TeleMation Inc. was a company specializing in products for the

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

industry, post-production and film industry, located in

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

. TeleMation started with a line of

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

video equipment, and later manufactured color video products. Lyle Keys was the founder and president of TeleMation, Inc., started in the late 1960s. Early equipment was for the B&W broadcast,

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

, and CCTV market.

History

In 1954, Lyle Oscar Keys was an itinerant equipment salesman from

Wibaux, Montana Wibaux ( ) is a town in and the county seat of Wibaux County, Montana, United States. It is the only incorporated town in Wibaux County. The population was 589 at the 2020 census. History The town originally had names such as Keith, Beaver, a ...

John F. Fitzpatrick John Francis Fitzpatrick (January 18, 1887 - September 11, 1960) was the publisher of ''The Salt Lake Tribune'' from 1924 to 1960. He created the Newspaper Agency Corporation (NAC) in 1952. Early life Fitzpatrick was born January 18, 1887, in P ...

was president of '' The Salt Lake Tribune'' at the time. Fitzpatrick's assistant John W. Gallivan hired Keys as an engineer for

KUTV KUTV (channel 2) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside independent station KJZZ-TV (channel 14) and St. George–licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate K ...

Channel 2, of which the ''Tribune'' was part owner. In a time when the electronics industry was burgeoning, Keys knew how to get essential parts fast in a time when these parts were unavailable or slow to get. By 1962, the ''Tribune''s owner, Kearns-Tribune Corporation, and their partners in KUTV organized Electronic Sales Corporation (ELCO) to help meet these needs. Keys was installed as president with an office in the Kearns Building in Salt Lake City. Within eight years, the company, which had been incorporated as Telemation, had 420 employees, producing and marketing 156 products for the television industry with annual sales of $10 million. It became the nation's largest supplier of closed circuit TV systems and developed scores of proprietary items for cable television, industrial, educational and commercial TV. Keys personally conceptualized many of the firm's products, helped engineer them, produced millions of dollars in sales, and even wrote Telemation's news releases and advertising copy. He also laid out the blueprint for the company's development of of space in southwest Salt Lake County's technological park. The Kearns-Tribune Corporation's interest in this publicly owned enterprise as of early 1971 was twenty-four and one-half percent. *In 1977, TeleMation inc. became a division of

Bell and Howell Bell and Howell LLC is a U.S.-based services organization and former manufacturer of cameras, lenses, and motion picture machinery, founded in 1907 by two projectionists, and originally headquartered in Wheeling, Illinois. The company is now ...

. *In October 1979, Bell and Howell entered a joint venture with Robert Bosch GmbH, Bosch's

Fernseh The Fernseh AG television company was registered in Berlin on July 3, 1929, by John Logie Baird, Robert Bosch, Zeiss Ikon and D.S. Loewe as partners. John Baird owned Baird Television Ltd. in London, Zeiss Ikon was a camera company in Dresden, D.S ...

Division, called Fernseh Inc. Bosch Fernseh Division was located in Darmstadt, Germany and for many years manufactured a full line of video and film equipment,

professional video camera A professional video camera (often called a television camera even though its use has spread beyond television) is a high-end device for creating electronic moving images (as opposed to a movie camera, that earlier recorded the images on film). ...

VTR A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and playback video and audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. They were us ...

and

Telecine Telecine ( or ) is the process of transferring film into video and is performed in a color suite. The term is also used to refer to the equipment used in the post-production process. Telecine enables a motion picture, captured originally on fi ...

