Only example I know of on RU-vid of this AMPEX VideoDisc system from the 70s. I used these at ATN7 in Sydney Australia back in the day. The discs had to be polished (or burnished to be exact) weekly by the engineers as part of regular maintenance, because if you left the disc on 'pause' 'for too long (being 1 minute at the most!) it would mark or 'scour' the surface of the discs making them serviceable. As each disc (2 of them) would case around $10,000 in 70s money, you would be dragged into someone's office to explain why if you accidentally left hem in pause! Fascinating video to watch!
@@ChristopherSobieniak I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned here but my guess is absolutely - that was probably mainly what they were used for (in this case, probably ABC sports).
@Sebastian Guevara I mean in the way they can record something in the fly and then play it back during a broadcast. Such devices were used in sporting events.
That is the coolest thing ever. Yes, things now are much more sophisticated and people can do way more than this for a fraction of the cost now, but this all had to start somewhere. This was very entertaining.
Crazy how the audience reacts. This was just not something the general public ever got to play around with. Even the notion of fields was totally alien.
Short of the invention of videotape, this was the 2nd most important video playback invention in the world! Yeah $40k in 1971 is nothing to these networks. Even to local stations, $40k is the then price of a studio camera. Remember, ABC was the one who asked Ampex to invent these, so they probably had a few dozen by this time.
Ampex invented this by accident. Then the president of ABC thought to use it for the failing network on Monday Night Football. Per the Ampex engineer who created it.
This cost $40000 in 1972: now you can do the same things on your smartphone, which is like 1/100th the size, and 1/1000 the price (in 2017 dollars) and in higher resolution and better quality video as well!
No one was forced to watch. It was a TV show. There WERE other channels or one could listen to the radio, play records or read. PS: You watched this voluntarily 😜
I think that to most people back then, this would’ve been a fascinating demonstration of what would’ve been novel and cutting edge technology. Certainly an interesting filler item on the Dick Cavett talk show.
So how amazing how now, my old iPhone six (probably not worth even $200 - I guess that would be like $30 in 1970 money?) can pretty much do what that technology did back then with the disk!
She did divorce her husband and 4 years later, Martha Mitchell died. Strange series of events. Nixon said: "If it hadn't been for Martha Mitchell, there'd have been no Watergate." -- her death sounds like payback from Nixon goons or to silence her.
I'm wondering when some rich dude's going to get up the nerve to do a 35mm digital to film recording of the Legend Of Zelda CD-I movies and make a RU-vid poop with razor blades and film splicing tape.
