Talk:Captain Z-Ro

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Television Portal This article is part of WikiProject Television, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to television programs and related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
Assessment comments This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Science Fiction, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on science fiction on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article. Feel free to add your name to the participants list and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet been assigned a rating on the importance scale.

[edit] Early videotape

CAPTAIN Z-RO could not have been "shot on video tape" in 1951 - 55 since this format did not exist at that date. All live TV programming in this era was saved by kinescope recording, namely by making a 16 mm sound movie of a tiny, very bright flat-faced TV picture tube.Cokerwr 14:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The captain-z-ro.com site claims the show was made by W. A. Palmer Films, once it went to half-hour format sometime around 1954. William Palmer and Jack Mullin designed the VTR prototype for Bing Crosby, in 1950, mentioned at the kinoscope article, and described in more detail here at Palmer's online obit:

"Without the incredible headstart that the two engineers gave to Ampex and the rest of the industry... 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."

William Palmer was from San Francisco. It's possible he tested his models at the local TV station (where better?) --though this is speculation. I'd like to see citations, as it's relevant to the history of video recording, let alone this curious old space opera. --Yamara 03:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)