Sterling Entertainment Group (formerly United American Video (or in short: UAV ) Corporation , and more commonly known as UAV Home Video or UAV Entertainment ) was an American independent entertainment company founded in 1984 as a small local company originally located in Nashville, Tennessee , then, from late 1986, Charlotte, North Carolina . Its headquarters would later relocate to Fort Mill, South Carolina in 1996. UAV was the longtime competitor of GoodTimes Entertainment , Anchor Bay Entertainment and Celebrity Home Video and many other sell-through discount home entertainment companies.
112-683: United American Video began in 1984, by "The Pettus Family" with four employees, 50 public domain titles and 200 professional grade VHS and Betamax recorders. The founders changed the name a few years later to UAV Corporation to better reflect its entry into the prerecorded music and PC software businesses. In 1991, it entered into an agreement with Viacom Enterprises to license titles of The Andy Griffith Show onto videocassette. The company had operated different sublabels like Gemstone Entertainment, Hep Cat Entertainment and Ovation Home Video to release videocassette titles and Karaoke Bay to release record label titles. In 1992, UAV acquired 150 titles from
224-508: A USAF general, a sculptor, a restaurant owner, a psychiatrist, a bookkeeper for Milburn Drysdale's bank, a talent agent for "cousin" Bessie and "Cousin Roy" (see below), and a Hollywood producer. More often than not, his goal is merely to meet pretty girls. Miss Hathaway has a crush on him, but he is oblivious to this. Of all the Clampett clan, he is the most eager to embrace city life. Jethro has
336-402: A fastball and " wrassle " most men to a fall, and she can be tender with her friends, animals, and family. She says once that animals can be better companions than people, but as she grows older, she allows that "fellas kin be more fun than critters." In addition to the family dog, Duke (an old Bloodhound ), a number of pets live on the Clampett estate thanks to Elly May's love of animals. She
448-500: A 0.5-inch magnetic tape between two spools and typically offer a capacity of at least two hours. The popularity of VHS was intertwined with the rise of the video rental market, with films being released on pre-recorded videotapes for home viewing. Newer improved tape formats such as S-VHS were later developed, as well as the earliest optical disc format, LaserDisc ; the lack of global adoption of these formats increased VHS's lifetime, which eventually peaked and started to decline in
560-640: A 1993 Canadian English re-dub of Osamu Tezuka 's Kimba the White Lion (originally shown in Japan in 1965), The Secret of the Hunchback , The Secret of Anastasia , Young Pocahontas , The Secret of Mulan , Moses: Egypt's Great Prince , The Adventures of Tarzan , and Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid (originally released in Japan in 1975, removing approximately 2 minutes of footage containing shots of topless nudity in 2001). UAV also had
672-675: A TV set with a VHS mechanism, were also once available for purchase. Combo units containing both a VHS mechanism and a DVD player were introduced in the late 1990s, and at least one combo unit, the Panasonic DMP-BD70V, included a Blu-ray player. VHS has been standardized in IEC 60774–1. The VHS cassette is a 187 mm wide, 103 mm deep, and 25 mm thick (7 3 ⁄ 8 × 4 1 ⁄ 16 × 1 inch) plastic shell held together with five Phillips-head screws . The flip-up cover, which allows players and recorders to access
784-498: A crush on Jethro for most of the series' run. In 1999, TV Guide ranked Jane Hathaway number 38 on its list titled "50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time". The show's theme song , "The Ballad of Jed Clampett", was written by producer and writer Paul Henning and originally performed by bluegrass artists Foggy Mountain Boys , led by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs . The song is sung by Jerry Scoggins (backed by Flatt and Scruggs) over
896-446: A custom built 100,000 square feet headquarters housing manufacturing, distribution and all sales and marketing functions. In 1994, the company began to produce several original titles that were made for videocassette, which included a line of fitness videos starring Kathy Ireland , as well as a line of children's animation videos. Also that year, UAV invested into their own CD-ROM technology and four new animated titles were introduced at
1008-496: A customary practice, he addresses Jed – his once-removed elder cousin – as "Uncle Jed", just as his second cousin, Elly May, addresses Jethro's mother as "Aunt Pearl"). Pearl's mother and Jed's father were siblings. Jethro drives the Clampett family to their new home in California and stays on with them to further his education. In the first season, he is in the fifth grade, having spent three years in
1120-569: A disadvantage. Matsushita's backing of JVC persuaded Hitachi , Mitsubishi , and Sharp to back the VHS standard as well. Sony's release of its Betamax unit to the Japanese market in 1975 placed further pressure on the MITI to side with the company. However, the collaboration of JVC and its partners was much stronger, which eventually led the MITI to drop its push for an industry standard. JVC released
1232-413: A few solo recordings following the show's success, including Ryan's 1966 novelty single, "Granny's Miniskirt". The series generally features no country music beyond the bluegrass banjo theme song, although country star Roy Clark and the team of Flatt and Scruggs occasionally play on the program. Pop singer Pat Boone appears in one episode as himself, under the premise that he hails from the same area of
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#17327942775001344-427: A flying erase head for erasing individual video fields, and one was a dummy used for balancing the head drum. The high tape-to-head speed created by the rotating head results in a far higher bandwidth than could be practically achieved with a stationary head. VHS machines record up to 3 MHz of baseband video bandwidth and 300 kHz of baseband chroma bandwidth. The luminance (black and white) portion of
