[Tig] More memories please

[Bob Kertesz]

>The remotes we did sometimes used the Ampex portable 2" recorder, a
>wonder in miniaturization for it's time. I shuddered when a bicycle
>messenger returned our only machine to the 57th street studios having
>banged around Manhattan with it.

That was the Ampex VR3000, a "suitcase" style quad recorder. I traveled around
the world for Editel with two of those and the Editel MKIII handheld camera
for a couple of years in the early '70's. The deck weighed about 80 lbs, and
the only reasonable way to carry them was to have two of them so you didn't
lean over too far in one direction and both your arms stretched equally.

It took 20 minute loads of small reel 2" tape, had one audio channel, and no
timecode channel. The vacuum for the guide and air for the air bearing head
(14,400 rpm, remember?) came from what was essentially a small aquarium pump
inside the unit.

The Editel MKIII handheld was based on the Ampex BC230 studio camera. We
bought those and pulled the boards and optical blocks/preamps out of the
heads, and built our own handheld heads with just yokes and preamps, going to
a backpack we also built containing the rest of the head electronics through a
10 foot piece of cable the size of my wrist. Then back to the CCU through much
smaller multicore able to go several hundred feet. The CCU's had RGB out, and
needed an external encoder and an external enhancer to make proper images.

The whole road show was in 11 cases for a one camera one vtr setup.

Here is a picture of me in 1972 getting it ready to go on the road, taken in
the alley behind 729 N. Highland, home of Editel L.A. The picture shows half
the cases for a complete one camera one vtr package

http://www.bluescreen.com/pix/BK-72.JPG

--Bob

Bob Kertesz
BlueScreen LLC
Hollywood, California
bob at bluescreen.com

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