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<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS">Chris,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">I'm not sure how
this will post. It's my first time. This may be quite a bit more than a
comment on high-speed dubbers, so please excuse me if I have provided too much
information.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Mark
Anzicek</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS">ZenTechnologies</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010></SPAN><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS">We, as engineers at NET, were told that only 3
Ampex ADR-150 duplicators were ever built. One was in LA. We
had one at NET in Ann Arbor and it was rumored that there was one in an airplane
hanger in Saudi Arabia that was never assembled. However NET's unit was
the only 6 copy station unit in existence. The other two were 2
copy station units. Everyday we high-speed duplicated 100 to 200
Quad 2" video tape copies of Sesame Street, along with other shows
including NET playhouse, Monty Python, Faulty Towers.....etc. Our
ADR-150 duplicated qty 6 one hour Quad 2" video tapes in 6 minutes.
</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Like a
photographic processing, high-speed video duplication is basically a printing
process except instead of light passing through a negative onto a
paper, a 700 to 800 oersted blank tape and a 2400-2600 orested high energy
master are in intimate contact and passing through an high energy field that is
strong enough to provide an erase bias for the copy tape, but not enough to
degrade the master the master due to the tremendous bias need for a 2600 orested
tape. Traveling out of the bias field, at 150 IPS, the copy tape would be
immediately cloned by the master in a direct magnetization transfer printing
process as the master pressed each copy tape around each individual
slave copy drum at 6 different points simultaneously along the master
path. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN class=497542322-10032010>As Chris Hill
said, a specially modified AVR-1 was used to make the high energy mirror masters
as they were called. NET had 2 stock AVR-1s in house and either one could
be quickly switched over to make high speed masters. The change consisted
of exchanging out the bias erase head, corresponding driver circuit board and
the same for the video head. Both heads and circuitry were beefed up to
handle the extra bias and record energy needed. The erase stack had to be
liquid cooled and Spin Physics modified the video heads to spin in reverse,
hence being able to create a mirror image. The left to right master prints
right to left copy.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN
class=497542322-10032010></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN class=497542322-10032010>A high-speed
10x transferred copy tape was about 3db down from a perfect real-time
duplicated copy, however it's uniformity and almost perfect interchange
statistically yielded more acceptable copies than the up to 50 or
so individual VTRs needed to produce the same amount of production
capacity. (depends upon how fast operator can switch out tapes) The
masters could theoretically last forever, as far as energy levels needed,
however in time the master would become dirty and loose intimate contact,
yielding further gradual signal db loss. Many masters were recorded over
and used again as different program masters. Many times, masters would
catastrophically fail before their average number of uses would cause
failure. Once a tape became wrinkled or creased, it could no longer be
used. It could be shortened to a shorter master length, but only if the
crease was close to either end of the tape. It had to be that
much shorter. Many real-time Quad tapes were spliced, due to the
almost perpendicular head path, but the ADR-150 had extremely low thickness
tolerances so splices meant certain death of a master or
copy.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN
class=497542322-10032010></SPAN></FONT><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Our ADR-150
was about 25 ft long by 6 ft wide by 3 ft high. The master would run down
one side of the machine, past 3 slave copy stations, then return back passing
another 3 stations on it's way back to the master station take-up
reel. Each of the 6 copy stations had 4 AVR-1 type vacuum columns yielding
24 Air vacuum chambers to buffer the movements of 6 individual copy tapes in
intimate contact with a master at 6 different 10" rotating copy
drums along the master tape path. Each copy drum had 2 separate air
knives along a drum collar to assure intimate contact. along 270 degrees of the
rotating drum. The master would then automatically rewind while the
operator changed out the 6 copy stations with more tapes and
then re-started the process.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS">Yes indeed, I loved to run and work on that machine except
for the fact that you had to wear earmuffs because it sounded like you were on
the tarmac of an international airport. IT WAS VERY LOUD
!!!! It blew and sucked more air than anything I've ever
worked. Extreme care had to be given to operating and maintaining this
electromechanical beast. If any one of the numerous servos fell out of
balance, as the 6 slaves chased the master traveling 12.5 ft/sec (8.5 mph), or
any moisture entered the system, or any vacuum loss in any one of the 24
columns, or any over pinching of the air knives, there would be a traveling
pileup of tape loops and creased tape. The operator would witness
something like a chain reaction of car accidents traveling first down the
highway, then turning around and traveling back up the
highway.</FONT></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN
class=497542322-10032010></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN class=497542322-10032010>In the 1980s, Sony
manufactured a high-speed 1/2 duplicator called the Sprinter 5000.
