[QuadList] Grass Valley

[Trevor]

David

 

I do remember something the BBC told us as raw recruits in the 1970s, that
Grass Valley kit was known as "Chad Valley" (a rather cheap childrens toy),
I think this was a comment from the BBC's Projects department, in those days
the BBC used to deisgn and build all their own equipment from DAs to Vision
Mixers and beyond. I have to say from my first encounter with a 1600F to 300
with 2 MEs and then on to 100s  that  the BBC were wrong.

 

 Although I never worked at the BBC (I was in ITV) we met lots of BBC guys
on courses who were clearly not happy with people at the BBC who built kit 

They went through silly periods one that I remember was white modules that
were meant to be jigsaw pieces that you could build into any system (the
local junk shop was full of them)

 

The edit suits were a disaster, lots of dedicated buttons instead of a
QWERTY keyboard driven kit

I think they even mirrored suites layouts,so control panels were reversed in
odd numbered suits

Some of the editors would only work either odd or even suits

 

I think in the end the Union got involved and made them buy some commercial
kit

Might have been Datatron (Paltex in the UK)  Sony BVE 9100 was not around
then, but is my linear editor of choice

 

The VPR2's were just as bad with over 100 BBC mods, then when they did not
work they asked Ampex to come and help

I think they were told they were OK when they left here, take you mods off.
The only mod I saw I liked, was keep you finger on the play button to review

Edits, otherwise you had to turn the editor off

 

Eventually the VPR2 rights were sold to Marconi who made an even bigger
mess, pity could have been a good machine

 

TrevorB

UK Member

 

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