[QuadList] TBC

[Don Norwood]

Park:

Not to preempt Bill, but yes, it was slightly before the days of Bill Hendershot and his CVS digital TBC, but there was market overlap during the product lifespan.  CVS was first, so NEC would have followed sometime later.  The Microtime box was an all analog signal path using switched delay lines with some digital control and timing circuitry.  It's advantage originally was its "large" correction window.

Don Norwood
Digitrak Communications, Inc.
www.digitrakcom.com
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: C. Park Seward 
  To: Quad List 
  Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 11:33 AM
  Subject: Re: [QuadList] TBC


  Hi Bill,


  I assume this Andersen project was before CVS sold the standalone TBC? And before NEC had TBCs?


  Charlie Steinberg is great. Quite a blow to Ampex when, after 25 years, went to Sony as President of their Broadcast Division. I don't know the back story of why he left but he sure did well at Sony and I'm sure took a lot of business away from Ampex.


  Best,
  Park


  C. Park Seward
  Cell: 818-535-2747
  Home: 541-476-6657
  2" Quad and 1" "C" transfers
  Visit us: http://www.videopark.com







  On May 6, 2011, at 7:26 AM, Bill Carpenter wrote:


          Hi Scott & Don,

          Yes you are correct, the glass delay lines used in the AVR-1,ACR-25, and the TBC 790 were Anderson Labs products. 

          The president came to me in Elk Grove, and wanted to sell us a simple TBC, which they had in a very rough form.

          They had shopped it around and nobody would buy it.

          We had a short term need & I signed the development contract.

          They knew there delay lines, but did not know how to handle video properly and sync handling was very poor. We tested it after we had moved to California in mid 71, and it did not work with the 7900.

          They went away, redesigned with some new engineers, brought the product to market and then sued Ampex for breach of contract, because we had deep pockets.

          I gave a couple days of depositions, and then one day I met our President, Charlie Stienberg in the hall, and we decided on a $ figure of a "go away" payment to end the litigation. They accepted, and went away as victorious for less than the price of a single TBC.

          I learned a lot about contracts from that exercise.

          Bye for now, lBill & Gewyn & Ginger (whoof...whoof)

          --- On Fri, 5/6/11, Don Norwood <dwnorwood at embarqmail.com> wrote:


            From: Don Norwood <dwnorwood at embarqmail.com>
            Subject: Re: [QuadList] TBC
            To: "Quad List" <quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com>
            Date: Friday, May 6, 2011, 6:49 AM


            Hi Scott:

            Yes, that looks like the manual I have.  A very fair price if someone needs one.  Copying or scanning this would be a considerable task as many of the pages are 11x17 foldouts.

            My impression of the company during the time that these were made was that Microtime was a company created to utilize some of the technology that the parent company, Andersen Laboratories, manufactured.  I believe Andersen  made the delay lines that were used in the TBC's.  Perhaps Bill can shed some additional light on this.

            Don Norwood
            Digitrak Communications, Inc.
            www.digitrakcom.com

            ----- Original Message ----- 
              From: Scott Thomas 
              To: Quad List 
              Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 3:37 AM
              Subject: Re: [QuadList] TBC


              I found a manual for sale online...


              http://www.dantiques2.com/vpasp/shopexd.asp?ccode=26768


              Fascinating story. I started tracing the company and it appears that whatever was left was sold to Avid. (Along with Pinnacle, DF/X, Dubner)




              On May 2, 2011, at 3:27 PM, Bill Carpenter wrote:


                      Hi Don & Everyone,

                      I spec'ed that unit in early 71, and entered into a  contract with Andersen to build it, on which they delivered a prototype in late 71, may be Nov, and then the fun started. It did not work, got rejected, contract into default, litigation began, gave depsitions, recommended how much for our president to pay them to " Go Away", end of Andersen File.

                      I had the "mini-buffer" TBC-790 available, before the Legal case was started
                     


            -----Inline Attachment Follows-----


            _______________________________________________
            Please trim posts to relevant info when replying!
            Send QuadList list posts to QuadList at quadvideotapegroup.com
            Your subscribe, unsubscribe and digest options are here:
            http://mail.quadvideotapegroup.com/mailman/listinfo/quadlist_quadvideotapegroup.com 
    _______________________________________________
    Please trim posts to relevant info when replying!
    Send QuadList list posts to QuadList at quadvideotapegroup.com
    Your subscribe, unsubscribe and digest options are here:
    http://mail.quadvideotapegroup.com/mailman/listinfo/quadlist_quadvideotapegroup.com




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  Please trim posts to relevant info when replying!
  Send QuadList list posts to QuadList at quadvideotapegroup.com
  Your subscribe, unsubscribe and digest options are here:
  http://mail.quadvideotapegroup.com/mailman/listinfo/quadlist_quadvideotapegroup.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://quadvideotapegroup.com/pipermail/quadlist_quadvideotapegroup.com/attachments/20110506/bd912585/attachment-0005.html>