OT: It still works!

[Mark Maness]

I agree with you, Tom. Yeah… I come from those days too. But there are so many folks here who wouldn’t understand the aches and pains we had… but then again… we just traded those for new aches and pains.

And if you have noticed, with all of the technology we have, it still takes about the same amount of time to edit a spot or segment for a show that it did about twenty years ago. Yeah, we can do ten layers of video and awesome graphics now but it kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?

Anyways… I still wouldn’t trade my Mac for all of that stuff we needed to make a program back then.

I started out working for a PBS station in college and they were still using the top load 3/4″ tape machines and their idea of A-B roll was two VO-5800s and you pushed play on both machines then used a Microtime switcher to dissolve or wipe between the two and you had better have someone else with you to work the Shure field mixer to do audio fades. That was our edit suite for my first two years. Any graphics that had to be built was done in our production truck that we used for college football games. There went another generation of tape… Mmmm…. those were the days…. Lots of long long hours and long long days… The box of Tums were you best friend. Wait a minute…. They’re still on my desk… Oh well, some things never change.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Don Walker]

I sometimes miss the old days, having the flock of clients in the room arguing over the size of the disclaimer super on a car spot, or working on Home Depot commercials (before they went national in the late 1980’s.) My claim to fame is being the first editor to make an edit on the first D2 machine sold to a broadcast outlet in the US. (WXIA, the NBC affilate in Atlanta) I was very blessed to work for them, very progressive, eventually we ended up with a Quantel Harry and D-1 machines in our graphic suite. After freelance in the mid-90’s I ended up working in the online rooms at CNN post production, again I was very blessed to work on great equipment, and with great people. I probably had my last linear edit session last year at Creative Digital Group in Atlanta, just assembling a vingette reel for a client. Now I slave away over my G5 in Texarkana Texas, doing TV for the Lord. Gone are the days of the client looking over your shoulder. Today producers just want to see the final product, not watch the blue render bar march it’s way across the screen.
If anybody is interested I have a fully functional Sony BVH-2000 (with the built in TBC). My wife would probably want me to get some money for it. But if your ever in Texarkana I could be talked into giving it to you.

[Alessandro Capitani]

[Tom Matthies] ” WOW! And the one remaining Sony BVH-3000 1-inch recorder still makes video as well. Man, they built stuff to last back in those days.”

and the 3000 wasn’ as robust as the 2000 series was! No one could match Sony at that time (apart from VPR-3 perhaps, but with other budget figures).

Ale.

[Tom Matthies]

And speaking of D2 machines and stuff in storage, I still have a pair of Ampex VPR-200 D2 decks in my garage. They still work great. Just cant bear to toss ’em out. I just gave away a mint Ampex VPR-6/TBC-7 to a friend in Burbank. At least it will get some use there.
Such is this business.
Tom

[Zak Mussig]

I’m just a kid at this compared to you guys… I’m just in my first full-time editing job. But I actually had to capture some one-inch last Friday off of our Sony BVH-3100. I was told we bought it from some broadcast outlet for something like $50. It made me thankful not only for the G5 I captured it on, but even cassette tapes you can just pop into a camera or deck. It was an interesting experience. I’m kinda looking forward to years down the road when I have that time-tested experience you folks have… and I can have a “remember HDV” conversation.

Hope the replacement suite brings more good memories,
Zak

[Bob Flood]

ok

not many of you guys know me, and i tend to chime in on a few things here and there, so i am gonna hop on this memory lane bandwagon with a brief history of time, as it were, to kinda get my props out there

linear stuff i have worked on and with: CMX 3400, GVG 151, GVG 1600, 1680, 200, 300, 110 4000 CDL ???, RCA tr 600, (2″) NEC TT 7000, Sony bvh 2000, 2500, bvu 500, bvh 10,20, 40, 65,70,75, DVW ??? Ampex D2, Sony D2 Chyron 4, (whats a Chyron for, anyway?) abekes a 72, A 62, A52, Ampex VPR 2B, VPR 6 w Zeus TBC Ampex ADO, Ace Keyboard and Touchscreen, GVG Kaleidoscope, Quantel Encore, (whew)

Non linear: Montage, avid, d-vision, avid, media 100, avid, discret edit (did i metion avid?)

started as a “tech” shading an RCA TKP 45 (similar to the philips pcp 90, you know, a dinosaur color tv camera in a psuedo portable housing) shooting on a BVH 50 portable 1 inch (portable was a bit of a misnomer, as it weighed 40 pounds) in 1979

I think the headahces we used to have with color framing on 1 inch (mysterious horizontal shifts etc) have transformed into render issues, as they are equally pervasive and unavoidable

I think this job is like peanuts. I know its bad for me, but i cant stop….

bee eph

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Chaz Shukat]

Boy, this topic sure got us old timers coming out of the woodwork.

After 10 plus years in the non-linear realm, the linear world seems like a memory from a past life. But I do remember my first edits on 2 top loading U-Matic decks with a Sony RM-430 controler, no time code and having to do some of the edits over and over again, sometimes 6-10 times before I got it to lock up and hit the edit point. Then when I moved up to the online world of 1″ tape, I remember practicing threading the tape up over and over again so I would be able to do it quickly when I started the job.

