[QuadList] Ampex Models

Tue Mar 1 10:38:05 CST 2011

The ACR 25 setup at WAGA that Hugo Bundy talked about:

By the way, WFAA-TV Dallas/Fort Worth, had an ACR-25 that was used exclusively for news. On their newscasts, the director switched his own show, and the ACR 25 gave him/her the ability to roll & take simultaneously, making for a very tight show.

On the NBC Network "Nightly News", the TCR-100 was used for roll-ins. Two second pre-roll was all you got then. KNBC Burbank used four BVU 200's for news stories, newscast bumpers, etc. in the 3/4" days, before the miracle of MII arrived.

David

On Mar 1, 2011, at 5:14 AM, Chill315 at aol.com wrote:

> Bill
>  
> That was a great session at the SMPTE meeting.  Yes I do remember Hugo Bundy.  A little bit of a southern character.  The state of ENG at that time was so primitive.  The equipment was not designed to do what we were doing.  It was amazing that there were not more issues.  The cost benefits were so great that we had to proceed down that path. 
>  
> Frank was a great field engineer.  I still remember how we spent a long night trying to resolve why the RA-4000 would not do match frame edits with the AVR-2's that we had.  About 3 in the morning we proved that it was the boost was still on when the RA-4000 sensed lock and released tape speed over ride.  Then the boost would cause the machine to slip a frame.  The RA-4000 only needed one frame of time code match to say sync was achieved.  I had been going down that road and he was going down the road that the problem was in the AVR-2.  That was because we also had VR-1200's on the RA-4000.  The AVR-2 with the DC capstan was so good at lock up.
>  
> Anyway Frank gave me a great saying over this.  "Some times you need someone to come along grab your ears and pull your head out of your rear so you can see the problem from the right way."
>  
> He came up with a fix that worked better than the factory came up with later when they issued a field bulletin.
>  
> Lastly, the ACR-25 was such a great machine.  It never broke unless the smell of burnt plastic was from the melting of the drive hub that mated from the spools in the cassette acted up. 
>  
> I saw the RCA machine at other stations and how much they had to do to keep it going.  You guys did it right.
>  
> Chris Hill
>  
> In a message dated 2/28/2011 9:50:33 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, wcarpen107 at yahoo.com writes:
> Hi Cris and everybody!
> 
> Yes, That was a great meeting, and my paper was sort of an alternative answer to the ENG question. The handwriting was on the wall related to Eng, when we came back to the Hotel later on Friday night after driving in the heavy snow and found that the "crackbarrel" session in a small room on the lower level was attended by maybe 200 engineers mostly out in the halllway, not the 25-30 that normally go to those unplanned & unstructured sessions.
> 
> The next day, a good old southern boy from Atlanta, Hugo Bundy (if my 35+ years memory is right) got up and tore apart every piece equipment that he had used! 
> Then he put up a slide of his ACR-25, and stated that without this machine the whole ENG effort would have been unuseable!
> He said they would roll the 3/4" field tapes many times and record each time until they got the one that  worked and then use the ACR to clip the ends, and also that this would allow last second changes in the news playback on an "as required" basis with NO PROBLEMS. 
> The ACR was his last slide and was on-sceen for over half on his paper and all of the Q & A.
> I was sitting next to Don Kleffman, our Marketing Manager, and two levels above me, when leaned over and asked me if I had anything to do with this presentation?
> I answered NO, but I was sure going to buy the man a drink or more before the weekend was over! Don was pleased with my answer!
> 
> Bill Carpenter
> 
> PS: Frank Davis was always a great field engineer and a good friend, both at Belo, and previously at Northwest Teleproductions.
> 
> --- On Mon, 2/28/11, Chill315 at aol.com <Chill315 at aol.com> wrote:
> 
> From: Chill315 at aol.com <Chill315 at aol.com>
> Subject: [QuadList] Ampex Models
> To: quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com
> Date: Monday, February 28, 2011, 4:35 PM
> 
> I was not sure of the actual count and I thought there might be 21.  The question was answered with all sorts of speed. 
>  
> The ones that I thought might be difficult were the E models of the 1100 and the 1200.  Also the VR-3000B.
>  
> I did see the VR-3000B demonstrated at the Detroit SMPTE meeting as an alternative to 3/4 tape.  It worked beautifully.  The operating cost must have been against it.  Frank Davis was at the meeting and manned the booth.  He later became a VP at Belo. 
>  
> I know of another VR-1200 that had the detachable monitor rack.  This was sold to the University of Michigan Television Center.  It was used in the studio and in a remote truck that only did a few shows in black and white.  There was a monitor setup in the truck.
>  
> Now were there any VR-1001B models?  The reason that I ask is that the Intersync book tells about how to install the Intersync in the VR-1001A.  Was it standard in the B model?  So who can answer this question?
>  
> Chris Hill
> 
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