Ampex VR-1200B Quad VTR with Merlin mods with audio

[bmuscotty88]

Love these machines! Thanks for sharing! It's always amazing to see how these "machines behind the scenes bring us what we see. Although it looks like repairing and keeping these things in tip top shape must be a big job!

[billbabin]

Since the video bandwidth of an NTSC television transmitter is only 4.2 MHz, they rolled off the frequency response to reduce noise. The format can make 6 MHz. All quads had some sort of rolloff.

[shoprat17]

sweet oral roberts on this dinosaur

[Audiovideopark]

Yes, cassettes didn't come out for professional use until the early 70s.

I do my own maintenance with advice from some very bright friends. I have a store of spare parts.

[fertub26]

Open reel machine video? how you do for make maintenance?

[Audiovideopark]

I bought them from an estate sale in Washington State. They wanted to get rid of a bunch of TV stuff and I made them an offer. They took in and I had everything shipped down to California. Now, I have moved everything to Grants Pass, Oregon to my new studio.

[PlaneAndTVtechfan]

How did you get your Quad machines? What stations were they in use at before you got them?

[W7NWH]

Great stuff - used a Ampex VR-2000 for about 2 years @ KPDX in PDX / early 80's - we would get "All in Family" and a number of syndicated programs. I also remember doing "Les Schwab" dubs (Local tire king) same era. I got quite good at running the beast - we had a central air compressor that I had to dump moisture from before firing the thing up. Good times!

[W7NWH]

Great stuff - used a Ampex VR-2000 for about 2 years @ KPDX in PDX / early 80's - we would get "All in Family" and a number of syndicated programs. I also remember doing "Les Schwab" dubs (Local tire king) same era. I got quite good at running the beast - we had a central air compressor that I had to dump moisture from before firing the thing up. Good times!

[stratocat9999]

I occasionally get a calls for 2" conversion. I certainly will keep you in mind. I think DUBS in Hollywood still has a Quad too. That's where we used to send ours for conversion to BetaCam SP.

[Superedit]

One of my first jobs as a production intern was to blow down the moisture from the air compressor that supplied air to these beasts. Water in the air supply would make the tape stick to to the heads - not a good scenario!

[Superedit]

Oh, yeah!  Love the noises they made. Brings back fond memories.

[747400fan]

It's funny, the clothes people wore back then, seems like no one would get caught wearing the stuff today.

[matt9741399]

Loving the 'versatility' of the outfit at 2.21

[veditanimal]

It's been 19 years since I've operated a quad machine, but I could still set one up blindfolded because over 8 years I must have played 100,000 tapes on them! But I'm not sad to see the format go, it was clumsy and cumbersome. Remember all that wonderful banding in the video?

Anyway, it's still cool to see these old dinosaurs work once in while.

[Audiovideopark]

Yes, TV City is a great place. I got to work with them on Big Brother.

[Audiovideopark]

The 2" quad tapes are usually dubbed to DigiBeta. I know that was done for the Game Show Network. I saw the pallets of quad tape at CBS TV City.

[ewalker3]

you never know what to expect when you are at CBSTVcity, I was there one day back in the early 90s when they were doing what turned out to be that massive tape transfer for Goodson.

another time there was a stack of tapes from art linkletters house party being dubbed off of 2" ive been in the "annex" or jurassic park as its known its really neat.

[dmine45]

@Audiovideopark I hope that they saved the quad tape after they did the transfer.

[kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE]

I wonder, how are tapes of shows like "All In The Family" preserved by networks like TV Land?

[Audiovideopark]

2" Quad is a composite format. The machines usually had a video low pass filter of around 4.5 mHz. This was to match the bandwidth of broadcast television.

[pvx]

@Audiovideopark I was not aware that Quad machines had a 4.5 MHz LP filter for the video. How much video bandwidth is a Quad VTR theoretically capable without it, if I might ask?

[bumtownv2]

Is this a composite, Y/C or component video format?

[Ampex196]

Many thanks for posting this wonderful clip of your VR1200

That Quad remained the defacto broadcast standard for so many years is testimony of how good a format it was. Here in the UK (625/50 PAL at 15.5/8 ips) it reigned supreme until the early 1980s until eventually being displaced by 1 inch C. I was very sad to see it go!

[Audiovideopark]

Right. The Quad had a better picture than 1" but 1" had picture in shuttle, slo-mo and freeze frame. Audio was also better on 1" due to the orientation of the magnetic particles. For Quad it was up and down, for 1" is was sideways due to the helical scan of the video heads. That made it better for the audio heads.

[Ampex196]

Indeed yes. I used quite a few  I" C machines during the 80s/90s (mainly Sony BVH).

I've recently acquired an Ampex VPR20 (ex BBC) replete with chroma board. It appears to be in very good condition. I'll need to get some tape on 8 inch spools (mine are 10.5") and rig a suitable power supply. I'm sure I'll eventually have it running - now that I'm retired I have few excuses.

[Vladislaw81]

@Audiovideopark And what about Betacam SP? I'm currently having top PAL Beta SP machine at home - it's great!

[shiakue666]

Nice video.

[Audiovideopark]

Thanks. And I have a bad EQ pot on channel 3 I need to replace.

[kylebook]

Aaah, the familiar whine of those quad heads!

Takes me back to my days 22 years ago threading & dubbing spot reels from a tempermental Ampex VR2000 Quad to 3/4" tape for playback in the LaKart system at WHCT in Hartford, CT. Nice job on the head equalization on those spots, BTW, especially given the age of the tape.

[chrisw71]

It's not just a vtr, it's a time machine!

[guimbadriver]

good machine the VR1200B,i remember in 1995 when i worked in the TVE we used a VR1200B to record video clips from a laserdisc player, in my collection i ve got 3 ampex machines, the VR1000, VR1200B and a AVR2 in good working conditions and more than 120 video  tape machines IVC,RCA,SONY,NORELCO,JVC.... helical and quads..

[Audiovideopark]

Great. Lets see some video!

[RODALCO2007]

Great machine, thanks for posting the footage.

[Audiovideopark]

Thanks for your comment.

[jpvp2]

i can already smell that old vtr and oxide smell by watching this :)

[Audiovideopark]

Ha. Smell-a-vision!