A QuadList look back at 1979--

[Ted Langdell]

Some of the last of the first Quad machines delivered to CBS were being retired in 1979, as I noted in a QuadList post in November, 2011:  
This Ampex Mark IV was one of the machines Ampex sold to CBS, shown here 23 years later during the week it was retired from service.


In this photo taken (in 1979?) by Donna Foster-Rozien, her husband Joe Rozien of Telegen and Charles Mesak, Television City’s manager of videotape recording pose with the Mark IV, which at some point had been equipped with modules to enable color recording and playback.

The photo accompanied a May, 1981 Broadcast Engineering article by Ampex’s Charles P. Ginsburg on the 25th anniversary of  Videotape™recording. Ginsburg recounted the lengthy story behind the development of the Quadruplex VTR, and how it ended up causing gasps of surprise at the 1956 unveiling in Chicago.

(The VT Oldboys website reports it was 22 years and was replaced by a Sony BVH-1000. See http://www.vtoldboys.com/mont87.htm)

Videotape took off after that with thousands of machines spanning at least three generations. Even 23 years later Quad was still accounting for a lot of money changing hands.

Billboard reports in the May 26. 1979 issue:
The BBC renewed an order for 3M Scotch 400 Quad videotape, which is said to carry through March, 1980.  The deal was worth $2 Million US.

Videotape was a frequently used method of distributing long-form programming in the days before satellite transmission was common and less expensive:

Tom Gallagher was working videotape at WRAL-TV, Raleigh, NC  during the period when Wrestling was still a local TV-studio staple, taped “just about every Wednesday,” and took all of the station's RCA Quads to produce.  Why?  

Click on the link below and scroll down to read Gallagher’s recollections of what it took to produce the shows, and how it all went together:
http://midatlanticwrestling.net/almanac/tv_history/tv_studios/wral/wral_gallagher.htm

In November, 1979, Paramount Pictures was distributing six spots for Start Trek the motion picture to stations via plastic Quad spot reels.

Almost 36-years later, one of those reels is for sale on ebay with a price of $200.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/STAR-TREK-THE-MOTION-PICTURE-EIGHT-TV-SPOTS-ON-ORIGINAL-2-QUAD-VIDEOTAPE-1979-/221865182125

Commercials were the bread and butter at commercial stations around the globe, and playing them and other short program segments was handled at many networks and stations by either one or more RCA TCR-100 “tape cart recorders” or an Ampex ACR-25  “Ampex or Automated Cart Recorders.”

Both were based on 2” Quad videotape being housed in plastic cartridges, and used two transports to load, cue and play short segments in random order.

Here’s a link to pictures provided by QuadList member Tim Stoffel on our friend Richard Diehl’s website showing the Ampex 6-minute cassette on the left, and the red RCA 3-minute cassette on the right:
http://www.labguysworld.com/QuadCarts.htm

The two systems helped automate station breaks and newscasts, since they could be programmed to locate, cue, play, rewind, replace and cue the next event quickly.

The RCA TCR-100 was introduced at NAB in 1969 with the first production machine in use at WDCA, Washington, DC in 1970.

The Ampex ACR-25 debuted at NAB in 1970 with a $165,000 price tag. It featured an air and vacuum operated tape system and could play ten-second long segments back to back.

NBC affilate KTEW-TV, Tulsa, Oklahoma received the first ACR-25 in July of 1972.

ABC purchased three ACR-25s and three Ampex AVR-1 Quad recorders in March of 1973 for an announced value of around $3.5 Million. Two ACR-25s went to ABC’s Hollywood facilities, and one to ABC owned KGO-TV, San Francisco.

CBS New York had five in use: One for transferring video to carts, and the other four for paired On-Air and Standby. 

NBC’s 30 Rock had six TCR-100s by 1978.

While many potential users adopted one or the other system early in their existence some were slow to react.

In the September, 1979 issue of RCA Broadcast News, RCA announced that Corinthian Television had ordered ten TCR-100’s for its five-station group along with four RCA TR-600 quad recorders.  The TCRs were to be installed in pairs at KHOU-TV, Houston, Texas, KOTV, Tulsa, Oklahoma, KXTV, Sacramento, California, WANE-TV, Fort Wayne and WISH-TV, Indianapolis, both Indiana.  The deal was worth $2.8 Million.

(TL notes that the TCR-100s at KXTV would replace a station-developed system using Sony VO-2850 3/4” decks that were used for news and commercial playback, circa around 1977 when the station shifted from film to 3/4” for news coverage and editing. Ampex Quads and Sony 1” decks were in place in 1977, when he worked there in news.)