1456-456: A form of anesthesia when performing painful treatments such as leech bleeding or tooth pulling. She often refers to the concoction as " rheumatize medicine ". Like the other Clampetts, she is known to take things literally, having thought Mrs. Drysdale had turned herself into a bird using black magic ( astrology ) and mistook an escaped kangaroo for a giant jackrabbit (but failed to convince anyone of its existence). Paul Henning discarded
1568-591: A functional prototype of the Betamax format, and was very close to releasing a finished product. With this prototype, Sony persuaded the MITI to adopt Betamax as the standard, and allow it to license the technology to other companies. JVC believed that an open standard , with the format shared among competitors without licensing the technology, was better for the consumer. To prevent the MITI from adopting Betamax, JVC worked to convince other companies, in particular Matsushita (Japan's largest electronics manufacturer at
1680-423: A huge appetite — in one episode, he eats a jetliner's entire supply of steaks, in another he tries to set himself up as a Hollywood agent for cousin "Bessie" the chimpanzee – with a fee of 10,000 bananas for Bessie and 1,000 for him. When "Cousin Roy" ( Roy Clark ) comes from "the hills" to Beverly Hills to become a country music star, Jethro refuses to be his agent when Roy becomes a success. Jethro does not appear in
1792-450: A joint venture with CBS called CBS/Fox Video , released select episodes of Hillbillies on videocassette. After Viacom merged with CBS in 1999, Paramount Home Entertainment (the video division of Paramount Pictures, which was acquired by Viacom in 1994) took over the video rights. In 2006, Paramount announced plans to release the copyrighted episodes in boxed sets through CBS DVD later that year. The show's second season (consisting of
1904-555: A maximum of about 430 m (1,410 ft) of tape at the lowest acceptable tape thickness, giving a maximum playing time of about four hours in a T-240/DF480 for NTSC and five hours in an E-300 for PAL at "standard play" (SP) quality. More frequently, however, VHS tapes are thicker than the required minimum to avoid complications such as jams or tears in the tape. Other speeds include "long play" (LP), "extended play" (EP) or "super long play" (SLP) (standard on NTSC; rarely found on PAL machines ). For NTSC, LP and EP/SLP double and triple
2016-738: A poor, widowed hillbilly who lives with his daughter and mother-in-law near an oil-rich swamp in Silver Dollar City in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. The opening sequence shows Jed discovering oil while shooting at a rabbit, although the first episode shows the oil being discovered by a surveyor for the OK Oil Company. The company pays Jed many millions of dollars for the right to drill on his land. Jed's cousin Pearl Bodine prods him to move to California now that he
2128-510: A reportedly large cash payment settlement to employee Hamilton Morgen after Morgen sued the network. Morgen claimed CBS appropriated his submitted ideas and script for a show called Country Cousins to form The Beverly Hillbillies . The Beverly Hillbillies is still televised daily around the world in syndication. In the United States, the show is broadcast currently on MeTV , Circle , Classic Reruns TV , GAC Family and Laff and
2240-489: A second VCR. The first version of Macrovision introduces high signal levels during the vertical blanking interval , which occurs between the video fields. These high levels confuse the automatic gain control circuit in most VHS VCRs, leading to varying brightness levels in an output video, but are ignored by the TV as they are out of the frame-display period. "Level II" Macrovision uses a process called "colorstriping", which inverts
2352-563: Is 3.335 cm / s (1.313 ips) for NTSC , 2.339 cm/s (0.921 ips) for PAL —or just over 2.0 and 1.4 metres (6 ft 6.7 in and 4 ft 7.2 in) per minute respectively. The tape length for a T-120 VHS cassette is 247.5 metres (812 ft). As with almost all cassette-based videotape systems, VHS machines pull the tape out of the cassette shell and wrap it around the inclined head drum, which rotates at 1,800 rpm in NTSC machines and at 1,500 rpm for PAL , one complete rotation of
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#17327942775002464-489: Is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes , introduced in 1976 by the Victor Company of Japan (JVC) . It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period in the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. Magnetic tape video recording was adopted by the television industry in the 1950s in the form of the first commercialized video tape recorders (VTRs), but
2576-580: Is a descendant of the Bodkins family from Tennessee. It is revealed in the first season that Granny's clan, the Moses family, feuded with the Bodkins family and drove them from Napoleon, Tennessee. A recurring comedic scene shows Drysdale angrily answering his phone only to find Jed on the other end of the line, at which point Drysdale's demeanor instantly changes to one of good humor and accommodation. Jane Hathaway (portrayed by Nancy Kulp in 246 episodes), whom
2688-483: Is a descendant of the Moses clan, who feuded with another family, the Bodkins, and drove them out of Napoleon, Tennessee. In Season 9, Episode 23, Granny states that she is "from Limestone, Tennessee ". Granny has an abrasive personality and is quick to anger but is often overruled by Jed. She is a devout Confederate and fancies herself a Baptist Christian (" dunked , not sprinkled "). A self-styled "M.D." ("mountain doctor"), Granny uses her " white lightning " brew as
2800-435: Is a terrible cook where family members and anyone they know cringe whenever she takes over the kitchen. Elly May is easily in her 20s, but Granny usually promotes her age as "14" since an unmarried mountain woman as old as Elly May is considered an old maid . In the 1981 reunion TV movie, Elly May is the head of a zoo. Jethro (portrayed by Max Baer Jr. in 272 episodes) is the dim-witted son of Jed's cousin, Pearl Bodine (in
2912-424: Is applied to over 550 million videocassettes annually and is used by every MPAA movie studio on some or all of their videocassette releases. Over 220 commercial duplication facilities around the world are equipped to supply Macrovision videocassette copy protection to rights owners...The study found that over 30% of VCR households admit to having unauthorized copies, and that the total annual revenue loss due to copying
