ABC TV Videotape room tour and edit demo [720p60]

Thanks to Bobby Springer for bring this and a couple of longer cuts to us featuring Robert H Springer, Head of Videotape at ABC TV in the US in the late-1950's doing a tour of the videotape room with it's racks of video equipment and rows of early Ampex VT machines. Interesting to note the presence of Ray Dolby, famous for his audio noise reduction system, and key team member in the development of the Quadruplex 2 inch videotape system at Ampex that was the first commercially used VTR, and a format that lasted into the early 1980's. (I managed to use a colour Ampex 2" Quad AVR-2 machine when I was training as a sound engineer at the BBC - quite chuffed there).
This is a short 7 minute extract from the 36 minute tour which was shot on electronic cameras and recorded on videotape for student at UCLA to watch.
The videotape of this tour for UCLA students has not survived it would seem, but a 24fps kinescope (or telerecording as we call them here in the UK) was made. I've re-rendered this at both 48 progressive frames per second and 60 progressive frames per second for each of the edit lengths put up on KZbin by Bobby Springer, and have found that the 60fps versions look more fluid and LIVE!
Enjoy. If you want me to upload the full 36 minute tour of the videotape room in 720p60, ask in the comments space below.

[@moow950]

This the FIRST EVER video tape recorder, the AMPEX VR-1000!!!!

[@debraoliver505]

I can't believe they cut and spliced to edit the first VCR tapes!

[@am74343]

These were the people who ushered in the modern age of television... Absolutely fascinating!

[@rty1955]

I was one of them

[@homevideotransfer-vhstodvd9744]

It's nice to see this. In 1978 I assisted video editors cut tape this way, I then did dubbing editing on VR-2000 and then AVR 2, in 1982, next was C format and editrace, then U-matic, Beta and D3, Digital Avid gave us freedom, and Apples Final Cut Pro made it cheap enough to buy kit and go freelance. Physically cutting tape to make a show was painful, especially if you had a TX deadline, it was hard to keep track of where you were on the tape and the sound was offset by a few seconds, so don’t cut in the wrong place because there’s only one copy of the recording!

[@kurtb8474]

I've been shooting and editing video since the early 90s. I had no idea they physically cut the video tape in those days!

[@petehatzakos]

As a former tape editor during the days of Betacam and Digital Betacam on Ampex ace micro and Grass Valley Editors, seeing this is sooooooo cool! Yes, please up load the entire clip if you have it! THank you for posting this.

[@archibaldleach2522]

Ray Darby, not Dolby. Ray Dolby was already working at Ampex, and wouldn't be editing tape at ABC.

[@rty1955]

I used to cut tape back in 1960 on the VR-1000's then VR-2000. I fixed many a camera master that way too. I also did punch & pray, then EECO, then CMX systems, including the 600 system. I worked at the largest post facility on the east coast in USA. Our company invented the Pan & Scan for film. We did all of HBO's film xfers to quad. HBO required a 5 min overlap. The were not good at tape swaps haha

[@alanrogs3990]

How old are you?

[@douglasmann8110]

Please upload the whole presentation. Having worked a quad "back in the day", I found this very interesting. Thank you muchly!😊

[@drakefallentine8351]

The development of the Ampex Editec System (Electronic Editor) couldn't arrive soon enough. The tape operator could either "Insert" or "Assemble" edits by setting CUE markers (audible beeps) at the beginning and end of the section to be edited, then fine tune the positions of the cue markers with a pair of knobs, each indicating (+) or (-) while viewing playback. When it looked good, just "roll and record", the Editec took it from there. In 1970, we had three Ampex 1200Bs and one was fitted with the Editec.

