In 1952, Ottens was hired by
Philips. He started in the
mechanization department of the Main Industry Group in
Eindhoven. In 1957, he transferred to a newly opened Philips factory in
Hasselt, Belgium. At the time, this factory mainly produced audio equipment, including
turntables,
tape recorders, and
loudspeakers.
Compact cassette Building on the success of the EL 3585, Philips Hasselt started working on plans to develop a portable
cassette recorder. The goal for this "pocket recorder," as it was nicknamed, was to be inexpensive and small, with low battery consumption but reasonable sound quality. Originally, Philips planned on working with
RCA and using their
RCA tape cartridge system cassette, but Ottens found that the dimensions and tape speed of the set made it not suitable for their desired product. Philips eventually decided to develop their own cassette, with RCA's cassette as a starting point. Ottens started the design of the cassette by cutting a block of wood to fit into his jacket pocket. This wood block would become the model for what became the first portable cassette recorder, the EL 3300. Ottens managed a team of ten or twelve workers who had experience in designing gramophones and tape recorders to develop the cassette and its equipment. While developing the cassette, the group often utilized resources and knowledge from the nearby Eindhoven location.
1972–1979: Director of Philips Audio In 1972, Ottens became technical director of Philips Main Industry Group Audio. While in this position, Ottens realized that laser technology being researched in the
Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium (NatLab) for video records could also be used to make improvements in the field of audio. With contactless laser readout for audio, the issue of wear and tear that was common with vinyl records and tapes would no longer be a problem. The requirements and implementation of this technology to audio differed greatly from video, and research for this technology was split into two projects: Video Long Play and Audio Long Play.
Compact disc The development of the Audio Long Play, or ALP, required major changes in design when compared to the Video Long Play. The VLP, being the size of an
LP, had space for 48 hours of music. However, Ottens recognized that this was not a practical amount of playing time, and in 1972, he commissioned technicians to start testing with smaller discs. The technicians originally experimented with 17.8 cm plates, and when those proved successful, reduced the size even further, to 11.5 cm, so that the discs would be compatible with existing car radio systems. The laser for the ALP also had to be modified from what was used in VLP's, as the VLP laser was too large for the design that Ottens envisioned. Using resources from the NatLab, a new solid state laser was developed that was smaller and more suitable for Ottens design. However, after years of experimentation, Ottens and his team determined that analog technology would cause too much background noise and would not be able to compete with gramophone records. They subsequently decided to start development on new digital technology. As Philips' audio division did not have adequate in-house knowledge for developing this technology, Ottens formed a seven-person team of technicians with experience in digital technology, two of whom came from the Natlab. In 1977, this team developed the first test model of the digital disc. This prompted enthusiasm from Ottens and led to his formation of a dedicated development lab for the project, which he called the Compact Disc Development lab. A small production facility for test discs was created for the development lab. The first full model was finalized by March 1979. It was presented by project lead Joop Sinjou at a two-day press conference in Eindhoven to over 300 journalists. Immediately after the conference, Ottens and Sinjou traveled to Japan, wanting to gain support for the compact disc and make it a world standard. While on the trip, they reached an agreement with Sony, who was ahead of Philips in digital development and optical recording, but had not yet found a way to reduce the size of their device. The companies agreed on joint development and set a universal standard. Under Ottens' direction, a second version of the system was developed with new running gear. This system was more compact and reliable, and had shorter start and stop times. It also featured a smaller footprint, lighter weight, and a
SCART port, which had not been implemented in the previous version. Further development efforts were made, and by 1984, the Video 2000 had reliable stereo sound. Also in 1984, Ottens had his factory produce VHS machines that were practically identical to the Video 2000. These machines would end up replacing the Video 2000, which ultimately failed to catch on and was officially cancelled in 1985. ==Later years==