<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Hi, Terrance,</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks for the experiences and practices at Ampex. This is valuable information for a number of reasons.</div><div><br></div><div>I've been searching for an article I ran across several years ago about how Nebraska ETV?? managed to get 1,000 hours or more from their Quad heads (on VR-1000's if I recall correctly.)</div><div><br></div><div>They had a very controlled environment for temperature, relative humidity, air flow to get particulate matter away from the machines such as you describe.</div><div><br></div><div>I'd think improving conditions to extend head life is likely more necessary today, due to the fact that only Video Magnetics in Colorado Springs still rebuilds Quad heads, and Lalo's the only guy doing it at this time.</div><div><br></div><div>If the sole source of rebuilding is lost, any facility depending on heads for content recovery will be up the creek without a paddle, and any useable heads will skyrocket in value to the point that the cost of transferring may become impractical.</div><div><br></div><div>I'd be curious to hear from Quad head users around the world about what they are getting in terms of head life, and what they're doing to extend the life of their heads.</div><div><br></div><div>The BBC set up a central facility to deal with Quad heads, outlined here:</div><div><a href="http://www.vtoldboys.com/heads02.htm">http://www.vtoldboys.com/heads02.htm</a> which developed a standard reference tape for alignment, among other practices.</div><div><br></div><div>They also had an SOP for "constant chroma optimization </div><div><a href="http://www.vtoldboys.com/pdf/Constant%2520Chroma%2520Optimisation.pdf"></a><a href="http://www.vtoldboys.com/pdf/Constant%2520Chroma%2520Optimisation.pdf"></a><a href="http://www.vtoldboys.com/pdf/Constant%2520Chroma%2520Optimisation.pdf"></a><a href="http://www.vtoldboys.com/pdf/Constant%20Chroma%20Optimisation.pdf">http://www.vtoldboys.com/pdf/Constant%20Chroma%20Optimisation.pdf</a></div><div><br></div><div>that "<font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000">was made on current stock and more representative of machine/ tape performance and could be used to set all machine parameters. The legacy benefits organisations like the BFI, who today still replay many quad recordings with little need for adjustment between tapes."</font></div><div><br></div><div>The page has data on head life and processes or practices developed to extend life. On AVR-2's with Spin Physics Ferrite rebuilds, the BBC was routinely getting 1,000 hours with a record of some 2,500 hours.</div><div><br></div><div>Ted</div><div><br></div><br><div><div>On Jul 26, 2009, at 2:26 PM, eedesignpro wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 15px; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; ">I'm a bit new at this answering the question about Quad head life.<br style="line-height: 1.22em; "><br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">Clean tape is a must.<br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">We when we were not concerned with interchange or banding, we would run<br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">with as little tip penetration as possible.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">We would use tape that had a few passes more than 5 but less than 10.<br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">New tape nearly always had high head wear in the first few passes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">Tall tips normally meant lower signal to noise, a condition that we could live with while designing the next recorder. The high tips was always the worse case operating condition for any recorder.<br style="line-height: 1.22em; "><br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">In Redwood City the weather is always 50% HR.<br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">Where the HR is nearly 100% and with certain tape combinations the head wear could be quite high. In parts of New York in the summer time then weather is hot, the air can only be cooled with no added clean outside air. This increases the HR as the day goes on this water in the air with tape dust is combination adds up to high head wear environment.<br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">The operational environment for VTR room should be room with constant temp and HR. Clean outside air should be added to the cool air, in Redwood City the outside air and the cool air were equal in volume most of the time.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br style="line-height: 1.22em; "><br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">If the recording and the playback were on the same machine, heads could last a long time.<br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">The standard tape lab that made the setup tapes for head adjustment would often last more than a year. The system was one of two or three weeks of setup for the recorder and measurement of the record tracks on the tape. Then the machine was put in auto mode which ran for two to three weeks normally without a break. Then the tapes were spooled into the 15min reels and shipped.<br style="line-height: 1.22em; "><br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">Quad banding requires many things on the transport to be correct and distant from the erase head to the head pole peaces to effectively match the playback machine, very hard to do everyday all day.<br style="line-height: 1.22em; "><br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">Not sure if it is any clearer.<br style="line-height: 1.22em; ">Terrance Smith<br style="line-height: 1.22em; "></span></blockquote></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Ted Langdell</span></font></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Secretary for the <a href="http://www.quadvideotapegroup.com/">QuadVideotapeGroup</a></span></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div></div></span></span></span></span></div></span></div></span></div></body></html>