Comments

Former user wrote on 3/4/2010, 10:45 AM
There was a box called the Montage Video Processor which used betamax decks for editing. (you could configure it for different amounts of decks, I think it was 12 or 16 that it could randomly access) Is this what you are thinking of?

Dave T2
Yoyodyne wrote on 3/4/2010, 11:24 AM
FAST Video machine?
lynn1102 wrote on 3/4/2010, 2:26 PM
I know Video Machine could do that. I don't remember if it had a max amount or not, but I had four decks hooked up to mine. Good system - used mine for almost 10 years.

Lynn
Chienworks wrote on 3/4/2010, 2:34 PM
If it used analog tape then it was linear. Can't really call it an NLE, can you?
rs170a wrote on 3/4/2010, 2:34 PM
It may very well have been the Montage as the Previsualization Made Easy article from TV Technology (February 24, 1999) indicates.
The company went on to become EMC2, another name that I vaguely remember from the old days.

Mike
MacVista wrote on 3/4/2010, 3:00 PM
It was the "Montage Picture Processor" and it used 17 Betamax decks each one with a tape with all the rushes on it.

The computer then cued the decks to playback the edited sequence by switching between decks.

I guess it was OK as long as you didn't cut too quickly :-)

There's a picture of the controller here:
http://www.johnbabinec.com/Montageinfo.html
ushere wrote on 3/4/2010, 8:26 PM
i edited on the 4th emc2 ever made.

i was working for canon films (the grim brothers), and till it arrived, was rough cutting on two umatics with rm 440 and tc. (on ch 1) (prior to going online with umatic sp and / or 1").

the emc was clunky and prone to doing strange things - i lasted a week on it before going back to my equally clunky, but much more reliable umatics...\
DGates wrote on 3/4/2010, 8:30 PM
I do NOT miss the analog days.
David Settlemoir wrote on 3/4/2010, 8:37 PM
I hope it worked better than the Master Control systems I used in the 80's using either 3/4" or 2" carts!
erikd wrote on 3/4/2010, 9:11 PM
David,

Were you an ACR or TCR kind of guy in the 80's? "Test Mode" bring back any nightmares for you? We used to have competitions to see how fast we could clear test modes on the ACR. I think the record was about 30 seconds!

Erik
Former user wrote on 3/5/2010, 5:08 AM
You are right Chienworks in a way, they actually called it random access editing. But it was NLE in the sense you did not have to edit from beginning to end. The tape machines were like a bunch of harddrives with the same video on each tape. You could edit like a word processor (thus the name "video processor" by starting at any point in the program and then adding to the head or tail without having to go down a generation or start over. Of course, it was strictly offline editing so generations weren't a concern.

I just recently threw out a betamax machine from our Montage. That thing weighed a ton.

Dave T2
David Settlemoir wrote on 3/5/2010, 1:27 PM
Erik - I think I've blocked most of it out, just remember the air compressor going out a lot! At the network affiliate I worked at we always rolled a backup MII deck in case the cart machine died mid break. I let the engineers handle everything else!

One thing I do remember is when Dan Rather refused to come out and do the network news that one night, I think I had EVERYONE from management standing over my shoulder trying to figure out what I had screwed up!