One for the teenagers and anybody interested in how and where television graphics as we know it today began
In the mid to late 1970s, three companies were fighting for dominance in the market to sell ever more sophisticated graphics generation and manipulation systems to broadcasters around the world. The US was a big focus for all three, with its networks of local stations and national affiliates.
This 1979 edition of the BBC documentary strand The Risk Business shows how Quantel’s founders and key staff members, including the indefatigable Barry Miles, now a “Retired Grand Wizard” living in Bermuda, got their new flexible image system, “the ooze box”, ready in time to show at NAB at the Dallas Convention Centre that year.
This included some smart marketing to introduce fear, uncertainty and doubt into the minds of US rivals Vital and Japanese technology giant NEC in the weeks leading up to the show.