3024-796: Is distributed by CBS Media Ventures , the syndication arm of CBS Television Studios and the CBS network. It was previously distributed by CBS Enterprises, Viacom Enterprises , Paramount Domestic Television , and CBS Paramount Domestic Television (all through corporate changes involving TV distribution rights to the early CBS library). The repeats of the show that debuted on CBS Daytime on September 5–9, 1966, as "Mornin' Beverly Hillbillies" through September 10, 1971, and on September 13–17, 1971, as "The Beverly Hillbillies" lasted up to winter 1971–72. It aired at 11:00–11:30 a.m. Eastern/10:00-10:30 a.m. Central through September 3, 1971, then moved to 10:30–11:00 a.m. Eastern/9:30–10:00 a.m. Central for
3136-450: Is estimated at $ 370,000,000 annually. The system was first used in copyrighted movies beginning with the 1984 film The Cotton Club . Macrovision copy protection saw refinement throughout its years, but has always worked by essentially introducing deliberate errors into a protected VHS tape's output video stream. These errors in the output video stream are ignored by most televisions, but will interfere with re-recording of programming by
3248-419: Is extended/super long play ( 1 ⁄ 3 speed) which was primarily released into the NTSC market. As VHS was designed to facilitate recording from various sources, including television broadcasts or other VCR units, content producers quickly found that home users were able to use the devices to copy videos from one tape to another. Despite generation loss in quality when a tape was copied, this practice
3360-518: Is founded is an encouragement to ignorance... But it is funny. What can I do?" Regardless of the poor reviews, the show shot to the top of the Nielsen ratings shortly after its premiere and stayed there for several seasons. During its first two seasons, it was the number-one program in the U.S; during its second season, it earned some of the highest ratings ever recorded for a half-hour sitcom. The season-two episode "The Giant Jackrabbit" also became
3472-410: Is given a diploma at the end of the day to keep him from returning. In real life, Max Baer Jr. has a bachelor's degree in business administration , minoring in philosophy, from Santa Clara University . Many story lines involve Jethro's endless career search. He considers becoming a brain surgeon, a fry cook, a millwright, a street car conductor, a spy, a telephone lineman, a soda jerk , a chauffeur,
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3584-422: Is magnified by the narrower tracks. The heads for linear audio are not on the spinning drum, so for them, the tape speed from one reel to the other is the same as the speed of the heads across the tape. This speed is quite slow: for SP it is about 2/3s that of an audio cassette, and for EP it is slower than the slowest microcassette speed. This is widely considered inadequate for anything but basic voice playback, and
3696-407: Is not in the last two episodes of the series, having gone into hiding to avoid an anticipated marriage proposal. Good-natured patriarch Jed Clampett (portrayed by Buddy Ebsen ) has little formal education and is naive about the world outside the rural area where he lived but has a great deal of wisdom and common sense. His forebears are revealed in series 1, episode 25, to have come to America before
3808-420: Is the spitting image of her mother. He is usually the straight man to Granny and Jethro's antics. His catchphrase is, "Welllllll, doggies!" Daisy May Moses (portrayed by Irene Ryan in all 274 episodes), called "Granny" by all, is Jed's mother-in-law, so is often called "Granny Clampett" in spite of her last name and despite the fact that in the pilot episode Milburn Drysdale refers to her as Jed's mother. She
3920-414: Is wealthy and pressures him into taking her son Jethro along. The family moves into a mansion in upscale Beverly Hills, California, next door to Jed's banker, Milburn Drysdale, and his wife, Margaret, who is appalled by the hillbilly Clampetts. The Clampetts bring an unsophisticated, simple, moral lifestyle to the wealthy and sometimes superficial community. Double entendres and cultural misconceptions are
4032-487: The Mayflower arrived. However, he later denies this to avoid offending Mrs. Drysdale. He is the widower of Granny's daughter, Rose Ellen (Buddy Ebsen was only 5 years younger than Irene Ryan). He is the son of Luke Clampett and his wife and has a sister called Myrtle. In episode 13, it is revealed that Jed's grandfather was 98 when he married Jed's grandmother, who was 18. In an early episode, Jed tells Elly May that she
4144-469: The NTSC television standard were able to record one hour of programming at their standard tape speed of 1.5 inches per second (ips). The first VHS machines could record for two hours, due to both a slightly slower tape speed (1.31 ips) and significantly longer tape. Betamax's smaller cassette limited the size of the reel of tape, and could not compete with VHS's two-hour capability by extending
4256-404: The energy crisis . Since Granny had gone on to "her re-ward", it was up to Granny's centenarian "Maw" ( Imogene Coca ) to divulge the secret brew's ingredients. Subplots included Jethro playing an egocentric, starlet-starved Hollywood producer, Jane and her boss ( Werner Klemperer ) having a romance, and Elly May owning a large petting zoo. The four main characters finally got together by the end of
4368-453: The omega transport system) in a helical fashion, assisted by the slanted tape guides. The head rotates constantly at 1798.2 rpm in NTSC machines, exactly 1500 in PAL, each complete rotation corresponding to one frame of video. Two tape heads are mounted on the cylindrical surface of the drum, 180 degrees apart from each other, so that the two heads "take turns" in recording. The rotation of
4480-566: The Clampetts address as "Miss Jane", is Drysdale's loyal, well-educated, efficient secretary at the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills. She is genuinely fond of the family and tries to shield them from her boss's greed. Miss Hathaway frequently has to "rescue" Drysdale from his schemes, receiving little or no thanks for her efforts. The Clampetts consider her family; even Granny, the one most averse to living in California, likes her. Jane has
