Broadcast Television Systems (BTS) was a joint venture between Robert Bosch GmbH'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 and

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 ) , 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 ...

, formed in 1986.

History

Philips had been in the broadcast market for many years with a line of PC- and LDK-

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 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). ...

s and other video products. By the 1980s, the Norelco name was dropped in favour of Philips. Robert Bosch GmbH's

Division also had a long history going back to the early days of television (1929). BTS's North America headquarters was at first 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 ...

. This was later moved to

Simi Valley Simi Valley (; Chumash: ''Shimiyi'') is a city in the valley of the same name in the southeast region of Ventura County, California, United States. Simi Valley is from Downtown Los Angeles, making it part of the Greater Los Angeles Area. The ...

, California, in 1991, later returning Salt Lake City. Also in 1991, BTS Latin America headed by Mario Castellanos entered into an agreement to provide Televisa SA of Mexico what was believed to be until that time, the largest equipment sale in history. In 1995 Philips Electronics North America Corp. fully acquired BTS Inc., renaming it Philips Broadcast-Philips Digital Video Systems. The BTS Inc.'s Darmstadt factory in

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 ...

was near the Darmstadt Train Station and

European Space Operations Centre The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) serves as the main mission control centre for the European Space Agency (ESA) and is located in Darmstadt, Germany. ESOC's primary function is the operation of unmanned spacecraft on behalf of ESA and ...

this was later moved a short distance to

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 ...

. In March 2001 Philips' broadcast video 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 Terry Gooding of San Diego, CA, USA. Grass Valley, Inc., the Thomson, Grass Valley, a Thomson Brand is headquartered in

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 ...

. The Thomson Film Division, located in Weiterstadt including the product line of

Spirit DataCine Spirit DataCine is a telecine and a motion picture film scanner. This device is able to transfer 16mm and 35mm motion picture film to NTSC or PAL television standards or one of many High-definition television standards. With the data transfer ...

, Bones Work station and LUTher 3D Color Space converter, was sold to Parter Capital Grou

The sale was made public on Sept. 9, 2008 and completed on Dec. 1, 2008. The new headquarters is in Weiterstadt, in the former Bosch Fernseh - BTS factory. Parter Capital Group will continue to have worldwide offices to support products from Weiterstadt, Germany. The new name of the company is Digital Film Technology. On October 1, 2012 Precision Mechatronics and DFT were acquired by Prasad Corp, part of

Prasad Studios Prasad Studios & Prasad Film Labs are motion picture post-production studios headquartered in Hyderabad, India, founded by Prasad Group in 1956. The production house has produced over 150 movies in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi. ...

. In 2013 DFT moved from Weiterstadt to

Arheilgen Arheilgen is a district in the north of the city of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany, incorporated in 1937. Arheilgen borders the Darmstadt district of Wixhausen to the North, to the West is the city Weiterstadt, to the East is the Darmstadt district ...

-Darmstadt, Germany. Grass Valley operated offices in the cities of all the former 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 ...

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

- from TeleMation Inc. -

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 ...

- BTS * Beaverton, Oregon, USA - 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 ...

, USA - from Grass Valley Group * Breda,

- from

- BTS After the financial crisis of 2008, Thomson became upside-down in its financial covenants and was forced by its creditors to divest itself of Grass Valley and other manufacturing entities. On January 29, 2009, Thomson announced that they were putting the Grass Valley division up for sale. In 2010, the Grass Valley business unit, not including the head-end and transmission businesses, was acquired by private equity firm

Francisco Partners Francisco Partners is an American private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses. Founded in August 1999 and based in San Francisco with offices in London and New York City, Francis ...

and resumed operating as an independent company on January 1, 2011. Grass Valley still maintains offices worldwide. Grass Valley was sold to Belden on February 6, 2014, Belden also owns Miranda.

Products

See: *

- for German-made products * TeleMation Inc. for SLC products. Philips invented the plumbicon pick up

video camera tube Video camera tubes were devices based on the cathode ray tube that were used in television cameras to capture television images, prior to the introduction of charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors in the 1980s. Several different types of tubes ...

in 1965; almost all of their color cameras used this award-winning tube. Starting with the LDK 90 camera, Philips used their

Frame transfer CCD A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...

Charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...

. Philips' patented Dynamic Pixel Management (DPM) FT-17 CCD technology won awards and was first used in the 1994 LDK10 and LDK10p camera. Philips-BTS product from Breda,

products: *EL-8020 B&W Studio 5 fixed lens *LDK2 1970s Norelco *LDH10 Norelco *LDH20 Norelco *LDH-0200 Studio Norelco *LDK3 Studio PC-80 Norelco *LDK4800 ? Triax repeter ? Camera ? *LDK5 1971 Studio 3 tubes Philips *LDK6 1982 Studio 3 tubes Norelco/BTS *LDK9P BTS CCD 1993 HandHeld *LDK10 BTS DPM CCD 1994 *LDK10P BTS DPM CCD 1994 *LDK11 1976 ENG Backpack Norelco *LDK12 ENG *LDK13 1971 ENG Backpack Norelco *LDK14 1977 ENG 3 tubes PhilipsArchive photos H02
/ref> *LDK15 1974? ENG Norelco *LDK20 ~1997 BTS CCD *LDK23HS BTS CCD Super slow mo *LDK25 Studio *LDK26 1982 Studio *LDK33 Early Handheld *LDK44 1984 Studio/ENG 3 tubes *LDK54 Handheld 3 tubes *LDK63 *LDK65 *LDK90 1987 BTS CCD HandHeld *LDK91 BTS CCD HandHeld *LDK93 BTS CCD HandHeld *LDK491 ENG Philips DIODE GUN PLUMBICONS *LDK614 LDK6 handheld *LDK700 BTS CCD *LDK910 BTS CCD Studio *LDK9000 BTS CCD HDTV *LDM42 B&W 1968 Studio *LDM53 B&W Studio *PC60 1965 Studio 3 tubes Norelco *PC70 1967 Studio 3 tubes Norelco *PC80 Studio Norelco LDK3 *PC100 Studio Norelco *PCP70 Handheld Norelco *PCP90 1968 Handheld Norelco *VIDEO 80 Handheld Current: *LDK 300 CCD Thomson Grassvalley *LDK 400 CCD Thomson Grassvalley *LDK 500 CCD Thomson Grassvalley 2003 *LDK23HS Mk2 CCD Super slow mo Thomson Grassvalley *LDK 5000 CCD Thomson Grassvalley *TTV 1657D CCD Thomson Grassvalley *LDK 20S CCD Thomson Grassvalley *LDK 1707 CCD Thomson Grassvalley *LDK 4000 CCD HDTV Thomson Grassvalley *LDK 5000 CCD HDTV Thomson Grassvalley *LDK 6000 CCD HDTV Thomson Grassvalley *LDK 6200 CCD HDTV Super SloMo *LDK 8000 CCD HDTV/SDTV Philips early VTRs: *LDL110 Portable * NL1500 cassette *LDL110 Portable 1977 *NL1702 *VR202 *VR2350

Awards

*Outstanding Achievement in Technical/Engineering Development Awards from

National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) is an American professional service organization founded in 1955 for "the advancement of the arts and sciences of television and the promotion of creative leadership for artistic, edu ...

. **1966-1967

PLUMBICON Video camera tubes were devices based on the cathode ray tube that were used in television cameras to capture television images, prior to the introduction of charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors in the 1980s. Several different types of tubes ...

TUBE - N.V. Philips - Breda **1987-1988 FGS 4000 computer animation system CGI- BTS -SLC, UT **1991-1992

Triaxial cable Triaxial cable, often referred to as triax for short, is a type of electrical cable similar to coaxial cable, but with the addition of an extra layer of insulation and a second conducting sheath. It provides greater bandwidth and rejection of inte ...

