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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body bgcolor=white lang=EN-GB link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>David<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>I do remember something the BBC told us as raw recruits in the 1970s, that Grass Valley kit was known as "Chad Valley" (a rather cheap childrens toy), I think this was a comment from the BBC's Projects department, in those days the BBC used to deisgn and build all their own equipment from DAs to Vision Mixers and beyond. I have to say from my first encounter with a 1600F to 300 with 2 MEs and then on to 100s that the BBC were wrong.</span></i><i><o:p></o:p></i></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><i> <o:p></o:p></i></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"'> <span style='color:#1F497D'>Although I never worked at the BBC (I was in ITV) we met lots of BBC guys on courses who were clearly not happy with people at the BBC who built kit </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>They went through silly periods one that I remember was white modules that were meant to be jigsaw pieces that you could build into any system (the local junk shop was full of them)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The edit suits were a disaster, lots of dedicated buttons instead of a QWERTY keyboard driven kit<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I think they even mirrored suites layouts,so control panels were reversed in odd numbered suits<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Some of the editors would only work either odd or even suits<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I think in the end the Union got involved and made them buy some commercial kit<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Might have been Datatron (Paltex in the UK) Sony BVE 9100 was not around then, but is my linear editor of choice<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The VPR2’s were just as bad with over 100 BBC mods, then when they did not work they asked Ampex to come and help<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I think they were told they were OK when they left here, take you mods off. The only mod I saw I liked, was keep you finger on the play button to review<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Edits, otherwise you had to turn the editor off<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Eventually the VPR2 rights were sold to Marconi who made an even bigger mess, pity could have been a good machine<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>TrevorB<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>UK Member<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></body></html>