The problem may have been edge curl of the tape itself. The control track was located on the "bottom edge" of the tape and the audio tracks were on the top edge. Improper alignment of tape paths could damage the tape making the control track difficult to read. Another possibility would be a dirty CT head located to the right of the video scanner. All this info is under the "if memory serves" category. The machine is an Ampex VR-2000.
Remember to equalize the 4 heads and set the tip penetration. If the heads clogged, you just lightly held a fingernail against the spinning head. You could easily break a foot if you dropped a big 2 inch reel. Each reel cost hundreds of dollars and was used until people started complaining about the drop-outs. Editing on one was enormously complicated even with a working editeck. You could also make physical splices...you had to make the cut at the helical angle and on the frame line.
This machine was in a booth Ampex Corp had at NAB 2006 marking the 50th anniversary of the unveiling of the company's transverse scan video recording method at NAB 1956.
A number of engineers were trying to identify and resolve the problem. My friend Tim Stoffel of Quadruplex Park also pitched in to see whether he could help get it to lock up.
He thought it might be an Intersync issue or servo problem. It never was resolved.
The machine was stolen some time after the show closed.
A little trivia about RCA 'quads'..they could not use the term 'Videotape Recorder' at first because Ampex had rights to the term(or something like that) so RCA used the words 'television tape'.
I wish I had video of the RCA TK-41 color TV camera to put here. A couple of websites have videos of the TK-41, which NBC used until the TK-44A, also from RCA, came along. The TK-41 was the first color camera that many local stations here in the US used. TK-41's were generally reliable and built to last seeing how long NBC had theirs!
its a video head ploblems, one gap broken or sync error in the head driver servo controler..last machine like this i repaired in 1995, one month later we replace all vtr machines for digital betacam..
Halcyon days of head current optimisation and tip projection (there must be a joke in there somewhere)!
It's certainly not a VR1000; almost certainly a VR2000B circa 1965-67. I don't think there's any way it is going to 'lock up', short of an expert tweak - lol. C'est la Vie. We're spoiled with Digibeta these days!!
While I was there I suggested to the Engineer that he check that the blanking was connected. It was not and as soon as he did, the picture came right. Remember synch in those days were several cables: Vertical, Horizontal, Subcarrier, Burst Gate and Blanking. I PAL land there was PAL ID as well. BBis so easy.
Well done - sound's logical. I had feeling it would not be a serious fault. On reflection the machine could be as late as early 70's. The transportable AVR2 didn't appear until around 1974 - still a bit before my time.
Chris Booth's excellent 'vtoldboys' website is certainly well worth a visit !!
Was that the precursor to the heterodyne color circuit processing used in RCA's TRT-1B? I believe there's only one surviving TRT-1B, I think it's in a museum in Perth, Australia.
@kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE That's correct.It was the first video recorder used in Western Australia, purchased by TVW Channel 7 in 1962 for use on the Empire Games which were held in Perth that year. The museum is at Wireless Hill Melville, a suburb of Perth. Unfortunately it is not in working condition. It was used by TVW until colour came along in1975.
Whoa, almost like a "component sync" of sorts, I didn't know that sync was split up into several of its basic rudiments back then. We're all spoiled with baseband video sync nowadays indeed... ;)
The AVR1 could lock up very quickly indeed!! The mech. and spool transport were isolated from each other by a vacuum column that held two loops of tape - one from the feed and the other from the take-up. You can't really compare it with the VR2000 in that respect.
I don't know the answer to your 2nd question but I'm almost certain that NTSC/525 colour recordings were made on VR1000s'.
CBS was one of the US networks who was responsible for starting to use videotape for time delay. CBS' Bill Lodge visited the Ampex factory, and was impressed with the quality of the pictures coming from the early quad machines. There is one of those old quad machines, a VR-1000 I think, at the Smithsonian Institute.
