[QuadList] ACR use (was Servo Modes)

[nickgtv at mindspring.com]

Interesting discussion re: cart machine usage.  I worked at KTLA in the '80's (pre WB and CW) when the shop was truly independent.  A big money-maker for them was their 8 o'clock movie. As I remember, they had two "modes" of operation: Air Operations had two ACR-25s; if a typical movie was to air, roughly half of each break ran from each of the ACRs.  During special occasions (e.g., sweeps), many movies were promoted as having "...only two commercial interruptions..."  For those, I recall building dub reels onto 1" tape (Merlinized VPR2s).  I can't remember if we ran the ACR as a backup to the dub reel.

Granted, this is purely anecdotal, but it seems more TCR shops would often use the cart machine to build dub reels for primetime, compared to those with ACRs (at least at the station level).

Nick Grbac
KRON-TV
San Francisco, CA