The guys who invented the Video Tape Recorder 

Ampex developed the technology and their patents brought in the revenue. Ampex granted licencing agreements to RCA so they could bring "Mr Sarnoff's dream" to reality...clumsy as it might be. Ampex even had a copyright on the word "videotape" forcing RCA to refer to their attempt as a "television recorder". AMPEX RULES

We ate clam chowder after the interview in Oceano, California and stayed overnight in a community guest house at his property. He and his wife are awesome and lovely people!

@@RichardArsenault What a great time you had for sure! Thanks for the video.

I agree. Vertical Helical Scan made video recording a household word. But I must add that Japanese manufacturers such as JVC made a significant contribution by mounting the head at an angle to eliminate the staggered reels, making video cassettes possible. The rotating head (drum) on the first helical machines was absolutely perpendicular to the chassis, so the tape wound up around it creating a higher elevation for the take-up reel. I'm still running videotape to this day.

It is a very small world. I believe my father (alex argendeli) knew your grandfather.

Miss Robyn, did your Grandfather meet Bing Crosby? Or did he become Vice President much later on?

@@gregargendeli2973 Lovely name, Argendeli.

@@gregargendeli2973 q

Same here. The AVR 2 had a great digital TBC. You could play back the worst recordings which would not play on the 1200-B. I worked at KLCS UHF channel 58 (PBS) Los Angeles from 1984 to 1992. All the PBS stations used 2"Quad at the time, even though the major networks had already switched to 1" C.

Last 2" machines I ran were the ACR-25's. Those were also beautiful machines.

Ha ha..Funnily enough the engineers that gave us both tape and got us to the moon were...Er those German engineers eagerly encouraged by Herr Hitler. The Tonschreiber was taken back to the States post war and Bing Crosby bank rolled Ampex to develop the machine so he could record his radio shows...Video followed audio, but it wouldn't have without the original tape technology. Von Braun of course developed the rocket that launched both the Sputnik and more directly the Apollo spacecraft that took us to the moon. I agree though the engineers of that era were extraordinary. In fact that era was possibly the most creative in human history..Music and film too.

@@martinda7446 Well, there's lots of truth in what you say about the Germans, of course, but it wasn't just German rocket scientists who got us to the Moon. They didn't invent the integrated circuit, or the guidance software, or the guidance computer, or the guidance gyro, or the Lunar Module, or its thrusters, or countless other technologies developed by American computer programmers. And all those German rocket scientists: where did they start when attempting their first liquid-fueled rockets that led to the V-2? Robert Goddard, the American who invented, designed and built the first working liquid-fueled rocket. The LM computer's software, its developer and its inner workings are presented very well here, by the way: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-B1J2RMorJXM.html

@@RapperBC No, it was ONE German rocket scientist who got us to the moon..The same one that convinced Kennedy it was possible and led the programme with his rocket.

If I recall, the Ampex 1100 series had urethane belts that never stopped stretching, and the tape would stop moving. A product glitch.

Gives whole new meaning to the term "reproduction!"

The BBC's name "VERA" was lethal as it used metal tape

I remember seeing those giant bbc stainless steel recording reel that were used to record radio shows. It is good they were around to preserve old time radio broadcasts.

Hand braking was used in the BBC as well!

And then Ampex sold under license from Sony various BetacamSP products.

@@mikecumbo7531 Ampex used Sony's head designs and Sony used Ampex's servo designs.

I should also mention that I also, simultaneously, would run over to the M/C switcher after loading each spot, and switch all the commercials and program tapes. Plus kept XMTR logs. I was the only person in the building at night or early mornings. Fun times.

VTR 2 was always the program tape VTR 1 and VTR 3 would play three spots during a break. (1,3,1) Rewinding the program tape and cueing up the next program while running three of four spots was always the most demanding. Oh, and of course there were often slide/cart spots, or film spots thrown in the mix. And films instead of VTR programs. I loved my job there. Later, I worked for ABC for 40 years as a studio engineer, and later, a field engineer/microwave/shooter/editor. Loved my job.

That is not technically correct. The compressed air supply was to supply pressurised air for the air bearings on the shaft of the head motor. There was a small separate vacuum pump for the tape guide.