, under Robert Bosch Fernsehanlagen GmbH. *In April 1982, Bosch fully acquired Fernseh Inc., renaming the company Robert Bosch Corporation, Fernseh Division. *In 1986, Bosch entered into a new joint venture with

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

Broadcast in Breda, Netherlands. This new company was called Broadcast Television Systems Inc. (BTS). Philips had been in the broadcast market for many years with a line of

Norelco Norelco is the American brand name for electric shavers and other personal care products made by the Consumer Lifestyle division of Philips. For personal care products marketed outside the United States, Philips used the Philishave trademark ...

professional video cameras and other products. *In 1995, Philips Electronics North America Corp. fully acquired BTS Inc., renaming it Philips Broadcast - Philips Digital Video Systems. *In March 2001, this division was sold to

Thomson SA Thomson may refer to: Names * Thomson (surname), a list of people with this name and a description of its origin * Thomson baronets, four baronetcies created for persons with the surname Thomson Businesses and organizations * SGS-Thomson M ...

, the current owner; the division was called Thomson Multimedia. *In 2002, the French electronics giant Thomson SA also acquired the Grass Valley Group from

Tektronix Tektronix, Inc., historically widely known as Tek, is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. Originally an independent ...

in Beaverton, Oregon, US. *

Grass Valley A grass valley (also vega and valle) is a meadow located within a forested and relatively small drainage basin such as a headwater. Grass valleys are common in North America, where they are created and maintained principally by the work of b ...

was sold to Belden on February 6, 2014. Belden also owns Miranda.

Products

*Various Telemation B&W video products *TSE-200 Special Effects Generator *TPC-100 Porta-Studio *TMV-529 Waveform Sampler *TMV-708 Camera Control Unit *TMC 2100 Camera *TVM-650 Multicaster Switcher -

vision mixer A vision mixer is a device used to select between several different live video sources and, in some cases, compositing live video sources together to create visual effects. In most of the world, both the equipment and its operator are called ...

*TMM-203

Film Chain A film chain or film island is a television – professional video camera with one or more projectors aligned into the photographic lens of the camera. With two or more projectors a system of front-surface mirrors that can pop-up are used in a m ...

-Multiplexer - Film Island *TMU-100 Uniplexers *TVM-550 video

distribution amplifier In electronics, a distribution amplifier, or simply distribution amp or DA, is a device that accepts a single input signal and provides this same signal to multiple isolated outputs. These devices allow a signal to be distributed to multiple d ...

*TPA-550 Pulse distribution amplifier * AP C.A.T.V. Character Generators (using

Teletype A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Init ...

machine & video camera) (1965) * A line of Character Generators * Automation equipment, like the BCS 2000 * Digital Noise Reducer, also called Digital Noise Filter, 1984 *TVU-175 Ventilation Unit * Some color products (made in Salt Lake City under various brands) *TVS-1000 TAS-1000 routers and line of party line control panels ** Phone remote router control interface *MCS 2000 Master Control Switch - vision mixer *MC Machine Control *TSG-550 Sync Generator *Tmt-101 Stairstep Generator *Tmt-102 Multiburst Generator *Tmt-103 Sin Pulse/Window Generator *Compositor character generator *TCF-3000 Color film chain-Multiplexer - Film Island *Digital Encoder Pal and NTSC *Mach One Editor (acquired) - a

Non-linear editing system Non-linear editing is a form of offline editing for audio, video, and image editing. In offline editing, the original content is not modified in the course of editing. In non-linear editing, edits are specified and modified by specialized sof ...

*Alamar Automation (acquired) *TVS-2000 router and line of party line Control panels with and w/o mnemonic displays *CE 2200 party line controller, CE 2500 *Status Display *TVS-3000 router *Venus router *BCS 3000 HP UNIX Based controller - VG 3000 VGS card *Jupiter Controller - Windows-based router control system **VM 3000 VGA Status Display, V board **SC 3000 Serial Control Interface S board **CE 3000 Matrix Controller, M board - can support 3 level switching and other brands **ES 3000 ESnet Interface **PL 3000 party line Controller **SI 3000 Control Processor *Jupiter Control panels: CP 3200, CP 3300, CP 3310, CP 3320 *Jupiter XPress, CM4000 *Trinix router, DM–33100 *Saturn Master Control Switch Weather Channel 97 *Mars *SDR–400 *GS–400 *FGS 4000 3D Character – Graphic Generator - Computer-generated imagery *Vidifont Character generator (acquired from

