This really made me think about the current trend for ever-lowering signal integrity in modern digital video systems.
The designers of these historic quad machines had fantastic foresight and impressively high standards for signal integrity, such that you'd think a logical progression would mean modern systems could capture historic material with ease. The reality is almost an absurd shambles where a transfer is a huge struggle against modern encoders that throw so much of the signal away.
This really made me think about the current trend for ever-lowering signal integrity in modern digital video systems.
The designers of these historic quad machines had fantastic foresight and impressively high standards for signal integrity; such that you'd think a logical progression would mean modern systems could capture historic material with ease. The reality is almost an absurd shambles where a transfer is a huge struggle against modern encoders that throw so much of the signal away.
Did you change this to 24P? It looks a bit more like clean film (sports footage) as opposed to tape. Overall this looks awesome!
A note about the NBC vaults; I knew someone that worked there and what I was told was that a de-gaussing station was placed adjacent to one of the vault outer walls, and after a few years of use, they had unknowingly slowly erased and damaged the tapes within, and that the 'destruction to make space' story was a cover. Otherwise, I think UCLA would have them.
Dear AVP, simply awesome Quad playback. It is amazing to me how much recorded material has been lost over the years due to mishandling of tapes. The Beatles last TV perfomance, almost all the 60's and early 70's Tonight Show broadcast, most soap operas before 1979 and countless other material lost forever. Much of lost so tape could be reused, I find it very hard to understand with the production budgets of these shows they can't buy new tapes and have decent archive for all previous work.
A $250 reel of tape in 1959 would cost almost $2,000 today. Also, storage costs are to be considered. I think it was NBC who erased the Tonight Show tapes because of storage costs.
$40,000 a month for tape in a soap budget would be a huge expense. But many tapes were saved. Currently transferring 50 Quad tapes from the 60's and 70's from a station in Arizona.
Every little thing is important. First, the Quad VTR has to be adjusted correctly. The guides that position the tape up and down and in and out are adjusted properly for no skew. Head EQ and gain matched. Then sent to the Accom decoder with image enhancement. Then to AJA IO box to convert to Firewire. Apple conversion to H.264 with deinterlacing, noise reduction and image enhancement. The Accom D-Bridge did a great job going from composite to component. And a lot of adjustments along the way
The Booker T and the MG's segment gave me chills. Thanks so much for sharing this! Don Resor Los Angeles
Xerox6085I 7 months ago
This really made me think about the current trend for ever-lowering signal integrity in modern digital video systems.
The designers of these historic quad machines had fantastic foresight and impressively high standards for signal integrity, such that you'd think a logical progression would mean modern systems could capture historic material with ease. The reality is almost an absurd shambles where a transfer is a huge struggle against modern encoders that throw so much of the signal away.
zenpho 1 year ago
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This really made me think about the current trend for ever-lowering signal integrity in modern digital video systems.
The designers of these historic quad machines had fantastic foresight and impressively high standards for signal integrity; such that you'd think a logical progression would mean modern systems could capture historic material with ease. The reality is almost an absurd shambles where a transfer is a huge struggle against modern encoders that throw so much of the signal away.
zenpho 1 year ago
Comment removed
zenpho 1 year ago
Looks great even on XP box!
analyzingfunny 1 year ago
Did you change this to 24P? It looks a bit more like clean film (sports footage) as opposed to tape. Overall this looks awesome!
A note about the NBC vaults; I knew someone that worked there and what I was told was that a de-gaussing station was placed adjacent to one of the vault outer walls, and after a few years of use, they had unknowingly slowly erased and damaged the tapes within, and that the 'destruction to make space' story was a cover. Otherwise, I think UCLA would have them.
stratocat9999 1 year ago
The quality is amazing considering it's NTSC material. The resulting youtube video actually looks like video.
BTW, if you want to batch-process video, I can recommend you mencoder which is a part of mplayer.
wrtlpfmpf 2 years ago
Dear AVP, simply awesome Quad playback. It is amazing to me how much recorded material has been lost over the years due to mishandling of tapes. The Beatles last TV perfomance, almost all the 60's and early 70's Tonight Show broadcast, most soap operas before 1979 and countless other material lost forever. Much of lost so tape could be reused, I find it very hard to understand with the production budgets of these shows they can't buy new tapes and have decent archive for all previous work.
douglas787 2 years ago
A $250 reel of tape in 1959 would cost almost $2,000 today. Also, storage costs are to be considered. I think it was NBC who erased the Tonight Show tapes because of storage costs.
$40,000 a month for tape in a soap budget would be a huge expense. But many tapes were saved. Currently transferring 50 Quad tapes from the 60's and 70's from a station in Arizona.
Audiovideopark 2 years ago
Whoa.... I have to say, this video looks beautiful, awesome job digitizng/encoding this!
pvx 2 years ago
Every little thing is important. First, the Quad VTR has to be adjusted correctly. The guides that position the tape up and down and in and out are adjusted properly for no skew. Head EQ and gain matched. Then sent to the Accom decoder with image enhancement. Then to AJA IO box to convert to Firewire. Apple conversion to H.264 with deinterlacing, noise reduction and image enhancement. The Accom D-Bridge did a great job going from composite to component. And a lot of adjustments along the way
Audiovideopark 2 years ago
WOW. How have you made this look so good? Technical details please (I'm wagging my virtual tail and drooling over the tape).
ShaiDrori 2 years ago
Superb images! Quad rulez!
Wonderful job you did! Thank you for sharing
athenathon77 2 years ago
Immaculate quality.
cbehr91 2 years ago