@@Geebax2 I stand corrected. Since I worked on the production side, I knew enough about the quads to be dangerous, but not everything. I just remember the compressors in the prop room and our tape guy saying it was for the heads. I didn't realize there was a separate vacuum pump. Thanks for the clarification. Miss those big monsters and the talented guys I worked with back in the early 70's.

The VPR 3 with Zeus could playback things the Sony couldn't (including tapes with damaged control track!!). But, it did cost twice what a BVH2000 went for. The closer Ampex model was the VPR 6, which matched the BVH2000 in specs, and was very similar in price. The VPR 2 was a full generation earlier than the BVH2000 and more like the BVH1100 in performance and price. Maintenance costs on the Ampex machines were lower, however, because the Sony machines required changing the entire drum assembly every third head replacement, whereas replacing the heads on the Ampex machines was easier, faster, and cheaper and never required replacing the drum assembly. In truth it was so simple even I could do it!!

@@parkerfilms1 I must have changed at least 50 heads on various Ampex VTRs, but only recall changing one head drum on our BVH2000s. We had ten VPR3s all with Zeus TBCs. We also had four BVH2800s which I think were quite rare, that recorded digital audio in addition to video. Good times!

@@tonythemadbrit9479 The 2800s were indeed very rare! Only place I ever saw one was at a trade show. The problem, as I recall, with the Sony was changing the upper drum required a full alignment, whereas the Ampex was a simple "plug and play". So we always left Sony upper drum replacement to Sony tech support. Still, countless hours editing on VPR2s, 3s, Sony 2000s, 2500s, with various and sundry cassette formats over the years. Blazingly fast, insanely expensive, and using enough electrical power to get a decent sized village through a very cold winter!

@@parkerfilms1 The 2800s were good for glass mastering of NTSC Laserdisc discs with digital audio (PAL Laservision uses a lower FM carrier frequency and there is no "space" in the FM spectrum to add digital audio). There was no need for a separate U-matic based digital audio tape or the necessity to synchronize the two (we used Sony DMR4000s with PCM1630 processors and Adam Smith synchs). The problem was that many of the high-end facility houses working with digital audio already had U-matic based digital audio recorders for making CD master tapes, so they could just add a timecode synchronizer and they had a solution that worked. I'd guess we mastered less than one percent of Laserdisc titles using the 2800s. One final note, we also mastered from B-format VTRs for PAL Laservision.

I heard that Sony invented VHS, as well as beta.

IQ time, right?

Richard Arsenault ?

Just ment greatest of all time but I dig that! Mad props.

Sorry. I was a geek in 1976, so there it is. Thanks for your tolerance of an old geekified filmmaker yo:)

Urethane belts, big mistake.

When you think about it, it make sense why Dolby would be the math brains at AMPEX. After all, Dolby NR is basically just a series of fancy LTI transfer functions implemented in electronics

I appreciate your honesty. Can't edit those out after it's been uploaded. The style was popular in the day and it is what it is! Think of the style as an antique like the content :)

This would have been in the 1970s...

Thinking about this again, it was a 5platter, 10Head Disc Drive (it's been a long time) These 'Washing Machine' sized devices had a whopping 50Mb capacity, as I recall - needed lots on maintenance - would try to start moving across the floor when busy, and would RUD if not poperly looked after.

Sadly Mr. wheeler passed away May 31 2017.

@@marctronixx thats unfortunate. My recollection was his last ampex assignment was on the D2 machines

i'm here from the algorithm

algorithm. My subscriptions are mostly cars, and guns, stand-up features/comedy, and history. Do subscribe to 2 channels which feature old tech, and history/development thereof. This one is well edited, to the point, and pure gold. this gentleman is the real deal. love it.

A good friend of mine had worked for Ampex in the '50s, first in the lab and then became a salesman for them, so of course I'd have to check it out after The Algorithm suggested it (probably from watching so much EEVBlog and Mr. Carlson's Lab). Thanks for making this.

I am researching about analog video. RU-vid's algorithm is not that bad. Good video, thanks!