4592-557: The Clampetts, a poor backwoods family from the Ozark Mountains of Missouri who move to posh Beverly Hills, California after striking oil on their land. The show was produced by Filmways and was created by Paul Henning . It was followed by two other Henning-inspired "country cousin" series on CBS: Petticoat Junction and its spin-off Green Acres , which reversed the rags-to-riches, country-to-city model of The Beverly Hillbillies . The Beverly Hillbillies ranked among
Sterling Entertainment Group - Misplaced Pages Continue
4704-872: The HR-3300EK in the United Kingdom. The United States received its first VHS-based VCR, the RCA VBT200, on August 23, 1977. The RCA unit was designed by Matsushita and was the first VHS-based VCR manufactured by a company other than JVC. It was also capable of recording four hours in LP (long play) mode. The UK received its first VHS-based VCR, the Victor HR-3300EK, in 1978. Quasar and General Electric followed-up with VHS-based VCRs – all designed by Matsushita. By 1999, Matsushita alone produced just over half of all Japanese VCRs. TV/VCR combos , combining
4816-592: The Summer Consumer Electronics Show . In late 1998, UAV rebranded its home entertainment division under the Sterling Entertainment Group name, although UAV was continued to be used as a legal name for the company. In 1999, UAV added 210,000 additional square feet to its headquarters with over 250 associates. In 2002, UAV was sold to a private equity firm . On June 14, 2006, the private equity firm lost control of
4928-477: The U-matic format. In 1971, JVC engineers Yuma Shiraishi and Shizuo Takano put together a team to develop a VTR for consumers. By the end of 1971, they created an internal diagram, "VHS Development Matrix", which established twelve objectives for JVC's new VTR: In early 1972, the commercial video recording industry in Japan took a financial hit. JVC cut its budgets and restructured its video division, shelving
5040-491: The VHS project. However, despite the lack of funding, Takano and Shiraishi continued to work on the project in secret. By 1973, the two engineers had produced a functional prototype. In 1974, the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), desiring to avoid consumer confusion , attempted to force the Japanese video industry to standardize on just one home video recording format. Later, Sony had
5152-454: The analog signal's colorburst period and causes off-color bands to appear in the picture. Level III protection added additional colorstriping techniques to further degrade the image. These protection methods worked well to defeat analog-to-analog copying by VCRs of the time. Consumer products capable of digital video recording are mandated by law to include features which detect Macrovision encoding of input analog streams, and disrupt copying of
5264-454: The bandwidth to over 5 megahertz, yielding 420 analog horizontal (560 pixels left-to-right). Most Super VHS recorders can play back standard VHS tapes, but not vice versa. S-VHS was designed for higher resolution, but failed to gain popularity outside Japan because of the high costs of the machines and tapes. Because of the limited user base, Super VHS was never picked up to any significant degree by manufacturers of pre-recorded tapes, although it
5376-409: The cassette through the circular hole in the center of the underside, and two photodiodes are on the left and right sides of where the tape exits the cassette. When the clear tape reaches one of these, enough light will pass through the tape to the photodiode to trigger the stop function; some VCRs automatically rewind the tape when the trailing end is detected. Early VCRs used an incandescent bulb as
5488-518: The cast. To this end, the show sometimes included extra verses of the theme song about Winston cigarettes and Kellogg's cereals. Perry Botkin composed many songs for The Beverly Hillbillies . Botkin's upbeat tune from Murder by Contract , played during scenes of sunny LA, signaled scenes at the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills. The six main cast members participated on a 1963 Columbia soundtrack album, which featured original song numbers in character. Additionally, Ebsen, Ryan, and Douglas each made
5600-435: The company to the lenders and UAV filed, laying off over 300 employees, claiming payroll funding had been cut by its lenders. A week later, the total number of layoffs had increased by approximately 100 extra. On June 30, ContentFilm announced its intent to acquire Allumination Filmworks as well as certain assets from UAV Corporation and UAV Holdings. The acquisition was completed that September. In 2017, Content Media Corporation
5712-454: The complete first season on DVD. The fifth season was released on October 2, 2018. A three-act stage play based on the pilot was written by David Rogers in 1968. The Deadly Hillbillies, an interactive murder mystery, was written by John R. Logue using the core cast of characters as inspiration. This Gypsy Productions Murder Mystery Parody features characters such as Jed Clumpett, Daisy May Mostes, and Jane Hatchaway. Dell Comics adapted
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#17327942775005824-459: The core of the sitcom's humor. Plots often involve Drysdale's outlandish efforts to keep the Clampetts' money in his bank and his wife's efforts to rid the neighborhood of "those hillbillies". The family's periodic attempts to return to the mountains are often the result of Granny feeling slighted by the "city folk". Three of the main characters – Jed, Granny and Elly May – appear in all 274 episodes. Jethro (272 episodes)
5936-438: The country as the Clampetts, although Boone is a native of Jacksonville, Florida . The 1989 film UHF featured a "Weird Al" Yankovic parody music video, " Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies* ", combining " The Ballad of Jed Clampett " and English rock band Dire Straits ' 1985 hit song " Money for Nothing ". The Beverly Hillbillies received generally poor reviews from contemporary critics. The New York Times called
6048-578: The defunct VidAmerica , which was eventually rebranded as Sterling Entertainment Group, and later began releasing a line of MTM Enterprises titles through the MTM Home Video label. Sterling will be located on the old VidAmerica headquarters. In 1993, UAV created a video gift pack that was designed specifically for all holiday stores under the Video Gift Pak brand line. In 1996, UAV relocated from Charlotte to Fort Mill, South Carolina , into
