At 6:12 is a still shot of Reeves/Teletape's Studio Z edit room on the 2nd floor at 304 East 44th Street in New York. The picture was taken in the late 1960's or early 1970's. This edit room consisted of two Ampex VR-2000's controlled by a Central Dynamics edit system. The edit room was dismantled in 1980 and the space was used as part of R/T's dubbing operation floor. The entire facility closed in 1985.
I was a director at WJRT Flint MI, and also worked with 2 VR-2000s. Although I could work with it's electronic editor I used an alternate technique and produced the commercials faster. Like most local stations we only had 2 PC-70 cameras. What I did instead editing cuts electronically I shot my commercials twice. First I recorded the whole commercial shooting takes 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. So on the second pass I played back the commercial through our video switcher and transitioned to the live cameras who did shots 2,4,6,8,10 etc. Although the commercial ended up as second generation, the VR-2000s showed no degradation of quality. This technique not only worked faster but we had the effect of looking like 4 cameras, and we could blend in special effects wipes Quad split screens to the photos. Although my RUclips video is poorer quality you can see this in tot01 which has my color commercials. (The B/W portion is done on VR-1000s with RCA TK-11s BEFORE INTERSYNC WAS INTERVENTED - Figure that out. One of VR-1000s was s/n 0005 floor model NAB 1956 before WJRT went on-air 1958)
Very resourceful, Lytle. I worked at WIS-TV in Columbia, SC in the mid-1970's. We also had only two cameras (TK-44b's) and only two reel-to-reel VTR's (VR-1200's, only one of which could edit. So, we did similar creative things with the equipment we had. www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/557959749/
I worked at teletronics during the 80s one of tje largest post facilities on the east coast. We invented the pan & scan mechanisms for film. We xfered most of home box office films to tape. HBO was so bad, that they required a 5 min overlap between reels of tape, any good tape operator can do it in 15 seconds!
That intro track is great! 🔥 The "IM IM IMpact" stutter effect on the narrator at the start would have been a pretty high tech effect for 1976 - too early even to be a sampler. Some digital studio delay units at the time had the ability to hold a short sound snippet in the buffer and re-trigger which is how I'm guessing they did that.
Love this video.. It makes me so thankful for today's NLEs. No one should ever complain about how 'slow' their PC is. Just imagine having to edit the old ways. Yuck. While I never had to use 'punch and crunch' I did edit film for years and years. Never got into video editing until Avid came out with Media Composer in the early 90s. Then never went back to film editing. Pay attention.
An interesting video as I worked with Ampex 1000 and 2000B machines from 1969 till the 80s. The 2000B was a good workhorse and very reliable. @ 20' 37"" I spotted a draw pulled out above the editing monitor which could have been the proc amp. We had a prob with the proc amp overheating, producing a non-standard waveform in the syncs so we pulled it out to cool down. Early transistors were susceptible to temp variations.
One correction. The control track is actually a 240hz tone that is responsible for the headwheel speed during playback. The 240hz is the headwheel speed. The control track head is precisely located on the video head assembly. The control track also aides in manually cutting and splicing the tape. This was the first form of video editing. I used to do manual editing this way in the early 60s
I don’t remember what the tone frequency was said to be in this video, but wouldn’t the difference in tone frequency just be due to the mains AC frequency? (50Hz. vs. 60Hz.)
@@BoHolbo yes it was derived from the vert drive supplied to the machine or the video signal if vert drive was not present. Mains frequency was not stable enough. If vert drive was supplied you can vert lock the machine to house sync allowing for switching video sources in the blanking interval
This is interesting. I wish I knew who created the original program. It was pretty fun for the time it was made. Was at NAB several years ago watching a gentleman try to keep an old Ampex 2 inch machine up and running for display.most the time he was on a flip phone with his head stuck inside the body of the machine, haha. My guess is he probably paid for his kids' education with a lifetime of service to those machines.
Indeed it was! But I must admit that when the segment with a guy editing a 2” tape by splicing it as if it was celluloid film, I literally started laughing with a defiant “🙄 Yeah right, SURE!” I thought it was just a joke they decided to insert. I was VERY surprised to learn that it was actually a thing! It also reminded me of the countless hours I spent in front of two 1/4” Revox reel to reel tape recorders, with a MBI broadcast audio mixer between them. Sometimes for live radio, and sometimes for recording the Salvation Army Sunday service. Followed by the inevitable cut-and-splice seance. I always looked forward to the editing. 😃 Unfortunately, the station manager eventually decided to not allow me the joy of editing tapes the old school way anymore. He said it was too expensive, and that a few of the other volunteer technicians had been complaining about me cutting up the “good” tape reels, and that they kept snapping when they used them. (Out of the 7 technicians, I was the only one who edited by cutting the tape. All the others used the time consuming method of NOT making notes while recording, and using 2 machines.) I was suspicious of their way of handling those reels. Rewinding and fast forwarding tapes at high speed does impart a lot of potential energy into those reels, so it can take a while for them to slow down after you press stop. And I can’t help thinking that some of my fellow technicians had a tendency to “help” those reels slow down by using their hands, and only on the feeding reel. (Some of them were kinda’ lazy.) In addition to stretching the tape, it was probably also the reason for my previous splices to snap. 🤷🏼♂️ Putting the blame on me, when THEY were most likely causing it by abusing the tape, was quite annoying, (to be polite) but I still miss working there very much. 😞 The radio station closed down about 10 years ago, I think.
