Photos by Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.
The photos are of a 1″ Videotape machine, in action.
1″ videotape was introduced in the mid 1970s, and was the broadcasting norm in the 1980s. 1″ machines took up much less space than the earlier Quad machines, and required less maintenance. You could also spool in vision on them, which was a great advantage when trying to locate a particular clip.
The following comments were on the Pebble Mill Facebook group:
Christopher Hall: ‘It is an Ampex VPR-6, 1″ C Format machine. VPR-2 machines were probably more widely used, and Sony BVH- 3100 machines were the last ones bought. ‘
Mark Davies: ‘Looks like VTF/MFA to me’
Alan Miller: ‘It’s funny to think how much we welcomed the arrival of the first “C” format machines. I seem to remember that we all thoughtt that at last VT could compete with film editing?’