[QuadList] TV Station Engineering Report

[David Crosthwait]

Don and All,

The photo I posed today was from NBC N.Y. supplied by a former editor who worked there at that time, now out here. Judging by the dreaded 3M foam flange, I would guess that shot was sometime between 1972 and 1976. I will defer all deciphering of the machine and edit bay layouts to Dennis and the other editors who used to work there as I never set foot into 30 Rock. Quite frankly, the closest I ever got to there (until very recently) was a change of planes at JFK while working for NBC during a SportsWorld (in Atlantic City) remote with New York field back in the early 80's. So Dennis has done a tremendous job in documenting the layout of NBC NY. 

One little bit of trivia that may or may not apply to both operations: The lower numbered machine was the edit machine (in the case of edit bays) or the "A" machine (in the case of air/zone delay). Example: 14/16 were the VR-2000's for The Tonight Show. 14 was the master. Both had Editec's.  Almost always, the 14 copy was "air" with 16 being "backup". When the show fed East, it was ganged rolled by SC on a -5. The operator would sync up the 16 copy with capstan override until it was in perfect sync with 14.  That sync up procedure was routine with all dual playbacks, common with zone delay. The same lower number being master machine applied also on the TCR's (5 was master with 7 as backup). 

Were the six VR-2000's in Burbank A's or B's? Not sure but presumably they were all A's with updates i.e. new audio cages and misc. mods. NBC Burbank and CBS-H traded VR-2000 notes and home-made mods from day one. 

Pictures of VR-2000's in Burbank? Only a couple of my own. I've asked others for photos but almost no-one took any. Ted posted a shot of edit one a few months ago and that is an extremely rare glimpse.

David





On Mar 20, 2013, at 7:02 AM, Don Norwood wrote:

> 
> Hi David:
>  
> Your pic of 14/16 shows the same pairing of a VR-2000 & a 2000B that Dennis showed for 29/30.  Was there a particular reason that the two different models were paired together?
>  
> Don Norwood
> Digitrak Communications, Inc.
> www.digitrakcom.com
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David Crosthwait
> Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 9:05 AM
> 
> 
> Hello Dennis,
> 
> Thank you for your very informative comments!
> 
> Burbank had six VR-2000's also. Although their main usage was for production and editing, each could have been put on-air. The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson had exclusive use of two of them. The pair (14/16) both recorded the show and played it back to the East and West. They were maintained in tip-top shape. 
> 
> Here is an older shot of 19/20 in New York:
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1969855118453&set=a.1969855038451.2095951.1005211240&type=3&theater
> 
>  
> 
>  
> ______________________________________________
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> 
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