Thanks for posting this - here's a bit of history. I remember when Dave Lewis and Tim Crabtree came to RCA in Gibbsboro to pitch the idea of a joint development project for a next gen cart machine. it was either late 1984 or early 85. All they had was a bulldog clip with some new high friction material that they proposed to use for the gripper. We entered into a contract and I became the systems engineer on the RCA side. I ended up leaving RCA as things got grim and went to Sony. RCA closed the doors about 12 months later in 1986. In the settlement Odetics got all rights to the design which was mostly theirs anyway along with a nice cash payout with which they launched their own marketing effort. After 5 years working on Betacart and LMS I rejoined Odetics in 1990. It was a great ride with wonderful people to work with. Dave, Tim, Bill Keegan, Emerson Ray, Carol Marsh, John Newlander, Phil Mcfadin, Bob Stopford, Dan Anco, Mike Hashimoto, Charlie Lindquist, James McCammon, Ken Schumaker, Kurt Caruthers, Brian Lewis, Dave Scally, Jesse Nickels, Chuck Martin, George Elsaesser and many others.
This really brings back the memories. I worked for Odetics Broadcast in the Service & Training Dept. until it closed in 2001. Great to have this old footage.. Thanks
I worked with two of these machines in the 1990s. They were impressive as hell... when they worked right. When it was time for it to stage the next break, you always kept an ear open for the dreaded clatter of a fumbled Betacam cartridge hitting the floor of the tape silo... and you'd frantically open up the silo door, retrieve the cartridge and jam it into the assigned tape transport, hoping like hell that there was time for the control PC to cue the tape to the right spot before the break had to roll! The life of an engineer was, to say the least, interesting with an Odetics system...
Of days gone by. I worked the Broadcast lab in '89, developing the remote controller for the Cart machine, and refining the optocoupler reflective hub for the manipulator. When the D19 recorders came in this unit got very expensive!
We had two of 'em at Wisconsin Public Television. The sound of the robot staging the next break in indelibly etched into my brain forever. Just hearing that sound after 20 years nearly brought me to tears.
Very cool to see. Worked at Turner Entertainment in the mid 90s. We had a few Sony LMS machines (1000, 500). That design was not near as efficient as this. One elevator, one tape, six decks.
I used to work with one of these at KIMO TV in Anchorage in the early 1990's. It only had 4 working tape decks and two working grippers. We replaced it with one of the first hard drive playback systems from Odetics. Fun times. Has anyone found the audio file of the TCS2000 alert "boop- beep" error tones? I would love a copy. Thanks!
Hey, did they make an audio tape cart version of this? ... I want one for my station. Yeah, we have modern hard disk and server automation, but that's BORING!
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Thanks for posting this - here's a bit of history. I remember when Dave Lewis and Tim Crabtree came to RCA in Gibbsboro to pitch the idea of a joint development project for a next gen cart machine. it was either late 1984 or early 85. All they had was a bulldog clip with some new high friction material that they proposed to use for the gripper. We entered into a contract and I became the systems engineer on the RCA side. I ended up leaving RCA as things got grim and went to Sony. RCA closed the doors about 12 months later in 1986. In the settlement Odetics got all rights to the design which was mostly theirs anyway along with a nice cash payout with which they launched their own marketing effort. After 5 years working on Betacart and LMS I rejoined Odetics in 1990. It was a great ride with wonderful people to work with. Dave, Tim, Bill Keegan, Emerson Ray, Carol Marsh, John Newlander, Phil Mcfadin, Bob Stopford, Dan Anco, Mike Hashimoto, Charlie Lindquist, James McCammon, Ken Schumaker, Kurt Caruthers, Brian Lewis, Dave Scally, Jesse Nickels, Chuck Martin, George Elsaesser and many others.
THAT SOUND is tattooed on my brain! I ran graveyard master control at KTUL back in 1995 and listened to that "wheeeerrrrrrr" all night long.