[@duncan-rmi]

I caught the very tail-end of cut-&-splice on quadruplex (ampex VR1200s, 2000s) at college in the 80s. brake release was a footswitch. we had an exercise- remove a verse from a hymn in the religious show 'songs of praise'.... we arrived at a method of whacking a chinagraph mark onto the tape while it was in play, best-of-three sort of a deal, then fine tune this using the audio head & normal reel-rocking (no pics during this, obvs.) then the tape was lifted onto a special block with a scope for viewing the control track pulses (spinning head in the actual block). we were told that until non-linear, it was still the quickest way of reducing (say) a football match to its highlights, as nothing needed to be dubbed in real time.

[@ksteiger]

The "knee switch" is classic, lol...

[@nicadair969]

35mm film much better quality than 2" videotape and can't be wiped, the latter coming back to haunt the TV companies decades later.

[@rty1955]

Thays why the Dumont electronics was invented. They broadcast LIVE and was abke to record it at the same time in very high quality. The problem with film is that is was MAD expensive

[@RageTVHTX]

@@rty1955and yet they saw no reason to preserve their history

[@alanrogs3990]

Analog tech is so much more interesting to observe.

[@ScottGrammer]

Love it! Subscribed.

[@michaelterry1000]

That guy is smoking. I find it amazing that smoking was allowed that highly sensitive recording recording heads and recording equipment.

[@gcat6027]

Hi Michaelterry, I'm an old guy who use to work with in television with 2 inch videotape. FYI, It was common for people to smoke everywhere in television production facilities. No one knew of the toxic & corrosive nature of smoke in those days. This machine shown in this video is an Ampex VRX-1000 first introduced in 1956. This presentation demonstrates how videotape engineers use to edit 2 inch quad videotape by hand before Ampex introduced EDITEC in 1963, an electronic way to edit videotape. Best, G

[@rty1955]

I worked in NY at one of the first television stations in the world. EVERYONE smoked. When video tape came out, we had 8 machines a few VR1000s and the rrst VR2000B I was constantly cleaning the machines and ashes were everywhere!! It was so gross to come in at 5am to clean and set up the machines for sign-on and then the old timers would come in sit down and light up cigars and cigarettes! I almost hated.

[@garethonthetube]

Airborne particles were a problem causing dropouts, more so on the newer formats with smaller tracks. When I joined the BBC in 1981 there was still some smoking in the VT area but it was soon banned.

[@DanielSwartfiguer]

Cowards, I hear people belly ache all the time about the dangers of smoking in the office and work areas yet you guys will happily motor around in your automobiles that belch out lethal levels of carbon monoxide 24/7.

[@civwar054]

@@DanielSwartfiguer not for the last 20 years.

[@marklaciura3177]

wowow Fantastic Video Here I got to use two early ( Ampex) Quad Mech. at Pasadena City college in the late 1970's they came from C B S TV.. But the handling of the video tape here .. Must of had Masses video drop outs head clogs around the edits? and the use of No white gloves ...

[@TaufiqMarhabanplus]

True ha ha ha

[@duncan-rmi]

he's got at least one glove on: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oonQeKOChsyqd80 but I swear I saw cig smoke!

[@DennisDegan]

If it looks this good, please upload the entire 36 minute tour! Thank you!

[@jsanledes]

Bonito reportaje. Siempre se agradece el testimonio vivo de las antiguas técnicas de televisión. Lástima que no se muestre bien lo crítico del montaje por corte: la localización del pulso de "edit" en la pista de control, visto a través del microscopio de la máquina empalmadora. Sin esa visualización el corte físico de la cinta podría caer en medio del cuadro de televisión, no en el intervalo de borrado vertical, que es donde debe hacerse el empalme.

[@stephenzamarin3193]

What year was this done? If this was done in 1961, it could have been one of the Ernie Kovacs Dutch Masters specials. Dick Wilson and Ray Darby worked together on those specials. It would be interesting to see the full 36 minute version.

[@KinettaScanner]

It's Darby, not Dolby!

[@YourfriendChrisEspinoza]

So that’s how a television program would be produced in the old days. Nowadays everything is done digitally.

[@scottstrang1583]

Everybody puffin in pimpsticks while handling tape. lol

[@markteboe4757]

Who do you think were the biggest advertisers on TV back in those days?

