<edit: corrected tape size typo>

7 minutes? How odd. I'm more used to 2" tape - we never had 7 minutes of black - just bars/tone, couple of seconds of black and that was it. We did have to be careful to do a 3 second pre-roll in order for the tape to come up to speed - you really had to keep an eye on that count-down clock.

Well, it will be interesting to find the answer.

I used analog reel-to-reel video tape in the 60s in school, but it was much wider than one measly itty-bitty inch.

Something to do with master-slaving time code rather than time?

Come on, Bob, time for another clue now.... :O)

Hmmmm. 7-minutes is just about right for a well chilled, very-dry-martini-up?

Dar-hic-ryl

torque characteristic of the now larger circumference of the tape on the take-up spool of benefit? Wow/flutter improved characteristics.... (a bit like being wary of going to the slowest end of a hard disc when capturing uncompressed D1/low-or-lossless HD ?)

VHS I tend to leave 10 seconds as the splicing machinery can have a detrimental affect on the recording material and backing.... Perhaps the spooling arrangement for 1" needed that, and some?

Two answers, but inextricably linked.

Since the 7 minute gap is between the tone and barsand the start it must be to give time to get something ready.

Otherwise you could just fast forward 7 mins and then see the bars and start there.

Farsssss, the tension is unbearable.... :O)

I once saw an old b&w feature film where a 7-year old kid made a very dry martini by rinsing the glass with vermouth, then filling it with gin.

Hopefully it was Bombay Sapphire, or has it been renamed Mumbai Sapphire now? (Probably not, Aunt Vicky would not have approved.)

I think it was Nixon's secretary...

;)

Frenchy

I believe it was Hawkeye on M*A*S*H who described his dry martini as "drinking gin while looking at a picture of the inventor of vermouth.

This was the B roll. A would have had material right off the top and then would fade or cut to B seven minutes later. Alternatively, you could have had live studio for 7 minutes and then cut to this segment.

So quoth my friend the old analog editor.


Pierre

This was a dubbing master, well I think that was the term. It was used for making VHS copies. Reason for the long bit of black at the beginning was so that trailers could be added quickly by doing an insert edit. Two advantages to this. Firstly it avoided going down a generation and secondly it only took a few minutes. Once done a new program start TC was noted on the label and that number would be dialled into the controller for making the dubs.
I was going to offer a reel of 1" to the winner but I can't afford the postage. Well that and there doesn't seem to be much unwanted 1" left anymore.

Bob.

Wooooo! I almost won! :)

"7 minutes? How odd. I'm more used to 3" tape - we never had 7 minutes of black - just bars/tone, couple of seconds of black and that was it."

3" tape? That's really odd. Do you remember who made this?

3" tape was made by the Flintstones.

3" tape?

I suspect that's a typo on ScottW's part as I've never heard of it either. He probably meant to say 2". That was the (video) industry standard for a number of years with quad machines.

Mike

You're right - 2" tape, my typo - it was a monster quad machine (actually 3 of them in the station I worked at).

2" tape....isn't that the silver stuff,thats sticky on the other side. Fixes just about anything?

signed,
Newbe/ wannabe

2" tape....isn't that the silver stuff...

Close - but no cigar :-)

To video guys that still remember, 2" tape ran on machines like these Ampexs.
Do a Google image search on quad vtrs and see what life used to be like in the early analog days :-(

Mike

They were before my time but I've heard stories about how one could do pretty decent edits on them with a razor blade and some kind of liquid which you brushed on the oxide side which exposed the magnetic recording patterns.

If you look at the famous photo showing the engineers at Ampex proudly standing behind their first Ampex 2" machine, you'll see a very young Ray Dolby. I read somewhere that the first use for the first machines was to rebroadcast the network shows coming out of New York for the West Coast time slots.

What is this TAPE stuff you keep referring to ???

Stan ( Stonefield )
Vancouver, Canada
Aug, 3 2008

Someone mentioned this before, sort of. For someone running a national network in a large country time shifting was and probably still is quite a problem.
The way this used to be solved was to have a room full of VTRs (that's Video TAPE Recorders). Programs being broadcast out of say Sydney (east coast) would be recorded onto proably two machines but some time apart. When first one to start has recorded say 1 hour of program it plays that out for Perth (West Coast), When it reaches the end of its tape the second machine has rewound and starts playing it's program.
Now things in Australia got pretty messy with daylight saving time etc so this took quite a few machines PLUS of course you needed backups. The whole process was however automated and humans rarely entered the room, I guess only to load new tapes when the oxide was worn off the old ones. Many of these 1" machines I'm told had around 10,000 hours on the heads when they were retired and were still functioning within spec. One of the reasons for this was the tape was only rarely unlaced, it was the ratty ends on the tape that did the most head damage.
Bob.

I have seen D-1 decks listed for sale with 60,000 hours on them (of course they went through a few head changes).

I think the old D-9 machine heads were good for 100,000 hours though, because of a unique design.

At least one state in the U.S. uses Daylight Savings Time in some counties, but not in others. Must be fun to call your neighbor, "Hi, see you at three! Er, make that two on your side of the street."

For major confusion over time you can't beat China. Officially there's only Beijing Time but when you get right to the wst of the country most local things including hotels run to local time. Trying to explain to hotel staff when you need breakfast because you have to catch a train, on top of the language barrier, makes life very interesting.
Bob.