That's why I like engineers :)

What impresses me most about older tech is that the engineering didn't stop at the interface -- once you learned a piece of equipment you could master it. Today, almost every single invention has a disconnect between the engineering backbone and the interface, so every device you pick up has its own impossible to learn rules and hidden functions. Today it is literally impossible to be a master because the learning curve begins every time you use a new device. The exceptions are obvious -- like Dyson. Overpriced and snooty, yes, but the engineering meets the interface perfectly. There are increasingly more examples as we move away from cheap and move towards quality in manufacturing. Regarding INTERFACES for creative technology: I don't get why the younger engineers think they have to re-invent everything on the interfaces of today's inventions to their own strange notions of convenience. In the editing world, the most obvious example was AVID v. Final Cut Pro v. Premiere. I started using Avid a few years after I witnessed Lucas' Edit Droid on display at USC. It was on display because nobody wanted the expense of burning a bunch of laserdiscs just for non-linear access. Then, George sold it to Avid and 3 years later (around 1995) I leased a $125,000 Avid for my own productions. The skills led me to working on #1 TV shows. Avid was so advanced, I could literally edit so fast I would complete a producer's idea as he was telling me it, and hit "Play". THEN -- Apple allowed hackers to hack Final Cut Pro and everyone got a free copy. It was nowhere near Avid on ANY level. It was capricious, the controls were all compromises and what would take a single keystroke on Avid required endless mouse clicks and effort -- taking the editor out of the creative realm Avid allowed and back into button pushing. Even though FCP was grossly inferior, it was free for most so Avid lost. I faced massive battles at networks who became addicted to FCP. And it was bloody. And it was emotional. And people were fired. I didn't see why people were so afraid of Avid -- until I read the news today and the mentality sort of sinks in. It's about fear and entitlement. The kids using FCP didn't "get" Avid. It wasn't because Final Cut was better, it was because they didn't "get" the infinitely superior Avid. That was justification to use an inferior and slower program. I will never get that level of entitlement and fear-based thinking. I've been making films since 1977 when I was in junior high. I've never understood fear when it comes to creating films. I've never understood choosing the interior product, instead like Jim, I've always just made it work. Current filmmakers are only NOW beginning to develop that same mentality. But those who dominated in the 2000's are guilty of crimes against art by pushing out Avid for the sake of FCP's broken code and cheapness. It's exactly like water color artists who push out acrylics and oil paint because they don't "get it" and the art world acquiescing. That would be insanity, right? Welcome to the world of Non-linear editing. After FCP, the old Premiere rose out of a weird techy program to dominate as it still does today. Today, in fact Premiere has a lot going for it -- more than FCP ever did, but the technology of the interface is a D+ versus Avid's former A+ (if you assigned grades). Premiere would have never had a chance to rise if FCP didn't drown Avid and then couldn't live up the the task. Now Avid is just a legacy screaming about how networks love it to get new users. But they ruined their own interface to compete with the inferior Final Cut Pro. I use Premiere today out of necessity, but it is NOTHING compared to Avid's elegant storytelling where the interface NEVER changed and you never had to think about the technology -- just the storytelling. No matter who I work with on Premiere, and I've worked with the most technology aware Premiere editors, it is NOTHING compared to the old Avid. So much so, that if I had to edit a feature on Premiere v. Avid, I have to allow 3 times more time for the first edit. So, why can Premiere dominate? Because even though I am three times slower on Premiere, I am still 3 times faster than other Premiere editors. It's not that I'm fast, it's that they are slow. And slow has won the NLE game. I still shake my head in disbelief. It only started making sense as the correlations between preferring an inferior editing interface rippled into every other aspect of modern culture. People have strong but fragile egos and the younger set only seems to desire what they can "get" and stand on the shoulder's of giants (like Mr. Wheeler) without even bothering to learn the elders who made their world exist. The days of demanding inferior interfaces that are made up on the fly are hopefully numbered; as A.I. takes over, it will return to a game of brilliance instead of today's game of privilege. Why? The A.I. and personal robots will eliminate the interface and always have the artist in mind. That will hammer the square pegs back into the square holes they belong and again allow the true artists to out-create their competition -- and that will also level the playing fields and allow the return of "master" craftsman and women to creating television. For now, those days are temporarily gone, and you see the result! Lowest TV ratings ever. Lowest box office. As the old school guys like Jim said, "Garbage in, Garbage out." They were referring to signals, but the phrase applies to inferior talent that is making TV and movies because (a) privilege and (b) they don't have the burden of experience screaming at them against the stupid interfaces of today's technology. Without experience, you don't even know what you're missing, and thereby are less of a threat to producers who often live day to day on dreams and delusion. Technology is great, but the INTERFACE is everything because otherwise how artists get access to backbone technology and create great content or master the technology when the interfaces are so inane and random???? One last reminder, not to throw salt at the made in the USA issue, but soon after Ampex's brilliance, Sony and Panasonic dominated and it was almost all Japanese from the early 1980's until the Video Toaster was invented in Kansas. I was friends with Brad Carvey (Dana's brother) and he's the one who turned me onto Avid. Long stories all. Wow, this comment was also long so thanks for reading it all and thanks for watching this video and commenting!

