"In the past, when people were in conference somewhere else and the signal came here, they could see it live and react to it through a phone call. Today we do it with computers."

In 1932, working in the basement of his home in Upper Montclair, with $500 of his own and another $500 he borrowed, television pioneer Allen B. DuMont invented the "Magic Eye," a cathode-ray tube that could be used as a visual tuning aid in radio receivers. Sales the first year were only $70. Over the following quarter century, however, annual sales grew to more than $92 million in cathode-ray tubes, television transmitters and receivers, radios and hi-fi sets, mobile communications equipment and a wide variety of electronic instruments for commercial and government use. He later established the Allen B. DuMont Foundation, which supported educational television at Montclair State beginning in 1952.

Today the DuMont Television Center continues a tradition of excellence in television that DuMont started. It has received numerous national awards, and is best known for the weekly program "Carpe Diem," which is broadcast throughout the New Jersey and New York region. But like its benefactor, the center emerged from strikingly similar humble beginnings.

Originally run from a small room in College Hall under the president's office, the studio was left unattended during the '60s until 1969 when John Diglio was asked to leave Hackensack High School, where he taught physics and ran the Audio-Visual Center, to direct the DuMont Television Center. Diglio recently recalled how an abandoned cafeteria and being a noisy tenant led to the television center's evolution, his role in its expansion and where technology is taking it.

Q. Who are the constituents of the DuMont Television Center?
A. It serves the entire MSU community. The center supports instruction for departments that teach about television, projects in television production for the administration, instructional programs, students and co-curricular activities, and the outside community as well. It also assists with television services, including maintenance, repair, duplication of videotapes, advisement, consultation, video satellite viewing, video teleconferences and distance learning.

Q. What is your role in distance learning?
A. I oversee the technical aspects of the distance education room [College Hall, Room 310] in terms of training, maintenance, updates and testing for each conference. I was part of a team that built the room, but I’ve always done distance education. The 10-foot, steerible satellite dish on the studio roof enables distance education. In the past, when people were in conference somewhere else and the signal came here, they could see it live and react to it through a phone call. Today we do it with computers.

Q. Tell us about how you helped rebuild the DuMont Television Center.
A. Montclair State had a television studio that wasn't being used. I was offered a teaching position in technology in education and was asked to figure out what was going on with the facilities. After I got the studio working, the president at the time complained about all the noise that tiny room beneath his office generated. So when the cafeteria in Life Hall moved out and there was debate as to what to do with the space, I suggested a television studio. I helped write a proposal for a government Challenge Grant to build television studios, worked with a team of architects to design the television center and in the early '80s we moved in. The challenge since then has been keeping up with the technology on a limited budget.

Q. What is the biggest challenge in keeping up with technology?
A. Part of it is trying to decide what parts of the new technology we are going to bring here. Then we want to get the best equipment for our money. For instance, I purchased the Sony television set in my office in 1971 and it still works great. If we get funding today, we may not get it again for five years, so we have to buy equipment that will hold up. And that, surprisingly, can be part of the problem because when it's time to ask for funding to renew or buy new equipment, we need to make a bigger case to demonstrate our needs. It may be true that everything is working, but we're working with technology that's outdated. Everything is moving from analog in television to digital. This center is the laboratory for the Broadcasting Department and the television facility for the campus, so we need to get our control rooms to the digital world.

Q. What area in the television industry has been most affected by technological advancement?
A. The editing process. A single antiquated editing station, which fills an entire room and costs $100,000, is being replaced by a new computer system loaded with editing tools that costs approximately $7,000, depending upon the options that come with it. Computers do more, they're much more powerful and we can set up several stations in one room. Using computers we get more bang for the buck, so we're phasing out all the old technology. And this is what the television industry is doing.

Q. What is the most valuable skill our students gain from working in the television center?
A. The yoking of computer science, video and communications skills. Besides knowing traditional television, students have to know computers. In addition to learning theory and how to write, our students also need hands-on experience, simulating the entire broadcast. Larry Londino's broadcasting classes work on "Carpe Diem" because it gives them experience working with a crew in a television studio.

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