Email received

Neil writes in his email;

The Peto Scott TV camera and CCU displayed were used by Scottish Television from 1958 to circa 1969. Studio D had two cameras with the full compliment apart from the PS monitors. High grade 2780 monitors only served to show up their lack of resolution! Popular for auditions, it often led to the final selection of applicants being dependent on how 'contrasty' their visage appeared when viewed by a vidicon camera.

A remote focus and fixed position gave the cameras a considerable economic advantage for all manner of programmes. Live commercials, news, features, sports (letraset scores on the second camera!) epilogues - all of which was a very cheap facility for the company. The cameras, despite their limitations, were very reliable, and to my best knowledge had only one fault - a vert bounce in one of the CCU's which was recognised and fixed by a passing ATV Midlands engineer (They must have had the same cameras).

Some seventy five percent of the station output on some nights was coming from the Peto Scott studio. This caused great animosity from some groups towards my oppo and I since we did lighting, sets, studio management meeting and greeting etc etc. Studio D was situated alongside Master Control in the deep basement of the Glasgow Theatre Royal. Flooding caused a move in 1960. The little green cameras continued in use for many years in their new Studio D.

Neil MVTR.