@@RichardArsenault - Excellent Article. I miss working at Ampex!

The mechanical assemblies were beautiful too - even up into the 90s. I had a close relationship with the AMPEX guys as a customer on two continents over 25+ years. Great guys. I *almost* worked for them in Golden CO, in the early 90s.

Where/what is, 'the credit union'? What does it have to do with this vid about video tape technology development? Just asking for a friend.

@@Redmenace96 AMPEX had a credit union on their campus. If you don't know what a credit union is, it is like a bank. 3rd party people look over the credit union transactions. They are called auditors. The auditors would visit the location and audit their books to make sure they were not stealing from the credit union members. Does that make sense now? I can explain what an audit is too.

They are high maintenance for constant replacement

@@ajoepetrucceJr I wouldnt say constant - my '63 hammond has a full set of original valves.

And its true! they sound better.

Tubes are not better. The same year Ampex brought its quad to the 1964 convention, Sony came up with the CV-2000, solid state, 46 lbs portable version.

I recently found some footage from a 1987 episode of "KET Scholastic Challenge" that had an end credits segment where they showed pictures of every credited crew member at their work station. It's quite interesting

To wax cylinders too!

It is a shame that they had to sell their name to inferior tape manufacturers. Ampex's forte was the genius engineering behind making video recording work by understanding the mechanics and electronics to make it happen. Every Ampex part was machined to some insane tolerances. Unfortunately, those high quality parts being made in the US, cost more than the lower budgets of regular TV stations. They never tried, or probably did when it was too late, to make low cost equipment like Sony and Panasonic etc. The maintenance cost for their equipment was just too impractical. Now I look at the extremely low cost of equipment to produce amazing quality, but the programs produced is mostly garbage with the least amount of quality control. All my VTR training and expertise is just null and void. I spend my days power-cycling and pinging. My torque screwdrivers, Tentelometers and eccentricity gauges used to get me funny looks until I just threw them all out. The redundancy we all knew was inevitable--I have no sadness for that. What I never expected, and what does bring sadness, is to watch my present day engineering colleagues was around all day with their heads draped over their phones with no one to discuss ideas and just have intelligent conversations. Sorry for the long-winded and pointless comment.

in a PAL-model VR1200/2000 such as I trained on, we would set the free-run frequency of the drum oscillator by zero-beating it against normal 1kHz tone. each head wrote 5 tracks a field, or in other words, crossed the tape 250 times a second. & because there were four of them, you got 1kHz. the heads wrote in segments of ~15-16 lines each pass. that'd be 15,000 rpm. we got the heads reconditioned by a division of kodak, called themselves 'spin physics', & no wonder! there were decks that ran at 'archival' speed, with modified electronics & especially narrow head-gaps, with a longitudinal speed of 7.5ips instead of 15 ips, but the drum speed was the same for both. in NTSC, the drum-speed was slightly lower- 14,400 or so.

He said 700 revolutions per second. They ran the motor out in the parking lot, it was surrounded with concrete blocks to contain the potential explosion. Quite the adventure I would say.

I think the Germans get credit for the first audio tape recorders, at the end of WWII. About ten or fifteen years before the video recorders from Ampex,

Yes, but the audio tape recorder, not video.

Valdemar Poulsen invented magnetic wire recording before the germans invented magnetic tape recording. He invented the telegraphone.

Once you get past the steel tape recorders used by the BBC and others, most people in the industry will agree with you. But Wheeler said B.C.E. tried video too.

It's a pity people like you live and breath.