6160-411: The devices were expensive and used only in professional environments. In the 1970s, videotape technology became affordable for home use, and widespread adoption of videocassette recorders (VCRs) began; the VHS became the most popular media format for VCRs as it would win the "format war" against Betamax (backed by Sony ) and a number of other competing tape standards. The cassettes themselves use
6272-399: The drum moving across the tape at (a writing speed of) 4.86 or 6.096 meters per second. To maximize the use of the tape, the video tracks are recorded very close together. To reduce crosstalk between adjacent tracks on playback, an azimuth recording method is used: The gaps of the two heads are not aligned exactly with the track path. Instead, one head is angled at plus six degrees from
6384-459: The edge label. The tapes are made, pre-recorded, and inserted into the cassettes in cleanrooms , to ensure quality and to keep dust from getting embedded in the tape and interfering with recording (both of which could cause signal dropouts) There is a clear tape leader at both ends of the tape to provide an optical auto-stop for the VCR transport mechanism. In the VCR, a light source is inserted into
6496-411: The end of each episode. The alternate version is also the version seen on Amazon Prime Video. With the exception of the public domain episodes, the copyrights to the series were renewed by Orion Television. However, any new compilation of Hillbillies material will be copyrighted by either MPI Media Group or CBS, depending on the content of the material used. For many years, 20th Century Fox , through
6608-475: The exclusive licenses for the entire MTM Enterprises library which included The Mary Tyler Moore Show , Hill Street Blues and The White Shadow . They also distributed many public domain episodes of TV shows, including The Beverly Hillbillies , The Dick Van Dyke Show , The Andy Griffith Show and The Lucy Show . Sterling also released DVDs and VHS tapes of DIC Entertainment shows beginning in 2003. VHS The VHS ( Video Home System )
6720-408: The field interviewer. This special was ranked as the fourth-most watched television program of the week — a major surprise given the mediocre rating for the 1981 television film. It was a rare tribute from the "Tiffany network", which owed much of its success in the 1960s to the series, but has often seemed embarrassed by it in hindsight, often downplaying the show in retrospective television specials on
6832-415: The first VHS machines in Japan in late 1976, and in the United States in mid-1977. Sony's Betamax competed with VHS throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s (see Videotape format war ). Betamax's major advantages were its smaller cassette size, theoretical higher video quality, and earlier availability, but its shorter recording time proved to be a major shortcoming. Originally, Beta I machines using
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#17327942775006944-467: The first commercially successful VTR, the Ampex VRX-1000 , was introduced by Ampex Corporation . At a price of US$ 50,000 in 1956 (equivalent to $ 560,343 in 2023) and US$ 300 (equivalent to $ 3,362 in 2023) for a 90-minute reel of tape, it was intended only for the professional market. Kenjiro Takayanagi , a television broadcasting pioneer then working for JVC as its vice president, saw
7056-419: The following steps, in this order: The erase head is fed by a high-level, high-frequency AC signal that overwrites any previous recording on the tape. Without this step, the new recording cannot be guaranteed to completely replace any old recording that might have been on the tape. The tape path then carries the tape around the spinning video-head drum, wrapping it around a little more than 180 degrees (called
7168-418: The fourth grade and two years in the first grade. The others boast of Jethro's "sixth-grade education". Jethro often speaks enthusiastically of his abilities in "cipherin'" (1 and 1 is 2, 2 and 2 is 4), and "gazintas" (4 gazinta 8 2 times, 3 gazinta 12 4 times), and he is ignorant about nearly every aspect of modern California life. In one episode, he attends a local secretarial school and is so disruptive that he
7280-414: The head corresponding to one video frame. VHS uses an "M-loading" system, also known as M-lacing, where the tape is drawn out by two threading posts and wrapped around more than 180 degrees of the head drum (and also other tape transport components) in a shape roughly approximating the letter M . The heads in the rotating drum get their signal wirelessly using a rotary transformer . A VHS cassette holds
7392-537: The hills where he purchased some land and spends some of his days whittling. Nancy Kulp had died in 1991 and was little referred to beyond the multitude of film clips that dotted the special. When asked if bears no grudge against Drysdale, Jed states "I never bear no grudge against any man. The way I see it, I lost some money, but Mr. Drysdale lost his freedom. I don't think I'm bad off at all". Jed then tells his interviewer that he goes into town to ring up Elly May and that Jethro brings his children around often. He then takes
7504-435: The idea of making Granny Jed's mother which would have changed the show's dynamics by making Granny the matriarch and Jed her subordinate. Elly May (portrayed by Donna Douglas in all 274 episodes), the only child of Jed and Rose Ellen Clampett, is a mountain beauty with the body of a pin-up girl and the soul of a tomboy . In a very early episode, Jed tells Elly May that she is the spitting image of her mother. She can throw
7616-409: The inclined head drum, combined with the relatively slow movement of the tape, results in each head recording a track oriented at a diagonal with respect to the length of the tape, with the heads moving across the tape at speeds higher than what would otherwise be possible. This is referred to as helical scan recording. A tape speed of 1 + 5 ⁄ 16 inches per second corresponds to the heads on
7728-445: The last season on CBS Daytime. Fifty-five episodes of the series are in the public domain (all 36 season-one episodes and 19 season-two episodes), because Orion Television , successor to Filmways, neglected to renew their copyrights. As a result, these episodes have been released on home video and DVD on many low-budget labels and shown on low-power television stations and low-budget networks in 16-mm prints. In many video prints of