(S-printer) It was first designed for Beta and then Sony sadly converted
it to VHS. This machine had just one station and ran at 16.6 ft/sec.
Later, a new model 800 was introduced with a endless master loop that
vibrated on a horizontal loop bin, much like those vibrating football game
tables of the 1050s. It's speed was then almost doubled to 8
meters/sec and it's effective duplication speed was increased to almost 240x for
SP and 720x for EP VHS. I built a facility for Allied Film &
Video in the 1980s that housed 16 of these machines and also developed an
endless master bin for the first 5000
Sprinter.</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN
class=497542322-10032010></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN class=497542322-10032010>In the late 1980s, Otari
took over a joint research project started by Dupont and Bell & Howell
to develop the TMD. (Thermo Magnetic Duplicator) Dupont wanted to
sell chromium and Bell & Howell owned several large VHS duplication
facilities in Chicago at the time. They later became Rank and moved
much of the operations to Little Rock, AR. The technology was similar
in mechanics and magnetic printing process, however instead of using a bias
field to erase iron tape, a laser was used to heat chrome tape to
Curie point and erase the tape. Chrome tape needed a much lower
temperature to accomplish this and the quality was quite good. Otari
had 2 problems besides being late in the game. Chrome tape was more
expensive and their loop bin was vertical instead of horizontal. This
meant the weight of longer movie masters meaning more tape could crease the
tape, where as horizontal loop bins didn't have this problem. However, by
the time Otari had a competitive product out in the field, Sony had almost
saturated the VHS high-speed duplication business as VHS was reaching
maturity.</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN
class=497542322-10032010></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN class=497542322-10032010>While Bell & Howell
started as the largest duplicator, Technicolor later became the largest US and
then worldly duplicator. Both companies started with 10s of thousands of
real-time duplicators. B&H/Rank first implemented 2x machines using
large pancakes of blank tape that were later cut into separate video cassettes
like Sprinters and TMDs. Then Panasonic made a 2X in cassette duplicator
especially for Rank then later other smaller competitors and Technicolor later
introduced their own 3x in cassette duplicator. Cinram followed
as well with a 2x in house design. </SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN
class=497542322-10032010></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN class=497542322-10032010>Technicolor became the king
with the most Sprinter duplicators boasting around 80 unites between Livonia, MI
and Camarillo, CA and more around the world. The largest Sprinter
installation ever was a facility I designed and built in Alphaville, Brazil
in suburban Sao Paulo, where Videolar had over 100 Sprinters in one very
large clean room. High-speed duplication at one time was at least 50% of
the movie business of which probably 80 to 90% was Sony's Sprinter. Oh
yes, all good high speed operations were typically conducted in class 1,000 or
better rooms. As time went on, the vendors advertised class 10,000 in
order to sell more product. You need massive amounts of properly directed
air flow (we had 3 air changes per minute) and lots of 0.1 to
0. 5 micron HEPA filters. </SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN
class=497542322-10032010></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN class=497542322-10032010>Finally, let's talk about
cleanliness in Quad vs. VHS when it come to high-speed duplication. As you
know, it is a contact printing technology so cleanliness affects transfer
quality. One second of Quad time represent 2" times 15" per sec. tape
speed yielding 30 square inches of magnetic information describing 1 second of
video. Whereas 1 second of VHS tape time represents 1/2" times 1.3" per
sec. tape speed yielding 0.65 square inches of magnetic information describing 1
second of VHS SP. AND one 1/3 that or less than 0.22 square
inches of tape for VHS EP. Cleanliness and intimate contact are far
more important when you have around 1/50th and 1/150th
respectively less real estate to work with.</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN
class=497542322-10032010></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN
class=497542322-10032010></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
class=497542322-10032010><SPAN class=497542322-10032010><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><SPAN
class=497542322-10032010></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B>
Chill315@aol.com [mailto:Chill315@aol.com] <BR><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, March 10,
2010 8:39 AM<BR><B>To:</B> quadlist@quadvideotapegroup.com<BR><B>Cc:</B>
markanzicek@comcast.net<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: [QuadList] Ampex High Speed
Dubber<BR><BR></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px" dir=ltr><FONT id=role_document
face=Arial>
<DIV>NET in Ann Arbor had one of the handful of Ampex High Speed
dubbers. The master was a mirror image that was done on a AVR 1 with
special heads. The tape was a special formulation that 3 M did with an
orested of about 3000 (?). This would allow the magnetic information to
be transferred in special stations. The machine was very fast and they
never seemed to have any quality issues. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>when the building caught fire it was the end of an era. I have
copied an expert on this machine to see if he wishes to comment.</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Chris Hill</DIV>
<DIV>WA8IGN</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></BODY></HTML>