I joined the industry in 1963 in Melbourne. Videotape as a production tool was then in its infancy, and editing was to say the least primitive. At that time our station had Ampex videotape machine serial number 8 (hand built), only the second export machine shipped.

In those days precise videotape editing was only possible if you physically cut and spliced the tape in roughly the same way as audiotape is often edited to this day. The tools of the gun editor were a chinagraph pencil, cotton gloves, iron dust, benzine, aluminised mylar tape, a splicing block and of course a razor blade.

The methodology for cutting videotape was in principle quite simple. First you identified where the cut was to be made and marked the tape on the backing side with a chinagraph pencil  You then removed the tape from the heads and placed it backing side down on your jointing block, with the chinagraph mark centrally placed.

An image of the recorded tracks was developed using a suspension of iron dust in benzine.  The "developed" tape was next examined to find the vertical interval.  Once found, you then looked across to the bottom edge of the tape to where the control track was recorded.

There, close to your vertical interval if you were lucky, you would find a bright spot, which was the edit pulse.  If you were unlucky you had picked up the vertical interval halfway through the frame, and had to move to the next vertical interval.  You then cut the tape alongside that vertical interval with a razorblade.

The tape was then flipped over, cleaned, and spliced to the next prepared piece of tape using very thin aluminised mylar splicing tape. The ends of the tape were brought into precise alignment and held there while the splice was performed, and your edit was complete!

If you were successful, the tape played and looked roughly the way that you had envisaged it.  If you had slipped up somewhere you had a reframe, which could take anything up to eight seconds to relock.

And we call them the good old days!

Big Deal.

Here's me next to my first iPod.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Z2grpdAR4TRMJ5MdhTdCow?feat=directlink

I believe they weren't very portable...

Congratulations, John, you made it past the century!

Over 100 views.......... from "whippersnappers" ?

Well done,

Douglas

drbgaijin:

you made it past the century!

I threw you up some stars...was worth it. I started back on 3/4" in the early nineties...not quite a whippersnapper, but not an oldie like yourself :-)  Thanks for sharing.

Mark

Stars much appreciated - been moving house, so I haven't been here as regularly as normal.  I'm just a little disappointed that this is still up near the top of the postings.  I would have expected it to be on page two or three by now.

Your post brought back memories of listening to the splices in the 2" tape going past the heads with on transmission, with my thumnail poised to clear head clogs....

My first foray into video was in the early 70's.  "Portable" 1/2in open real recorder with a B&W camera.  "Portable" meaning 70+ pounds.

NubusAvid:

memories of listening to the splices in the 2" tape going past the heads with on transmission, with my thumnail poised to clear head clogs

My worst experience was an hour-long program that had been immersed in water during shipment.  We had one operator holding a cotton pad on the erase stack to remove surplus water, and another operator (me) with thumb against the heads to prevent oxide build up.

That, my friend, makes you appreciate the need for the word "interminable".

I had one of those.  A Sony Portadeck.  Shot 20 minute reel to reel loads.  The camera was this boxy thing with a separate monitor that was as big as the camera.  Mine recorded in black and white only.  But it was way cool!

My first editing system was a CMX "Edge" running 2-5800 decks into a VO-5850 all with modified channel 2 TC. 

One of the houses I worked in had three 3M 1" machines.  The brakes occasionally failed and we'd watch as the tape would just pour out onto the floor.  We'd leap across the control room to take up the slack before the I-squares could kick in.  

I love this.  While in college I was working up at NBC in NYC as an intern and in their control room they would run on-air programs on dual quad players so that if one went down, the other, running in sync, would continue on.  I used to scream. 

wow, i must be a whippersnapper!  my only reel-to-reel experience was way, way back in pro audio... years before i got into video.  by the time i got into video, my first project was cut on 2 Umatic 3/4"s using (i think) a Panasonic a/b controller... & let's not forget the "real-time effects," courtesy of the system TBC  (strobe, "hue". etc.)  wasn't too long though until we got a "Video Toster 4000," my first non-linear experience.

i did actually work at a studio that used 2 "professional" Panasonic S-VHS decks for live-to-air playback.

shane