7840-416: The late 1990s after the introduction of DVD , a digital optical disc format. VHS rentals were surpassed by DVD in the United States in 2003, which eventually became the preferred low-end method of movie distribution. For home recording purposes, VHS and VCRs were surpassed by (typically hard disk –based) digital video recorders (DVR) in the 2000s. In 1956, after several attempts by other companies,
7952-446: The light source: when the bulb failed, the VCR would act as if a tape were present when the machine was empty, or would detect the blown bulb and completely stop functioning. Later designs use an infrared LED , which has a much longer life. The recording medium is a Mylar magnetic tape , 12.7 mm ( 1 ⁄ 2 inch) wide, coated with metal oxide , and wound on two spools . The tape speed for "Standard Play" mode (see below)
8064-502: The majority stockholder of JVC until 2011) to build a video recording standard for the Japanese consumer. The effort produced the U-matic format in 1971, which was the first cassette format to become a unified standard for different companies. It was preceded by the reel-to-reel 1 ⁄ 2 " EIAJ format. The U-matic format was successful in businesses and some broadcast television applications, such as electronic news-gathering, and
8176-503: The man interviewing with him to meet some friends unaware that he struck another area of oil. The scene closes with Jed dancing to the theme song with Jerry Scoggins while Earl Scruggs and Roy Clark (who is substituting for the late Lester Flatt) playing the music. The special was released on VHS tape by CBS/Fox Video in 1995 and as a bonus feature on the Official Third Season DVD Set in 2009. In 1974, CBS made
8288-414: The miniaturized drum required twice as many heads to complete any given task. This almost always meant four heads on the miniaturized drum with performance similar to a two head VCR with a full sized drum. No attempt was made to record Hi-Fi audio with such devices, as this would require an additional four heads to work. W-VHS decks could have up to 12 heads in the head drum, of which 11 were active including
8400-424: The most-watched telecast up to the time of its airing and remains the most-watched half-hour episode of a sitcom , as well. The series enjoyed excellent ratings throughout its run, although it had fallen out of the top 20 most-watched shows during its final season. In 1997, the season-three episode "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood" was ranked number 62 on " TV Guide ' s 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time ". The show
8512-451: The need for his company to produce VTRs for the Japanese market at a more affordable price. In 1959, JVC developed a two-head video tape recorder and, by 1960, a color version for professional broadcasting. In 1964, JVC released the DV220, which would be the company's standard VTR until the mid-1970s. In 1969, JVC collaborated with Sony Corporation and Matsushita Electric (Matsushita was
8624-513: The network's history and rarely inviting cast members to participate in such all-star broadcasts. The Legend of The Beverly Hillbillies special ignored several plot twists of the television film, notably that Jethro was now not a film director but a leading Los Angeles physician. Critter-loving Elly May was still in California with her animals. Jed was back home in the Hills where he declined interviews until now. He also mentioned how he got richer in
8736-514: The opening and end credits of each episode. Flatt and Scruggs subsequently cut their own version of the theme (with Flatt singing) for Columbia Records ; released as a single, it reached number 44 on Billboard Hot 100 pop music chart and number one on the Billboard Hot Country chart (the lone country chart-topper for the duo). As was customary in the early 1960s, the show's advertising sponsors were woven into bumpers involving
8848-418: The original, uncut versions of the first season's episodes, complete with their original theme music and opening sponsor plugs. Volume 1 has, among its bonus features, the alternate, unaired version of the pilot film, The Hillbillies Of Beverly Hills (the version of the episode that sold the series to CBS), and the "cast commercials" (cast members pitching the products of the show's sponsors) originally shown at
8960-474: The playing time for an E-XXX tape in an NTSC machine, this formula is used: Since the recording/playback time for PAL/SECAM is roughly 1/3 longer than the recording/playback time for NTSC, some tape manufacturers label their cassettes with both T-XXX and E-XXX marks, like T60/E90, T90/E120 and T120/E180. SP is standard play, LP is long play ( 1 ⁄ 2 speed, equal to recording time in DVHS "HS" mode), EP/SLP
9072-419: The playing time for any given cassette will vary between the systems. To avoid confusion, manufacturers indicate the playing time in minutes that can be expected for the market the tape is sold in: E-XXX indicates playing time in minutes for PAL or SECAM. T-XXX indicates playing time in minutes for NTSC or PAL-M. To calculate the playing time for a T-XXX tape in a PAL machine, this formula is used: To calculate
9184-499: The public domain episodes from that season) was released on DVD in Region 1 on October 7, 2008, as "...The Official Second Season". The third season was released on February 17, 2009. Both seasons are available to be purchased together from major online retailers. On October 1, 2013, season four was released on DVD as a Walmart exclusive. It was released as a full retail release on April 15, 2014. On April 26, 2016, CBS/Paramount released
9296-409: The public domain episodes, the original theme music has been replaced by generic music due to copyright issues. Before his death, Paul Henning, whose estate now holds the original film elements to the public domain episodes, authorized MPI Home Video to release the best of the first two seasons on DVD, the first "ultimate collection" of which was released in the fall of 2005. These collections include
9408-413: The public domain, original productions and exclusive licenses, as well as a full line of music and computer software. Under their UAV Gold banner, Sterling (which was known as UAV during the time) also distributed original production animated fairy tale adaptations, often released around the time of more popular and widely known theatrical releases by Disney or other major studios . Notable releases featured
