[QuadList] VPR5

[Bill Carpenter]

Well, Park & Trevor, you have the wrong Swiss!!!

The VPR-5 was a joint design effort between Kudelski (Nigra fame) SA, and Ampex. The VPR-5 and the VPR-3 were both introduced to the World at IBC 1982 in Brighton, England. The conceptual design of the VPR-5, was offered to Ampex as a non-operational concept model that Stephan Kudelski had shopped around to Sony and Hitachi (the two other makers of "C" format portables) and had no takers. We looked at it, and realized that we would have to teach Stephan's folks how to design a video recorder, in particular, video design, servo design, video head design, and electronic packaging. When he first saw SMT( surface mount technology), he said he did not need any fancy soldering machines, just give me a " deep fat fryer and a variable transformer" and he would make it work!
 I toured his facility in Switzerland, and when we were passing a screwmachine, he stopped, picked a small tea strainer off a hook, put it in the outgoing oil stream, then held it to me, and poked his finger in the oil and finally I saw three screws, which I would have needed a magnifier to see any threads!
Then, we were going upstairs, he was three steps ahead, taking them two at a time, and he was in his 60's( and I was in my 40's) and I asked him a question? "Stephan how many people do you employ in this building"?
He stopped short, I almost ran into him, and he answered, "Bill, you really know how to ask that question!" 
I asked what he meant by that answer? He said that most other folks usually ask, "How many people work in this building? and I answer", " About 40%" , "but in reality, your answer is about 390 people"
.
I could tell many stories about those days, but the best is that I don't think either company broke even (paid off the engineering) and I had been told by my manager at that time ( of introduction), that the VPR-3 was to complex, and like the other Hi Tech Recorders from earlier times, we would not sell more than five hundred. 
Those products were AVR-1, ACR-25, AVR -3, and many years later I checked and we were still making and selling VPR-3, and it had regained major markets for Ampex, caused many problems for RCA, Sony, and Hitachi, and we had sold over 2300!
 I had a backlog of orders, going into NAB 1983, after showing a raw prototype with very basic operations, twice, once IBC in Brighton, and the second time at the Fall SMPTE, in NY City, which was over 40M$. 
I guess you folks liked my machine, and that was before the Zeus TBC or Mike Arbuthnot! Those two only made things better! 
OBTW, when I introduced the VPR-3 to the domestic (USA) sales force, at NAB, I had a special showing in our booth at the show, on the day before the show opened at 2PM to allow them to ask anything, and see anything about the machine. I personally asked Mike Arbuthnot, to come in at noon, for a private showing. I took him thru everything about the machine. 
When I visited him at his home in Colorado, last Spring, we discussed that special showing and he asked "Why did you do that!" and I told him that it was very simple, I recognized that he was a very smart salesman, and that if I could teach him about the machine, then I would have no questions from the other 6-8 sales folks in Canada! 
I was also trying to show him what a great time we had in Redwood City in Product Management and later got him to leave Canada and join the Redwood City Group.

Bill Carpenter




________________________________
From: C. Park Seward <park at videopark.com>
To: Quad List <quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com>
Sent: Sun, February 7, 2010 2:17:58 PM
Subject: Re: [QuadList] VPR5

Yes, Trevor. The 5 was a co-development of Studer and Ampex. Amazing technology that came out right before Betacam SP. A single piece camcorder was more friendly to the cameramen.


Best,
Park

C. Park Seward
Visit us: http://www.videopark.com




On Feb 7, 2010, at 2:00 PM, Peter Ford wrote:

Hi Trevor
> 
>The VPR5 was a very unusual machine.   Apparently Ampex engaged Willy Studer to design the Transport.  The Studer company (Factories in Germany and Switzerland) used to make very well engineered Studer professional audio recorders plus domestic audio recorders under the name Revox.
> 
>Peter Ford 
> 
>>When they do that for C format VT machines mine will be the VPR5 again heavy
>>but stunning engineering.
>>
>>I hate to imagine what they cost new
>>
>>Again not many around
>>
>>Trevor
>>UK Member


      
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