . More formally, it is defined as "that attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which sounds can be ordered on a scale extending from quiet to loud."Loudness, a subjective measure, is often...
Control - CBS NetALERT, broadcast radio network signaling system
- CBS DisComputer, record mastering system
- GulbransenGulbransenGulbransen Company was a home organ manufacturer that began operation in 1904, and had pioneered several innovations on home electronic organ that became industry standards, as following:* transistor organ* built-in Leslie speaker system...
Equinox 380, microprocessorMicroprocessorA microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
-controlled keyboard instrumentKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments... - Interactive download of musical-keyboard performance over Venture One shop-at-home trial.
- CXCX (audio)CX is a noise reduction system for recorded analog audio. It was developed by CBS Laboratories in the early 1980s, as a competitor to other noise reduction systems such as Dolby and dbx...
, LP noise reductionNoise reductionNoise reduction is the process of removing noise from a signal.All recording devices, both analogue or digital, have traits which make them susceptible to noise...
system - FMXFMX (broadcasting)FMX is the name of a commercially unsuccessful noise reduction system developed in the 1980s for FM broadcasting in the United States.FM stereo broadcasting is known to incur up to a 23 dB noise penalty over that of monophonic FM broadcasting; this is due to the combination of the triangular FM...
, FM noise reduction system
Emmy Awards
- 1970-1971: Color Corrector which can provide color uniformity between television picture segments and scenes shot and recorded under different conditions at different times and locations
- 1972-1973: CMX 600CMX 600The CMX 600 was the very first non-linear video editing system. It was introduced in 1971 by CMX Systems, a joint venture between CBS and Memorex. CMX referred to it as a "RAVE", or Random Access Video Editor....
Non-Linear Video TapeVideotapeA videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...
Editing System (developed by CMX SystemsCMX SystemsCMX Editing Systems was a company founded jointly by CBS and Memorex, that developed some of the very first computerized systems for linear and non-linear editing of videotape for post production...
, a CBS/Memorex company) utilizing a computer to aid the decision-making process, store the editing decisions and implement them in the final assembly of takes - 1974-1975: Electronic News GatheringElectronic news gatheringENG is a broadcasting industry acronym which stands for electronic news gathering. It can mean anything from a lone broadcast journalist reporter taking a single professional video camera out to shoot a story, to an entire television crew taking a production truck or satellite truck on location...
System - 1977-1978: Digital Noise Reducer
- 1980-1981: Digital Electronic Still Store System which made the magnetic storage and electronic broadcasting of film slides and graphics easier to manage and more reliable with consistent high quality.
- 1988-1989: Single Camera Editing System
- 1991-1992: (AB Dick, CBS Laboratories and Chyron; Joint Award) Electronic Character Generation for Television
- (CBS Laboratories and Philips; Joint Award) Triax Cable Camera Technology
- 1993: Mini Rapid Deployment Earth Terminal
- 2001-2002: Alignment Color BarSMPTE color barsThe SMPTE color bars are a type of television test pattern, and is most commonly used in countries where the NTSC video standard is dominant, such as those in North America. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers refers to this test pattern as Engineering Guideline EG 1-1990...
Test Signal for Television Picture Monitors