9520-534: The quality of the SP speed, and dramatically lowered the quality of freeze frame and high speed search. Later models implemented both wide and narrow heads, and could use all four during pause and shuttle modes to further improve quality although machines later combined both pairs into one. In machines supporting VHS HiFi (described later), yet another pair of heads was added to handle the VHS HiFi signal. Camcorders using
9632-616: The recording time accordingly, but these speed reductions cause a reduction in horizontal resolution – from the normal equivalent of 250 vertical lines in SP, to the equivalent of 230 in LP and even less in EP/SLP. Due to the nature of recording diagonally from a spinning drum, the actual write speed of the video heads does not get slower when the tape speed is reduced. Instead, the video tracks become narrower and are packed closer together. This results in noisier playback that can be more difficult to track correctly: The effect of subtle misalignment
9744-512: The respective analog TV standard (625 for PAL or 525 for NTSC ; somewhat fewer scan lines are actually visible due to overscan and the VBI ). In modern-day digital terminology, NTSC VHS resolution is roughly equivalent to 333×480 pixels for luma and 40×480 pixels for chroma. 333×480=159,840 pixels or 0.16 MP (1/6 of a megapixel). PAL VHS resolution is roughly 333×576 pixels for luma and 40×576 pixels for chroma (although when decoded PAL and SECAM half
9856-520: The role that both started and stymied his career, so the character of Jethro Bodine was given to another actor, Ray Young. The film's plot had Jed back in his old homestead in Bugtussle, having divided his massive fortune among Elly May and Jethro, both of whom stayed on the West Coast. Jane Hathaway had become a Department of Energy agent and was seeking Granny's "White Lightnin'" recipe to combat
9968-452: The second tape head, is another 1 ⁄ 60 or 1 ⁄ 50 of a second TV picture field, and so on. Thus one complete head rotation records an entire NTSC or PAL frame of two fields. The original VHS specification had only two video heads. When the EP recording speed was introduced, the thickness of these heads was reduced to accommodate the narrower tracks. However, this subtly reduced
10080-487: The series into a comic book series in 1962. The art work was provided by Henry Scarpelli . The comic ran for 18 issues, ending in August 1967. In 1993, a film version of The Beverly Hillbillies was released starring Jim Varney as Jed Clampett and featuring Buddy Ebsen in a cameo as Barnaby Jones , the lead character in his long-running post- Hillbillies television series. Based on The Beverly Hillbillies movie,
10192-474: The show "strained and unfunny"; Variety called it "painful to sit through". Film professor Janet Staiger writes that "the problem for these reviewers was that the show confronted the cultural elite's notions of quality entertainment." The show did receive a somewhat favorable review from noted critic Gilbert Seldes in the December 15, 1962 TV Guide : "The whole notion on which The Beverly Hillbillies
10304-528: The story. According to viewer consensus, though filmed a mere decade after the final episode of the series, the movie lacked the series' original spirit on many fronts, among them being the deaths of Ryan and Bailey and Baer's absence, leaving only three of the six original cast members to reprise their respective roles. Further subtracting from the familiarity was that the legendary Clampett mansion (the Sumner Spaulding -designed Chartwell Mansion ) –
10416-517: The tape length. Instead, Sony had to slow the tape down to 0.787 ips (Beta II) in order to achieve two hours of recording in the same cassette size. Sony eventually created a Beta III speed of 0.524 ips, which allowed NTSC Betamax to break the two-hour limit, but by then VHS had already won the format battle. Additionally, VHS had a "far less complex tape transport mechanism" than Betamax, and VHS machines were faster at rewinding and fast-forwarding than their Sony counterparts. VHS eventually won
10528-441: The tape, has a latch on the right side, with a push-in toggle to release it (bottom view image). The cassette has an anti-despooling mechanism, consisting of several plastic parts between the spools, near the front of the cassette (white and black in the top view). The spool latches are released by a push-in lever within a 6.35 mm ( 1 ⁄ 4 inch) hole at the bottom of the cassette, 19 mm ( 3 ⁄ 4 inch) in from
10640-593: The third- or second-to-last episodes, but Baer remains billed in the title credits. Baer is the only surviving main cast member. Mr. Milburn Drysdale (portrayed by Raymond Bailey in 247 episodes) is the Clampetts' banker, confidant, and next-door neighbor. He is obsessed with money and to keep the Clampetts' $ 96,000,000 (in 1969; equivalent to $ 797,618,875 in 2023) in his Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills, Mr. Drysdale will go to great lengths to cater to their wishes. He often forces others, especially his long-suffering secretary, to help fulfill their outlandish requests. He
10752-628: The time, marketing its products under the National brand in most territories and the Panasonic brand in North America, and JVC's majority stockholder), to accept VHS, and thereby work against Sony and the MITI. Matsushita agreed, primarily out of concern that Sony might become the leader in the field if its proprietary Betamax format was the only one allowed to be manufactured. Matsushita also regarded Betamax's one-hour recording time limit as
10864-564: The top 20 most-watched programs on television for eight of its nine seasons, ranking as the No.1 series of the year during its first two seasons, with 16 episodes that still remain among the 100 most-watched television episodes in American history. It accumulated seven Emmy nominations during its run. It remains in syndicated reruns, and its ongoing popularity spawned a 1993 film adaptation by 20th Century Fox . The series starts with Jed Clampett,
10976-409: The track, and the other at minus six degrees. This results, during playback, in destructive interference of the signal from the tracks on either side of the one being played. Each of the diagonal-angled tracks is a complete TV picture field , lasting 1 ⁄ 60 of a second ( 1 ⁄ 50 on PAL) on the display. One tape head records an entire picture field. The adjacent track, recorded by