What did these machines look like, sound like in operation?  What did their users think of them?

Some videos of each in operation, recollections by users and “who used which, where" on Eyes of a Generation’s Facebook pages:

RCA TCR-100:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=189359747768249&story_fbid=148247088670945

Ampex ACR-25:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=689945324376353&id=189359747768249

QuadList member Dennis Degan comments about working with both, and has pictures of both in the above linked page, as do several other QuadList members.

These units were used in many markets into the late 1990’s until they were replaced by other robotic units using component analog 1/2” tapes, digital tapes or by digital servers:
http://www.ddqreunion.com/pages/showequip.htm?id=1



In 1979, Videotape editing was becoming more sophisticated, with computer control of multiple machines, switchers, and time-code synchronization of audio decks.  As facilities grew, so did the people working in them.

In May, 1979, QuadList member David Crosthwait made the jump from Editor, TD and Quad maintenance at KCOP-TV (13) Los Angeles over the Hollywood hills to 3000 West Alameda in Burbank, where he would call NBC, Burbank home for 10 years.

He was an on-line editor at NBC/KNBC for network shows, local programs and promo projects, and did remote work for entertainment and sports broadcasts.  

During 19 years with Modern Videofilm, and moving into non-linear editing and HD, he also founded DC Video in 2000, where his AVR-1 Quad transfers are held in high regard.


In 1979, science fiction illustrator, avant-garde film and video artist Ed Emshwiller was at work with Alvy Ray Smith  Lance Williams and Garland Stern in the New York Institute of Technology computer lab in Westbury, Long Island.

They were creating “Sunstone,” a three-minute “computer graphics movie” Wmshwiller conceived that was mastered to Quad. 
http://www.alvyray.com/Art/Sunstone.htm

Years later, the Quad master was successfully played and digitized
by QuadList member Park Seward at his Grants Pass, Oregon VideoPark lab.

Park is just finishing up digitizing Quad tapes from the Colgate-Palmolive soap, “The Doctors,”, which aired 1963-1982 on NBC, transitioning to color in October, 1966 using Quad recorders and RCA TK-41s (sometimes in the shot) recorders at NBC Rockefeller Center studio 3-B  current home of NBC Nightly News.

The Doctors is airing on Retro TV weekdays 1pm E/10am P times, starting with episodes from 1967.


Artist Ed Emshwiller is mentioned in a June 4, 1979 New York Times article that describes how he and other artists were using various media to create video art. 

A narrative film for a song “Frankie Teardrop” used a mix of film and video,  Quad tape, CMX editing and human skills, as outlined by editor Paul Dougherty in his blog, “A Video Life:"
https://avideolife.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/frankie-teardrop-video-back-story/


Lots of music was recorded and played from Quad videotapes in 1979. 

Among them, a March 6, 1979 session of “Jazz Workshop at the Smithsonian” produced by noted Jazz critic Martin T. Williams.

What shows do you know of that were still produced and/or distributed on Quad in 1979?


In the UK, an edited master tape of “All the Fun of the Fair” is recorded, edited and aired by ATV on London Weekend Television several times in November, 1979.

The tape eventually finds its way into a box, WITH the card noting its record and playback history. Some years later, a TV cameraman bought an auction lot of 1” tape, and when moving in 2006, discovered the 2” Quad tape buried in the bottom of the box.
http://www.atvland.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=482

Did he ever get it transferred?  If not, several folks on this list can help do so.

At the BBC, 1979 was the first time in 15 years that the broadcaster did NOT purchase any Quad VTRs.  Instead, they bought 40 1” Type C format machines for PAL standard recording.

In December, 1979, QuadList member Mike Boland was ending his three years as a wizard at Merlin Engineering Works in Palo Alto, CA.

 He’d been a Senior tri-band quad signal systems and accessories manufacturing engineer for the premier West Coast refurbisher of Quad VTRs, which also developed new technology using Quad and other formats.

He later developed the first LCD-based monitor for broadcast, and today is the President of Boland Communications, a major player in broadcast picture monitors.

What were you doing with Quad in 1979?  Share your stories, pictures and videos.

Happy weekend!

Ted

Ted Langdell
Secretary
Quad Videotape Group
iPhone: 	(530) 301-2931
ted at QuadVideotapeGroup.com
Skype: 	TedLangdell 

Web:  www.QuadVideotapeGroup.com
Facebook:	https://www.facebook.com/QuadVideotapeGroup





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