Charles Hubert Coleman Jr. (October 28, 1926 – July 13, 2005) was an American electronic engineer and a pioneer in the field of color

video tape recording 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 use ...

and later in high data-rate digital

tape recording An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...

. He was also an amateur explorer and avid pilot.

Early life

Coleman was born on October 28, 1926, in

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

and, as one of three children, grew up in

Charleston, Illinois Charleston is a city in and the county seat of Coles County, Illinois, United States. The population was 17,286, as of the 2020 census. The city is home to Eastern Illinois University and has close ties with its neighbor, Mattoon, Illinois, Ma ...

. His father was a professor of history at a state teacher's college. On his 17th birthday in October 1943, he joined the

US Marines The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the Marines, maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expedi ...

. Following boot camp, he was shipped to the Pacific and spent the remainder of the war teaching young Marines how to be radio technicians. Upon discharge in 1946, he joined WBKB-TV (now WBBM) in Chicago. In 1953, WBKB-TV was purchased by

CBS Television CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

. At CBS he quickly became a pioneer in the brand new field of

. Coleman invented Autotec

time base correction Time base correction (TBC) is a technique to reduce or eliminate errors caused by mechanical instability present in analog recordings on mechanical media. Without time base correction, a signal from a videotape recorder (VTR) or videocassette re ...

and applied it to improve the quality of the black and white TV broadcasts from WBKB

Career at Ampex

By 1960, engineers at

Ampex Corporation Ampex Data Systems Corporation is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name ''AMPEX'' is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excel ...

in had recognized the superior quality of the recorded TV images being shown on a certain Chicago TV station (WBKB). Coleman was quickly lured to join Ampex in

Redwood City, California Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area of Northern California, approximately south of San Francisco and northwest of San Jose, California, San Jose. The city's population was 84,292 accor ...

where he spent the rest of his career on perfecting

and pushing the boundaries of high data-rate tape-recording. Coleman made many inventions and received many accolades for his work. He received both the

SMPTE The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded by Charles Francis Jenkins in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and e ...

David Sarnoff David Sarnoff (February 27, 1891 – December 12, 1971) was a Russian and American businessman who played an important role in the American history of radio and television. He led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) for most of his career in ...

Gold Medal and the IEEE

Vladimir K. Zworykin Vladimir Kosma Zworykin (1888/1889July 29, 1982) was a Russian-American inventor, engineer, and pioneer of television technology. Zworykin invented a television transmitting and receiving system employing cathode-ray tubes. He played a role in t ...

Award in 1970 and, subsequently, the

Alexander M. Poniatoff Alexander Matveevich Poniatoff (, tr. ''Aleksándr Matvéjevič Ponjatóv''; 25 March 1892 – 24 October 1980) was a Russian-born American electrical engineer. Poniatoff was born in 1892 in Russkaya Aysha, Kazansky District, Kazan Governorate, ...

Award at Ampex in 1971, for his contributions to color video tape recording. Coleman was also the driving force behind the Digital Cassette Recording System. Ampex' most successful digital product. His colleagues at Ampex included

Charles Ginsburg Charles Paulson Ginsburg (July 27, 1920 – April 9, 1992) was an American engineer and the leader of a research team at Ampex which developed one of the first practical videotape recorders. Biography Ginsburg was born on July 27, 1920, in San ...

, John Mallinson, and Neal Bertram.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coleman, Charles American electronics engineers 1926 births 2005 deaths Engineers from Washington, D.C. Military personnel from Washington, D.C. United States Marines 20th-century American engineers People from Charleston, Illinois Engineers from Illinois Military personnel from Illinois United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II Deaths from kidney failure in California