[@jeffharmon2827]

Weren't some of the earlier ampex 16-track audio recorders modeled on these video machines?

[@RyanSchweitzer77]

Yes, if my memory serves me correctly, the tape transport of the Ampex VR-2000 quad-format 2" VTR from 1964 (the model introduced after the VTRs featured in this video, which are the first-generation VR-1000s from 1956) was adapted for use in Ampex's (and the industry's, IINM) first 16-track 2" audio tape recorder, the MM-1000 (MM standing for "Master Maker") from 1967.

[@scottstrang1583]

What a pain in the ass that must've been. Was All in the Family edited this way? I would've that that electronic editing would've been available in the early 70's.

[@am74343]

I think by the late 1960's/early 1970's, electronic "punch-in" editing was starting to be developed. But on TV shows with not too many quick camera-angle changes like All In the Family, they might still have used either live editing cuts or physically cut and spliced with a razor blade. I believe even "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" was still cut with a razor blade up until 1973, even with its rapid-fire editing cuts, because editors were still familiar with the technology and it was too much of a hassle to learn how to use an electronic editing system halfway through the series of a TV show.

[@VoiceoverIsland]

It was a MASSIVE pain in the butt! As a producer/director, I could spend an entire day creating a mere 30-second commercial, only to develop so many dropouts on the finished master tape, that it became UN-USABLE, and I would have to start building the spot ALL OVER AGAIN. Everything was done "on the fly." You could not pre-program dissolves, wipes etc., so you often re-ran the same passages over and over again in the era before drop-out compensation! Bye-bye, iron oxide particles!!

[@jourwalis-8875]

But how about when you cut the picture at one point, the sound is cut at an other point due to the distance between the heads? How to overcome this problem?

[@shont3286]

Wow I never knew they cut and spliced tape. Film yes tape no.

[@seanpatrick3655]

Does anyone know what show they're editing? I could hear audio for a moment, and there was sped up audio as well as he was fast forwarding or rewinding, I wonder if it could be slowed down enough to identify the program.

[@jourwalis-8875]

How did these cuts look and sound like? Can you give us an example?

[@VoiceoverIsland]

I'm sorry about my previous comments. Clearly, this IS a film. I didn't see the countdown before. I'm getting very old. My apologies.

[@batterymakermarkii2654]

Do any of these old ampex units still exist?

[@dunebasher1971]

What's the point of uploading this as 720p60 when it's clearly sourced from film, not original VT? 60fps adds nothing.

[@kevinevans5921]

What year is this, late 1950’s?

[@sydwhitaker5776]

And it’s a kinescope lol

[@jethro1963]

Looks like tape to me.

[@sydwhitaker5776]

@@jethro1963 the vertical line going down the side is a scratch going down the film. That being said it could be a program that was taped and then kinescoped? Either way there’s definitely some dust visible

[@juancancino5534]

Year?

[@donaldkgarman296]

1957-1959

[@tripjet999]

Only real fools ever allowed toxic tobacco smoke around expensive gear, such as these machines. It was detrimental to the equipment, just as to human beings.

[@SO_DIGITAL]

They're smoking. Not good for videotape.

[@rty1955]

Or the machine!!! Can't tell you the ashes I would clean out of the filters and card cages!! Super gross

[@entertainmentexecuti]

The I.Q. levels were much lower 60 years ago; not surprising everybody smoked.

[@jethro1963]

@@entertainmentexecuti We heard you the first time and you're still not right.

[@VoiceoverIsland]

@@entertainmentexecuti I'm 76, and a former NY City TV producer. Yes, smoking is stupid in a machine room, but I resent your comment about I.Q levels being lower. That's pretty damned arrogant, and wrong. The brilliant Ray Dolby was on the Ampex team that invented videotape, an amazing accomplishment. But I guess you think they had low I.Q.s, too. Times were different. Hey, did your mother or father smoke?

[@pegbars]

Splicing videotape. How primitive.

[@donaldkgarman296]

1957-1959