Before quadruplex recording came to be, TV networks used kinescope, or 'kine' recording, which was expensive and time consuming. And the image quality of 'kine' is nowhere near what was achieved by quads. Also kines had to be developed, and rushed back to the studios for on-time broadcast. They were used here in the US by all three networks to time-delay programs on the West Coast.
This machine, an Ampex VR2000, would be from the late 1960's or early 1970's. There are a couple of websites with info on 'quads' and people who actually have collections of some of these machines. Google 'Quadruplex Park' and 'vtoldboys' they have cool pix and lots of info.
There were 4 heads on a removable drum module. The heads would wear in 100 hours. There was a "Tip Penetration" knob to set RF envelope. (We got a lol from that)
It looks like a VR1200 to me.
Philm35 8 months ago
I'd love to see some AVR-1 VTR's up here, and more vintage TV cameras up here!
PlaneAndTVtechfan 1 year ago
The problem may have been edge curl of the tape itself. The control track was located on the "bottom edge" of the tape and the audio tracks were on the top edge. Improper alignment of tape paths could damage the tape making the control track difficult to read. Another possibility would be a dirty CT head located to the right of the video scanner. All this info is under the "if memory serves" category. The machine is an Ampex VR-2000.
4sknns 2 years ago
Wasnt this the precursor to the first 2" 16 track (audio) tape machine, the MM1000? Pretty cool!
DangerousBastard 2 years ago
Tracking...
Richardddoobies 2 years ago
Remember to equalize the 4 heads and set the tip penetration. If the heads clogged, you just lightly held a fingernail against the spinning head. You could easily break a foot if you dropped a big 2 inch reel. Each reel cost hundreds of dollars and was used until people started complaining about the drop-outs. Editing on one was enormously complicated even with a working editeck. You could also make physical splices...you had to make the cut at the helical angle and on the frame line.
MGB1977Red 2 years ago
This machine was in a booth Ampex Corp had at NAB 2006 marking the 50th anniversary of the unveiling of the company's transverse scan video recording method at NAB 1956.
A number of engineers were trying to identify and resolve the problem. My friend Tim Stoffel of Quadruplex Park also pitched in to see whether he could help get it to lock up.
He thought it might be an Intersync issue or servo problem. It never was resolved.
The machine was stolen some time after the show closed.
TelecineNet 2 years ago
Stolen? How? That machine weighs tons! Somebody would have noticed.
makkertje 2 years ago
Who was exhibiting this particular VTR at the NAB convention? Did you also see any old camera equipment, like the RCA TK-41?
kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE 3 years ago
A little trivia about RCA 'quads'..they could not use the term 'Videotape Recorder' at first because Ampex had rights to the term(or something like that) so RCA used the words 'television tape'.
kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE 3 years ago
NBC was also using the RCA TRT-1AC, which was the prototype for the production model TRT-1B!
kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE 3 years ago
I wish I had video of the RCA TK-41 color TV camera to put here. A couple of websites have videos of the TK-41, which NBC used until the TK-44A, also from RCA, came along. The TK-41 was the first color camera that many local stations here in the US used. TK-41's were generally reliable and built to last seeing how long NBC had theirs!
kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE 4 years ago
its a video head ploblems, one gap broken or sync error in the head driver servo controler..last machine like this i repaired in 1995, one month later we replace all vtr machines for digital betacam..
guimbadriver 4 years ago
Halcyon days of head current optimisation and tip projection (there must be a joke in there somewhere)!
It's certainly not a VR1000; almost certainly a VR2000B circa 1965-67. I don't think there's any way it is going to 'lock up', short of an expert tweak - lol. C'est la Vie. We're spoiled with Digibeta these days!!
Ampex196 4 years ago
While I was there I suggested to the Engineer that he check that the blanking was connected. It was not and as soon as he did, the picture came right. Remember synch in those days were several cables: Vertical, Horizontal, Subcarrier, Burst Gate and Blanking. I PAL land there was PAL ID as well. BBis so easy.
whizzzard 4 years ago
Well done - sound's logical. I had feeling it would not be a serious fault. On reflection the machine could be as late as early 70's. The transportable AVR2 didn't appear until around 1974 - still a bit before my time.