) *The Media Pool - disk recorder

Trivia

''Fernseh'' is German for "television". In German the words ''fern'' and ''seh'' literally mean "far" and "see", respectively. Because of all the mergers, customers sometimes fondly called these company(ies): Tele-bella-bosch-a-mation. Thomson still operates offices in the cities of all these acquisitions: *

Cergy Cergy () is a Communes of France, commune in the French Departments of France, department of Val-d'Oise, in northwestern suburbs of Paris. It is located from the Kilometre Zero#France, centre of Paris, in the "new town#France, new town" of Cerg ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

(Thomson World Headquarters) *

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

, US - from TeleMation Inc * Beaverton, Oregon, US - from

Nevada City, California Nevada City (originally, ''Ustumah'', a Nisenan village; later, Nevada, Deer Creek Dry Diggins, and Caldwell's Upper Store) is the county seat of Nevada County, California, United States, northeast of Sacramento, southwest of Reno and northea ...

, US - from Grassvalley Group * Breda,

the Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

- from Philips-

Weiterstadt Weiterstadt () is a town in the Darmstadt-Dieburg district, in Hesse, Germany. It is situated directly northwest of Darmstadt. Twin towns – sister cities Weiterstadt is Sister city, twinned with: * Bagno a Ripoli, Italy * Kiens, Italy * Verneui ...

- Darmstadt,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

- from Bosch Fernseh Awards: *Outstanding Achievement in Technical/Engineering Development Awards from National Academy of Televisio Arts and Sciences **1966-1967: Plumbicon Tube - N.V. Philips **1987-1888: FGS 4000 computer animation system - BTS - SLC, UT **1992-1993: Prism Technology for Color Television Cameras - N.V. Philips **1993-1994: Controlled Edge Enhancement Utilizing Skin Hue KeyingBTS and Ikegami (joint award) **1997-1998: Development of a High Resolution Digital Film Scanner Eastman Kodak and Philips Germany **2000-2001: Pioneering developments in shared video-data storage systems for use in television video servers - Thomson/Philips - SLC, UT **2002-2003: Technology to simultaneously encode multiple video qualities and the corresponding metadata to enable real-time conformance and / or playout of the higher quality video (nominally broadcast) based on the decisions made using the lower quality proxiesMontage. Philips and Thomson.

Telemation Productions

Telemation Productions was a post-production house in Seattle, Washington; Chicago, Illinois; Phoenix, Arizona; and Denver, Colorado in the 1970s and early 80s. Offices were sold or closed in the late 1980s. Telemation Productions was started as a marketing tool by Telemation Inc. in the early 1970s. It started as a single office located in Glenview, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. In 1978, a second office was opened in Denver. Also in 1978, the television equipment manufacturing operation was sold to Bell & Howell. At that time, Telemation Inc. owned only the two production facilities and the manufacturing building in Salt Lake City, which was leased to Bell & Howell. In 1979 Telemation acquired a production facility in Seattle and renamed it Telemation Productions. In the early 1980s, Telemation acquired a facility in Phoenix, also renaming it Telemation Productions. In the early 1980s, Telemation Productions added a distribution division located in Chicago which provided duplication and shipping services to advertising agencies and a mobile division equipped with a television remote truck. Telemation Productions ownership changed in 1987 and again in 1990, with the Home Shopping Network buying the company. The Phoenix office and distribution division were sold in 1989 prior to this acquisition. The remote truck was sold in 1990. The Seattle office was closed in 1991, the Chicago office was closed in 1993, and the Denver office was closed the following year.

External links

Remembering TeleMation, Inc.Thomson takeover

Philips

Thomson Grassvalley

Times, ''A.P. at Home'', Aug. 6, 1965.

References

{{reflist

Noise filter

BTS

Bosch BTS PDF, Page 15

TM camera
Electronics companies of the United States Film and video technology Technicolor SA Manufacturing companies based in Salt Lake City 1962 establishments in Utah