[QuadList] Quad Carts--Links to RCA and Ampex photo examples

[Steve Greene]

Thanks everyone for the information!  The three I've found (so far) are Ampex. 

I'll try to take some pictures of my own.  I always like to put a pencil or my keys in the foreground for scale when I shoot something like that.

Steve

>>> "Gary Adams" <garyada at ix.netcom.com> 8/16/2012 2:20 PM >>>

Just to provide the other view.  The doors covered the tape fairly well.  These were the 3 minute versions, but the one minute carts were more commonly used.  It was interesting that Scotch 400 tape was used and recommended.  When 420 came out, it clearly had a better picture with less noise or “chroma spread” but the tape had serious issues with “stiction” in the machine.  The smooth surface against the posts and audio head assembly caused the tape to stall after it was cued and ready to go.  I spent quite a bit of time at customer sites sorting this out after they rebuilt carts using 420 tape.  It was easy to demonstrate.  Too bad since the picture was noticeably better.  
 
While both RCA and Ampex carts produced proper quad recordings, I’m fairly certain the procedure of removing the tape and playing it on a quad was seldom used.  Even at our low end station, we always had the original quads on the shelf.  It would have been a lot of trouble to actually perform the complete task.  And they wouldn’t have easily been interchangeable between machines since both used a different method of cueing (timecode vs. tones) and the end of tape sensing would have been different.  Not efficient in any case.  We were luck to have either of these machines in the day as it really freed up the manual task of loading 2-4 quad machines for a break.
 
Gary
 

 
-----Original Message-----
From: quadlist-bounces at quadvideotapegroup.com [mailto:quadlist-bounces at quadvideotapegroup.com] On Behalf Of Dennis Degan
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 9:37 AM
To: Quad List
Subject: Re: [QuadList] Quad Carts--Links to RCA and Ampex photo examples
 
 
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