Lol. I was on graveyard in my local market too. I loved that machine. It's so much more impressive than a boring hard drive.
Thats awesome. I worked master control graveyard shift. We used the 4 VTR betacart. It also had its own unique sound
I worked with it at WPSD. It used MII tapes. It was awful. I then came to KTUL in 2001, and the one here worked so much better than the one at WPSD.
This really brings back the memories. I worked for Odetics Broadcast in the Service & Training Dept. until it closed in 2001. Great to have this old footage..
Thanks
I worked for Odetics in the 90's. I helped install several of these in stations. Also worked in the engineering group... those were the days...
I worked with two of these machines in the 1990s. They were impressive as hell... when they worked right.
When it was time for it to stage the next break, you always kept an ear open for the dreaded clatter of a fumbled Betacam cartridge hitting the floor of the tape silo... and you'd frantically open up the silo door, retrieve the cartridge and jam it into the assigned tape transport, hoping like hell that there was time for the control PC to cue the tape to the right spot before the break had to roll!
The life of an engineer was, to say the least, interesting with an Odetics system...
Of days gone by. I worked the Broadcast lab in '89, developing the remote controller for the Cart machine, and refining the optocoupler reflective hub for the manipulator. When the D19 recorders came in this unit got very expensive!
Oh, those sounds.
And the horrifying sound of it dropping a tape. 😄
I worked on this at The Weather Channel in the mid-90s. It was fun, but could be a real bear at times. We really worked ours pretty hard.
Very neat to see.in action again.
I worked for Odetics Broadcast in the late 80s early 90a
Installed a number of these..TCS2000s
I could listen to this all day. Seriously
Having worked in a station with this, I have listened to it all day, lol.
@@justinlord6194 Same here. We named our " Odie " and had Garfield & Odie stickers on it.
We had two of 'em at Wisconsin Public Television. The sound of the robot staging the next break in indelibly etched into my brain forever. Just hearing that sound after 20 years nearly brought me to tears.
We had one of these at WWLP in Springfield, MA. I loved working on it. It was decommissioned when the hub went online in August 2002.
Also WGGB in Springfield and WTNH-TV in New Haven, CT had one.
Oh Odie! How I have missed your singing! :D
Very cool to see. Worked at Turner Entertainment in the mid 90s. We had a few Sony LMS machines (1000, 500). That design was not near as efficient as this. One elevator, one tape, six decks.
I love that sound ☺ I could just listen to it for hours.
Oh boy, this brings back memories!
I used to work with one of these at KIMO TV in Anchorage in the early 1990's. It only had 4 working tape decks and two working grippers. We replaced it with one of the first hard drive playback systems from Odetics. Fun times. Has anyone found the audio file of the TCS2000 alert "boop- beep" error tones? I would love a copy. Thanks!
Awesome. I worked at odetics
I Might be able to get that wavefile for you.
I'll check with a friend of mine next week.
Thanks for Commenting!
At WXYZ we had the Odetics using Panasonic M-II decks, did anybody else use M-II for Odetics automation?
We did. 5 deck machine with usually only 3 or 4 machines working at a time. We used M-II for our news cameras and playback as well.
I also worked on a TCS2000 at WNEM in Saginaw MI until 2000 when we went to servers. Looking for the old "Odie" alarm for a wavefile for my computer.
TCS-2000? Had that in Tulsa and a TCS-90 here in tyler i liked alot more.
reminds me of that seen in hakers
Ha. I was thinkin' the same thing.
Hey, did they make an audio tape cart version of this?
... I want one for my station. Yeah, we have modern hard disk and server automation, but that's BORING!
I'll trade you for our ~wonderful~ first generation Grass Valley K2 system
The sound of it dropping a cart always made me cringe!!
a person who worked for Odedics never mentioned that...he modified decks for the machine...
AMEN, Brother !!!
Very cool!
What year is this?
2000
@@76Monteman
Thank You!
Looks more like early/mid 90's tbh.