The Sony PCL HDVS Production Facility

Abstract

Photo Chemical Laboratory (PCL) was established in 1951, in Tokyo, as a specialized developer of 16mm motion-picture film. In 1964 it was appointed the designated Fuji film-processing laboratory. In 1970 PCL entered into an affiliation with Sony Corp. The company became known as Sony PCL. Long experience in film processing, film transfers, and video production and post-production made Sony PCL eminently suitable to set up the world's first facility specializing in an integrated film and HDTV production and post-production service. Almost immediately Sony PCL was involved in transfer activities servicing the pioneering HDTV program production getting under way in Japan, Europe, and the U.S. The volume of business soon grew to a level that made it necessary to establish a totally new facility, embodying a more complete HDVS system. (HDVS — High-Definition Video System — is a Sony name and logo that refers specifically to the product line developed at Sony.) The new facility was opened in Shinagawa, Tokyo, in 1988. This article describes some of the more interesting technical aspects of this all-component video HDVS installation.