@@BoHolbo I used to edit video tape by cutting it. It amazing that people now never knew how things were done back then. Cutting tape was a nice by product of quad. Think those 10" reels of 1/4 tape has mass when rewinding, you should try and slow down a 2" machine by hand! You would lose some of your palm!.sometimes u would see guys letting the tape fly off the end during a rewind. That could do damage to the delicate video head if the tape had fold over at the beginning of the tape.
Glad to see the pioneering little guy won against the "big dog: RCA". Television tape? RCA probably tried to register the name so any body who was using video on tape would have to pay them. Ask the decendents of Philo Farnsworth how fighting RCA can be like taking on a bully.
@@johnwerner4925 yes, David Sarnoff was the Bill Gates of early years. They bought out little companies for thier patents so they can claim RCA invented television
This look on broadcasting history is fascinating! Question: What was this production intended for? I’m guessing that it was made for broadcast engineers and technicians in training, to give them some insight on the past.
At 6:12 is a still shot of Reeves/Teletape's Studio Z edit room on the 2nd floor at 304 East 44th Street in New York. The picture was taken in the late 1960's or early 1970's. This edit room consisted of two Ampex VR-2000's controlled by a Central Dynamics edit system. The edit room was dismantled in 1980 and the space was used as part of R/T's dubbing operation floor. The entire facility closed in 1985.
Thanks for the history!!
I was a director at WJRT Flint MI, and also worked with 2 VR-2000s. Although I could work with it's electronic editor I used an alternate technique and produced the commercials faster. Like most local stations we only had 2 PC-70 cameras. What I did instead editing cuts electronically I shot my commercials twice. First I recorded the whole commercial shooting takes 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. So on the second pass I played back the commercial through our video switcher and transitioned to the live cameras who did shots 2,4,6,8,10 etc. Although the commercial ended up as second generation, the VR-2000s showed no degradation of quality. This technique not only worked faster but we had the effect of looking like 4 cameras, and we could blend in special effects wipes Quad split screens to the photos. Although my RUclips video is poorer quality you can see this in tot01 which has my color commercials. (The B/W portion is done on VR-1000s with RCA TK-11s BEFORE INTERSYNC WAS INTERVENTED - Figure that out. One of VR-1000s was s/n 0005 floor model NAB 1956 before WJRT went on-air 1958)
Lytle Hoover That's brilliant!!
Very resourceful, Lytle. I worked at WIS-TV in Columbia, SC in the mid-1970's. We also had only two cameras (TK-44b's) and only two reel-to-reel VTR's (VR-1200's, only one of which could edit. So, we did similar creative things with the equipment we had.
www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/557959749/
I worked at teletronics during the 80s one of tje largest post facilities on the east coast. We invented the pan & scan mechanisms for film. We xfered most of home box office films to tape. HBO was so bad, that they required a 5 min overlap between reels of tape, any good tape operator can do it in 15 seconds!
An absolutely priceless piece of technological history right here. Thanks for the upload!
That intro track is great! 🔥 The "IM IM IMpact" stutter effect on the narrator at the start would have been a pretty high tech effect for 1976 - too early even to be a sampler. Some digital studio delay units at the time had the ability to hold a short sound snippet in the buffer and re-trigger which is how I'm guessing they did that.
Awesome video ! Thanks for posting. Love the scene between 7:53 - 8:11 Nearly fell off my chair laughing.
Thanks!
Love this video.. It makes me so thankful for today's NLEs. No one should ever complain about how 'slow' their PC is. Just imagine having to edit the old ways. Yuck.
While I never had to use 'punch and crunch' I did edit film for years and years. Never got into video editing until Avid came out with Media Composer in the early 90s. Then never went back to film editing.
Pay attention.
An interesting video as I worked with Ampex 1000 and 2000B machines from 1969 till the 80s. The 2000B was a good workhorse and very reliable.
@ 20' 37"" I spotted a draw pulled out above the editing monitor which could have been the proc amp. We had a prob with the proc amp overheating, producing a non-standard waveform in the syncs so we pulled it out to cool down. Early transistors were susceptible to temp variations.