Technology for Color Television Cameras -N.V. Philips - Breda **1992-1993

Prism Prism usually refers to: * Prism (optics), a transparent optical component with flat surfaces that refract light * Prism (geometry), a kind of polyhedron Prism may also refer to: Science and mathematics * Prism (geology), a type of sedimentary ...

Technology for Color Television Cameras -N.V. Philips - Breda **1993-1994 Controlled Edge Enhancement Utilizing Skin Hue KeyingBTS and Ikegami (Joint Award) - Breda **1997-1998 Development of a High Resolution Digital Film Scanner Eastman Kodak and Philips Germany. See

**2000-2001 Pioneering developments in shared video-data storage systems for use in television video servers - BTS/Philips/Thomson/ - 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 proxies Montage. Philips and Thomson.

Photo gallery

File:TV-camera.jpg, BTS -Philips LDK 10 File:TV-camera-1.jpg, BTS -Philips LDK 10 from rear File:BNC HDTV VTR-type B deck.jpg, BCH-1000 HDTV Type B VTR File:BTS Quadra 444 Telecine.JPG, Quadra Telecine Film Deck Image:SDC-2000 Spirit DataCine Telecine.JPG, Early SDC-2000 Spirit DataCine was made by BTS File:Vbtsd1a.JPG, BTS D1 VTR DCR500

References

tmquest.com onBTS Productthefreelibrary.com On BTSthefreelibrary.com
On BTS, ABC'S KGO-TV Picks BTS Video Server to Go All Digital; Also Pilot Program For ABC-OWNED Stations

BTS Patents
electronics.zibb.com BTS Trademarksbusiness.highbeam.com
BC plans playback for disk-based server; its San Francisco O&O also plots Media Pool project. (owned-and-operated television station; BTS Broadcast Television Systems Inc. Media Pool server), Article from: Broadcasting & Cable , May 15, 1995 , McConnell, Chris
business.highbeam.com
New cable networks going digital. (includes related article on Game Show Network) Article from: Broadcasting & Cable , January 9, 1995 , McConnell, Chris
business.highbeam.com
Media Pool tests the tapeless waters. (BTS digital disk-based recorder), Article from: Broadcasting & Cable , July 18, 1994 , McConnell, Chris

KGO-TV picks BTS' Media Pool Video Server to provide all-digital system of the future. Las Vegas, Nev.--(Business Wire)--April 11, 1995—KGO-TV,
smpte.org
138th SMPTE Technical Conference Technical Papers Program, October 10–11, 1996, Los Angeles, Calif., Media Pool — Flexible Video Server Design for Television Broadcasting, by Charlie Bernstein1

BTS, System and method for enabling a data/video server]
trademarks.justia.com
Compositor I - Trademark Details

Compositor I By: BTS-Broadcast Television Systems, Inc.
emmyonline.tv
National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Outstanding Achievement in Technical/Engineering Development Awards, BTS Broadcast Television Systems, Inc. To BTS in recognition of their engineering contribution in 3D computer graphic technology and for development of the FGS 4000 computer animation system.

MACH ONE - Trademark Details.

MACH ONE By: BTS-Broadcast Television Systems, Inc.
The History of Television, 1942 to 2000
By Albert Abramson, Christopher H. Sterling, Page 304]
trademarkia.com
PIXELERATOR, By: BTS-Broadcast Television Systems, Inc., High-Speed Rendering Computer Processor For Use In Computer Graphics Application.
broadcasting101.ws
BTS Logo
www.broadcasting101.ws
LDK91 Camera
broadcasting101.ws
LDK910 camera
broadcasting101.ws
LDK-9000
www.broadcasting101.ws
BTS OB Van

List of BTS cameras

LDK614

XQ3427B Plumbicon camera tube.
tvcameramuseum.org
LDK 6

LDH 200

LDK 11

LDK 12

LDK 13

LDK 14

LDK 15

LDK 2

LDK 25
tvcameramuseum.org
LDK 26

LDK 3

LDK 44

LDK 54

PC 60 * vcameramuseum.orgLDK 54
tvcameramuseum.org
List of cameras

EL 8000 cam

History

Products

Awards

Photo gallery

See also

References

External links