Washington DC

January 2006

The Section meeting on January 19 was held at the Library of American Broadcasting at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland.  About 35 SMPTE members and guests heard a fascinating presentation by Chuck Howell, Curator of the Library, and James Snyder of Verizon Digital Media Technologies Group, who is technical advisor to the Library for video and audio technologies and also Secretary of the SMPTE Washington DC section.

Chuck Howell noted that radio and television have been an integral part of American life for more than 60 years, but only a small portion of all the programming ever produced still exists. The Library of American Broadcasting (the former Broadcast Pioneers Library) and its partner, the National Public Broadcasting Archives works to preserve the living records of the broadcasting industry and public broadcasting. The collection includes some 7000 audio tapes, 9000 recorded disks, and a growing collection of film and video material in a variety of formats. It also includes over 5000 scripts, 225,000 photographs, and numerous different artifacts. James Snyder described some of the challenges of preserving audio and video media while also making it accessible for playback by researchers and the public. He described the efforts to restore and maintain obsolete format machines for playback of old material, and the progress in transferring programming to newer formats that can be copied for distribution as required.

Attendees were particularly interested in the tour of the legacy video machine areas, with a hands-on presentations of some of the equipment and historical program materials. Some attendees reminisced about their own experiences with 2' and 1' videotape machines and other long-gone equipment, with discussions going on late into the evening.

Many thanks to the Chuck Howell and the Library staff for their hospitality and for excellent refreshments.

-Graham Jones, Section Manager and Program Chair



Chuck Howell, Curator of Library of American Broadcasting (left) with James Snyder, both speakers at the Washington DC Section meeting

James Snyder's PowerPoint presentation (PDF)