One correction. The control track is actually a 240hz tone that is responsible for the headwheel speed during playback. The 240hz is the headwheel speed. The control track head is precisely located on the video head assembly. The control track also aides in manually cutting and splicing the tape. This was the first form of video editing. I used to do manual editing this way in the early 60s
I don’t remember what the tone frequency was said to be in this video, but wouldn’t the difference in tone frequency just be due to the mains AC frequency? (50Hz. vs. 60Hz.)
@@BoHolbo yes it was derived from the vert drive supplied to the machine or the video signal if vert drive was not present. Mains frequency was not stable enough. If vert drive was supplied you can vert lock the machine to house sync allowing for switching video sources in the blanking interval
This is interesting. I wish I knew who created the original program. It was pretty fun for the time it was made. Was at NAB several years ago watching a gentleman try to keep an old Ampex 2 inch machine up and running for display.most the time he was on a flip phone with his head stuck inside the body of the machine, haha. My guess is he probably paid for his kids' education with a lifetime of service to those machines.
@@thxapproved wish I was there. I worked in every machine AMPEX ever made beginning from the VR-1000 to the ACR-25
This is very accurate and nicely done!
Yeah. For the time it was. I wish I knew who I could pass the compliments to. It was just a videotape that I found many many years ago.
I am contact with Art's daughter about this program.
The voice at 16:30 is the voice of the PM Magazine "Mystery Diner" that aired on WCCO until the mid 80's
Quite a fascinating video!
Thanks! Wish I could find the original person who made it.
Hopefully he hasn't past away.
Indeed it was!
But I must admit that when the segment with a guy editing a 2” tape by splicing it as if it was celluloid film, I literally started laughing with a defiant “🙄 Yeah right, SURE!”
I thought it was just a joke they decided to insert. I was VERY surprised to learn that it was actually a thing!
It also reminded me of the countless hours I spent in front of two 1/4” Revox reel to reel tape recorders, with a MBI broadcast audio mixer between them. Sometimes for live radio, and sometimes for recording the Salvation Army Sunday service. Followed by the inevitable cut-and-splice seance. I always looked forward to the editing. 😃 Unfortunately, the station manager eventually decided to not allow me the joy of editing tapes the old school way anymore. He said it was too expensive, and that a few of the other volunteer technicians had been complaining about me cutting up the “good” tape reels, and that they kept snapping when they used them. (Out of the 7 technicians, I was the only one who edited by cutting the tape. All the others used the time consuming method of NOT making notes while recording, and using 2 machines.)
I was suspicious of their way of handling those reels. Rewinding and fast forwarding tapes at high speed does impart a lot of potential energy into those reels, so it can take a while for them to slow down after you press stop. And I can’t help thinking that some of my fellow technicians had a tendency to “help” those reels slow down by using their hands, and only on the feeding reel. (Some of them were kinda’ lazy.) In addition to stretching the tape, it was probably also the reason for my previous splices to snap. 🤷🏼♂️
Putting the blame on me, when THEY were most likely causing it by abusing the tape, was quite annoying, (to be polite) but I still miss working there very much. 😞
The radio station closed down about 10 years ago, I think.
@@BoHolbo I used to edit video tape by cutting it. It amazing that people now never knew how things were done back then. Cutting tape was a nice by product of quad.
Think those 10" reels of 1/4 tape has mass when rewinding, you should try and slow down a 2" machine by hand! You would lose some of your palm!.sometimes u would see guys letting the tape fly off the end during a rewind. That could do damage to the delicate video head if the tape had fold over at the beginning of the tape.
No one will be admitted during the exciting spot reel tape threading scene.
This stuff might be easier than going to the moon...but, not by much.
The name "video tape" was coined by Ampex. RCA wanted the industry to use "television tape" instead. Obviously Ampex won.
Glad to see the pioneering little guy won against the "big dog: RCA". Television tape? RCA probably tried to register the name so any body who was using video on tape would have to pay them. Ask the decendents of Philo Farnsworth how fighting RCA can be like taking on a bully.
@@johnwerner4925 yes, David Sarnoff was the Bill Gates of early years. They bought out little companies for thier patents so they can claim RCA invented television
14:36 Superhot girl 😁
SMPTE *ratified^ EECO's invention of timecode. they neither commissioned its invention nor invented it themselves.
This look on broadcasting history is fascinating! Question: What was this production intended for?
I’m guessing that it was made for broadcast engineers and technicians in training, to give them some insight on the past.
Not really sure. It seems like it was done possibly as a class project. But I can't find any information on the video
i have a question is this public domain or copyrighted ?
I'm assuming it is. I have no reason to believe it is not. However, I cannot find anyone that has any information on this particular program.
Fuck hd, tapes all the way. Standard def is bae