[QuadList] From the TR 800 Crypt

Thu Feb 24 09:28:31 CST 2011

Hello Phillip,

Thank you for coming forward and identifying your self in the photo, and for the TR 800 insights. For all others reading this, I recall Phillip as being very calm and professional during all of the remote chaos of combined NYC/Burbank craziness at that particular car race behind Caesars. He had an assignment to help us out when we got in trouble. The VTR area was in the rear of the truck, and Phillip waited patiently outside in the Vegas heat (no room inside) for his cue. Now, some 28 years later, I can say "thank you" for being there! The Quality Video truck, brand new at the time, had TK 47's, a GVG 300 switcher, and four TR 800's. I believe there was Chyron IV and and a Wheatsone audio board (not sure about the audio). We ran camera cable all over the place, including up the side of Caesars maybe 10-15 stories. But,the camera up there worked great. There were three employees from Quality Video, two which I had worked with on another truck in LA (either CCR or Mobile Video). Mobile Video had two TR 600A quads  (each with AE 600s) and TK 45's. But the last time I worked on that truck was for NBC in Dallas at SMU for "The Oldest Living Graduate" stage show with Henry Fonda. This was at a time when NBC was experimenting with different approaches to primetime drama (Fred Silverman days), and that particular broadcast was the first of a series, going out to the entire country, LIVE. All went well with the show, which is a testament to the reliability of RCA cameras and tape machines, which were trusted to deliver on such a high profile program (primetime, live to network, remote, feeding coast-to-coast). The TR 600A's were used to pre-record some bumpers and other B roll material on-sight at SMU. We edited with the AE 600's right up to air time. No problems whatsoever. 

So, with so many TR 800s being returned to the factory, one has to wonder if they all went to the scrap metal heap to be sold by the pound, or what?

David
DC Video
www.dcvideo.com

On Feb 23, 2011, at 9:08 PM, Phillip G. Shaw wrote:

> [Quote]The first TR 800's I saw were in the QV remote truck. But the problems with reliability were so bad that RCA assigned an engineer during one remote in Vegas who did nothing but sit by the VTR door and waited for one of us to yell "help, we have a runaway!".[/quote]
>  
> I was that Engineer in Vegas &  Denver Mile high  The problem was that RCA had a bunch of Post Production (film type) design a remote control (copy of Ampex HS100 Slo- mo) and they where trying to use it for NFL Replay ,, 6 button combinations  to push, upper/lower case, to store points in a story line process.. The Marketing folks didn't  have a clue... they had requested software updates, from engineering, to speed up the machine cueing speed (after all that time spent storing shit on the remote & operator Screwup) the tape was almost jumping off the scanner... A simple "in point", trim and cue was all the NFL-Live needed. In those days the button/function people had stupid expectations because of a lack of experence of Live Network Broadcasting
>  
> It has been said on this Board that NBC did not try TR800's.
> "NOT True"
>  
> NBC NYC did have 2ea  TR800's installed on the 5th floor. Special NBC consols were designed. I was the RCA Engineer that was sent to NBC to cure a thermal problem with the TBC.. The RCA design Engineer, Jim Parker was absolutly brilliant, but refused to use the normal practice of bypassing  the TBC in EE .. the NBC operators saw vector jitter(CB) in EE and it was impossible to fix..NBC sent the Machines back ( I told Steve Bonica the truth & was offered a Job at NBC ) The second Shop Order of Tr-800 used a TBC from Florida...
>  
> Ray Baldock worked on the TR-800 Factory QC in 1981..
> He was part of a group from UK / Jersey Isle working for Peter Dare (later Sony) in the factory to ship the first production of 6 Machines to South America by Dec 15th 1981.. They failed! and Dare left RCA.. Ray worked on the design of Silver Lake (Cart Machine replacement for TCR 100) and he went to Odetics when RCA Closed..
>  
> Note: Three of us from Tech Alert set up an Engineering factory Audit.. The factory shipped to Audit and we fixed
> all the faults before shipping to Customers. The first TR 800
> had > 2000 Engineering Change Orders, it was a nightmare.
> We feed back the faults to the factory but they didn't change anything, actually thing got worse.. Broadcast moved to Gibbsboro
>  
> I did save the Ampex VPR-3 from been rejected by NBC-NY
> (Bancroft was Ampex Field Engineer)
>  
> Phillip G. Shaw
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