[QuadList] QuadList Digest, Vol 19, Issue 53

[Doug Bingley]

At TVOntario and CBC we only used assembly edit when we had to "fix
something." 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, our older machines did not have Editec
although they used electronic editing. The electronic editor had the
nomenclature PP which we human editors said stood for "Push and Pray." The
machine did not go into full edit until about 3/4 of a second after hitting
record and play, so you had to anticipate the edit point. You could run
through the potential edit a couple of times to see if you had the timing
right, but when you finally made the edit it was all up to your reflexes. No
second chance. 

I always hated the fact that even with the Editor switched in, you had to
hit a button that said "Record" It never seemed right to me. It seemed that
the button should have said "EDIT"

Even the later Editecs and EECO editing systems left lots of room for
operator error. The worst sin was to try to do go back to do an insert edit
in the middle of a completed show with the editor switched to assemble. Very
bad..even worse was forgetting to switch in the editor at all, resulting in
the machine going into full record about 10 seconds before the desired edit
point.Very, very bad.

We used to do a variety show taped before a live audience. The next day I
would insert video clips of the performances from later in the show into the
pre-voiced show intro (Announcer: Tommy's guests are Anne Murray, Joe
Schlunk, etc. Video- Quick camera cuts of performers.) 

So that we did not have to go down a generation we would transfer the video
of the performances to a second machine, then edit the video back to the
master during the intro sequence. You better believe I was extra careful to
check all of the switch positions before hitting the record/play buttons!

If an edit suite was not booked we would record black and time code onto
both machines during the down-time. When we reused tapes we would first run
them through on fast forward with our fingers on both sides of the tape to
check for edge damage.

During record we were supposed to sit around for an hour listening for a
head to zing, indicating a problem tape, but usually we would sneak out for
a beer.. I loved my NABET card.