11088-444: The vertical color resolution). JVC countered 1985's SuperBeta with VHS HQ, or High Quality. The frequency modulation of the VHS luminance signal is limited to 3 megahertz, which makes higher resolutions technically impossible even with the highest-quality recording heads and tape materials, but an HQ branded deck includes luminance noise reduction, chroma noise reduction, white clip extension, and improved sharpness circuitry. The effect
11200-404: The video is frequency modulated and combined with a down-converted " color under " chroma (color) signal that is encoded using quadrature amplitude modulation . Including side bands , the signal on a VHS tape can use up to 10 MHz of RF bandwidth. VHS horizontal resolution is 240 TVL , or about 320 lines across a scan line. The vertical resolution (number of scan lines) is the same as
11312-411: The video. Both intentional and false-positive detection of Macrovision protection has frustrated archivists who wish to copy now-fragile VHS tapes to a digital format for preservation. As of the 2020s, modern software decoding ignores Macrovison as software is not limited to the fixed standards that Macrovision was intended to disrupt in hardware based systems. The recording process in VHS consists of
11424-753: The war, gaining 60% of the North American market by 1980. The first VCR to use VHS was the Victor HR-3300 , and was introduced by the president of JVC in Japan on September 9, 1976. JVC started selling the HR-3300 in Akihabara , Tokyo, Japan, on October 31, 1976. Region-specific versions of the JVC HR-3300 were also distributed later on, such as the HR-3300U in the United States, and
11536-512: Was a major liability for VHS-C camcorders that encouraged the use of the EP speed. Color depth deteriorates significantly at lower speeds in PAL: often, a color image on a PAL tape recorded at low speed is displayed only in monochrome, or with intermittent color, when playback is paused. VHS cassettes for NTSC and PAL/SECAM systems are physically identical, although the signals recorded on the tape are incompatible. The tape speeds are different too, so
11648-652: Was acquired by Kew Media Group, which was later liquidated and collapsed in 2020, and the Kew Media Distribution library was later acquired by the Quiver Entertainment division of Quiver Distribution in the same year. Quiver is the current rights holder for most of UAV's original productions, while properties licensed by UAV are now owned by other distributors. Most of the products produced by Sterling Entertainment Group were VHS and DVD releases of movies, cartoons and TV shows that are now in
11760-508: Was canceled in the spring of 1971 after 274 episodes. The CBS network, prompted by pressure from advertisers seeking a more sophisticated urban audience, decided to refocus its schedule on new urban-themed shows and, to make room for them, the two remaining series of CBS's rural-themed comedies were cancelled. This action came to be known as "the Rural Purge ". Pat Buttram , who played Mr. Haney on Green Acres , famously remarked, "It
11872-508: Was previously on TBS Superstation , Nick at Nite , TV Land , Hallmark Channel , and Superstation WGN . A limited number of episodes from the earlier portions of the series run have turned up in the public domain and as such are seen occasionally on many smaller networks such as Retro TV and MyFamily TV . MeTV airs The Beverly Hillbillies Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., on Sundays at 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. and weeknights at 9 p.m. (all Eastern/Pacific Time) The show
11984-522: Was produced by all three companies until the late 1980s, but because of cost and limited recording time, very few of the machines were sold for home use. Therefore, soon after the U-Matic release, all three companies started working on new consumer-grade video recording formats of their own. Sony started working on Betamax , Matsushita started working on VX , and JVC released the CR-6060 in 1975, based on
12096-534: Was regarded as a widespread problem, which members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) claimed caused them great financial losses. In response, several companies developed technologies to protect copyrighted VHS tapes from casual duplication by home users. The most popular method was Analog Protection System , better known simply as Macrovision , produced by a company of the same name. According to Macrovision: The technology
12208-477: Was the year CBS cancelled everything with a tree – including Lassie." In 1981, Return of the Beverly Hillbillies television film, written and produced by series creator Henning, was aired on the CBS network. Irene Ryan had died in 1973, and Raymond Bailey had died in 1980. The script acknowledged Granny's passing, but featured Imogene Coca as Granny's mother. Max Baer decided against reprising
12320-534: Was to increase the apparent horizontal resolution of a VHS recording from 240 to 250 analog (equivalent to 333 pixels from left-to-right, in digital terminology). The major VHS OEMs resisted HQ due to cost concerns, eventually resulting in JVC reducing the requirements for the HQ brand to white clip extension plus one other improvement. In 1987, JVC introduced a new format called Super VHS (often known as S-VHS) which extended
12432-626: Was unavailable for a location shoot as the owners' lease was too expensive. Henning himself admitted sheer embarrassment when the finished product aired, blaming his inability to rewrite the script due to the 1981 Writers Guild of America strike . In 1993, Ebsen, Douglas, and Baer reunited onscreen for the only time in the CBS-TV retrospective television special, The Legend of the Beverly Hillbillies hosted by Mac Davis and written by Al Bendix, Tino Insana , and Mike Rowe while Dakin Matthews served as
12544-540: Was used extensively in the low-end professional market for filming and editing. After leaving the head drum, the tape passes over the stationary audio and control head. This records a control track at the bottom edge of the tape, and one or two linear audio tracks along the top edge. The Beverly Hillbillies The Beverly Hillbillies is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen , Irene Ryan , Donna Douglas , and Max Baer Jr. as
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