It occurs to me now that there was something very assuring about those old big tape decks and switchers. They felt “professional”, and high end quality. The delicatness of the tape made you handle it carefully and with some reverence. The bay was big and there were buttons galore. This was not stuff that everyone had at home and knew how to use. And it was damn effing expensive! Oooohhh!Don’t get me
wrong, I love my non-linear editing, but working in a small room or office (not even a real “edit bay” on a table with a computer keyboard on it, just doesn’t make me feel as special and professional as back then. It’s just not as impressive looking, is it? These little decks and cameras just don’t have the gravitas.

Look for my series “Cash Cab” now airing on Discovery, weekdays 5-6pm. I know, who the hell is home at that time? You can also check it out on youtube.com. Well, I know it’s a big hit here in NY where it is shot.

Chaz S.

[Don Walker]

I can really identify with that last post. I edited in the Atlanta area for 19 years, and in the early years (when the ego far exceeded the talent) I felt so special because I could operate this $750K room that the average layman wouldn’t have a clue how to operate. In fact I thought it was so much cooler than being a Delta pilot (my lifelong dream) because in 1990 or so there were probably only 100 or so online editors in Atlanta but airline pilots were a dime a dozen. Now I work with a 23 year old who’s been editing for 5 or 6 years and if he’s not better than me now, he soon will be. My 16yr old went to camp 2 weeks ago and did stuff on my 17″ G4 laptop, that I would have had a hard time doing with my ADO, A-62 and D-2 machines back then. But whether it’s editing with a CMX Omni, or FCP I still love to edit! Can I here an Amen.

[Stan Timek]

Chaz,

I really dig your show “Cash Cab!” I’ve caught a few episodes and youyr doing a great job on it.

Talking about “old” gear a few years back I did some work at a PBS station that was running Sony 1″ machines in master control (4 if memory serves) along with DigiBeta decks, Beta SP and U-matic SP. We’d edit on FCP and Media 100 and linear on Digibeta depending on the project.

Absolutely fun times and good memories there!

Stan Timek

Pollywog Theater

[Del Holford]

Let me hop onto memory lane also. I started my career running camera on Bosch/Fernseh cameras and creating and lighting sets for the program I ran camera on. I moved onto RCA TC 44s and actually ran a TCP45 in a studio and on remotes. It was portable like the RCA TR 10 VTR. I started travelling doing telethons and ran a lot of GE PE 250s and began directing. GVG 1600K was the largest I used but also an RCA TS 100 and a Richmond Hill 3 ME switcher. Later after a stint as director and production manager I moved into the tape room with 4 RCA TR 70cs. I learned to punch & crunch doing insert edits where you hit the button 20 frames before the edit went in. We had RCA Editec but that scratched more quad tape than we could stand. Then we got TR 600s and Ampex VPR 2bs but by then I was on the RCA/EECO nixie tube time code editor. A controller for each machine the size of a BetacamSP deck. An engineer modified the machine for RS 170A so we could do match frame edits and dissolve on a GVG 100. We had an Ampex VPR 20 “portable” VTR also. Without a hand truck it was tough to carry. With batteries, around 80 lbs.

Then we got a CVS Epic editor (later Harris bought CVS) with 4 Sony TH 1100As while we waited for RCA to finish the TR 800s. Had a GVG 300 swr with MarkII DVE and Chyron 4 (added on to become a 4100EXB). Audio passed through a Neve audio board and we had a time code controlled Ampex 1/2″ audio recorder. Sweet machine! Later we added in an AVR2 to the 4 TR 800s.
That company folded and I freelanced as a tape op, editor, vacation relief master control operator and whatever. Those Sony 2000s in an NEP truck were sweet for slo-mo.

Then I moved to my current job and edited on a Sony 9000 with GVG 200 swr and Abekas A53D and A72. Soundcraft BVE 200 audio board. We had up to four BetaSP machines (if they weren’t needed elsewhere)and 2 VPR 250 D2 machines. Sony was very gracious to write software for those machines and it took 3 months, during which time I was on a borrowed (from Ampex) ACE 200. While we didn’t have the digital composite switcher like the Abekas A82 we still did pre-reads (which weren’t supposed to work in the 9000 software interface). After 4 passes hue had to be adjusted now and then but I put 10 dogs in a room at the same time and they never knew the other dogs were there 🙂 We had an offline room with a Sony 900 component setup.
We borrowed modules from that room’s Soundcraft BVE 200 when ones in the main room went bad.

Then 6 years ago we went from analog to digital and we purchased HD production capability. A Philips DD35 Seraph HD switcher with 4 LDK 6000 Mark II cameras and the Abekas HDveous. Pixel Power Clarity HD CG (awesome – 2 independent channels). Editing went Discreet with off-line on edit (still trucking along) and on-line in smoke for SD and fire for HD.
That was quite a learning curve but what a system! Version 7 is 64 bit and the timeline effects have been optimized so we wait a lot less for renders.

Everything is getting smaller, faster, and usually better. The story is still the thing but the new tools give more options. Thanks for the memories.

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS2
Charlotte Public Television