Chris Booth's excellent 'vtoldboys' website is certainly well worth a visit !!
Ampex196 4 years ago
Which Ampex VTR was the first to have the capability to record/playback in color? And how was this accomplished?
kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE 4 years ago
The Ampex VR-1000's that RCA modified with hetrodyne color circuits for use at NBC in NYC and Burbank.
TelecineNet 4 years ago
Was that the precursor to the heterodyne color circuit processing used in RCA's TRT-1B? I believe there's only one surviving TRT-1B, I think it's in a museum in Perth, Australia.
kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE 3 years ago
@kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE That's correct.It was the first video recorder used in Western Australia, purchased by TVW Channel 7 in 1962 for use on the Empire Games which were held in Perth that year. The museum is at Wireless Hill Melville, a suburb of Perth. Unfortunately it is not in working condition. It was used by TVW until colour came along in1975.
SuperMikecarp 1 year ago
Whoa, almost like a "component sync" of sorts, I didn't know that sync was split up into several of its basic rudiments back then. We're all spoiled with baseband video sync nowadays indeed... ;)
pvx 4 years ago
Yep, I know that this is a VR2000. The VR1000 I was talking about before, though, is in the Smithsonian, in Washington, DC.
kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE 4 years ago
Didn't the AVR-1 have a quicker 'lock up' than the VR2000 in this video?
Also, whose VTR's actually had color capability first, RCA or Ampex? Thanks.
kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE 4 years ago
The AVR1 could lock up very quickly indeed!! The mech. and spool transport were isolated from each other by a vacuum column that held two loops of tape - one from the feed and the other from the take-up. You can't really compare it with the VR2000 in that respect.
I don't know the answer to your 2nd question but I'm almost certain that NTSC/525 colour recordings were made on VR1000s'.
Ampex196 4 years ago
Regarding the AVR-1 vaccuum columns, was this a technology borrowed from the 7 (and 9) track 1/2" computer tape drives also of the AVR-1's era?
pvx 4 years ago
CBS was one of the US networks who was responsible for starting to use videotape for time delay. CBS' Bill Lodge visited the Ampex factory, and was impressed with the quality of the pictures coming from the early quad machines. There is one of those old quad machines, a VR-1000 I think, at the Smithsonian Institute.
kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE 4 years ago
Before quadruplex recording came to be, TV networks used kinescope, or 'kine' recording, which was expensive and time consuming. And the image quality of 'kine' is nowhere near what was achieved by quads. Also kines had to be developed, and rushed back to the studios for on-time broadcast. They were used here in the US by all three networks to time-delay programs on the West Coast.
kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE 4 years ago
I think that Kines were wet gate telecine units. We used 16mm film extensively with reversal film untill High Band U matic.
whizzzard 4 years ago
This machine, an Ampex VR2000, would be from the late 1960's or early 1970's. There are a couple of websites with info on 'quads' and people who actually have collections of some of these machines. Google 'Quadruplex Park' and 'vtoldboys' they have cool pix and lots of info.
kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE 4 years ago
could you tell me what year of fabrication of this marvelous video player ?
patmix 4 years ago
I would say 1970
whizzzard 4 years ago
wow my birth year
tanx a lot whizzard
patmix 4 years ago
Did the heads eventually lock in on that tape?
I used to work on one of those as well, along with some RCA Quads and an RCA TCR machine, in the mid-80s.
Man, those machines we're beasts!
kylebook 4 years ago
There were 4 heads on a removable drum module. The heads would wear in 100 hours. There was a "Tip Penetration" knob to set RF envelope. (We got a lol from that)
whizzzard 4 years ago
It's amazing how far technology has advanced in both audio and video in such a relatively short time.
grumpybb 4 years ago