RCA TCR-100 Videotape Cartridge System, amazing!!
 

Check this out! Was this ever the "norm" for TV stations?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM_2upiGUO0

I think they were quite common. The first TV station I ever visited had one and was amazing to watch.

Thanks. This reminds me of the Drake Chenault automation systems at radio station in the 1970's.

Yes, quite common. Either that or the competing similar unit from Ampex until Sony's Betacart came out in the '80's which used 1/2" Betacam tapes.

Indeed. We used the IGM automation system @ K-105 and ran Drake Chenault's XT-40 in the 70's. :yes:

Only a few of the 2" cart machines found their way to the UK for use by the ITV companies. Their main use was for playing out commercials so the BBC had no use for them.

There's an interesting snippet at the end of that video showing the facilities at ITN, London. At 8:37 you can see the huge analogue PAL<>NTSC converter. This was built by Pye to a BBC design. The BBC prototype, the world's first all electronic field store converter, was available just in time for the 1968 Mexico Olympics. THis was the first that had the possibility of live worldwide coverage.

The converter occupied 7 full height 19" rack cabinets. The storage medium was quartz delay lines, each giving 3.2ms delay. Like a monstrous version of the commonplace PAL delay lines. They were multifaceted quartz polygons, the signal being transmitted by a transducer on one face and bounced around many times until it reached the receiving transducer. They were in temprature controlled cabinets to keep the delay constant.

The line rate conversion was handled by a pair (one each for Y and C) of linestores. These were based on the earlier BBC analogue 625 to 405 converter. In very crude terms these were a pair of electronic multiway switches connecting to a bank of 576 capacitors, one for each pixel (except the term pixel hadn't been invented at the time).

Our station had 2 TCR's
 

RCA won an emmy in'69 for the invention. Turner had 6 Ampex ACR25's at one time.
Actually the networks edited their commercials into the playback tape. This way they were able to time the whole show and send TWX's to the stations as to the exact time a spot would air. Also there would be no surprises due to mechanical malfunction. This only made sense because the spots airing were going for maybe $100K for 30 seconds. As you might expect, the networks were rolling in the dough. They EVEN paid for the microwave link from AT&T to get the signal into the affiliates.

These were amazing! Our stations had them, and they performed very well!

There were more TCR100's out there than Ampex ACR25's. The reason was cost. As I recall the TCR's were about $160K where the ACR25's were $250K. Also the TCR parts were interchangeable with the existing RCA machines (TR70, TR60, TR600 etc.) The Ampex ACR25's were not compatible with other Ampex quads.
The TCR took 2 seconds to lock up.where the Ampex ACR was 300 milliseconds. The TCR carts would only hold 3 minutes of tape where the ACR carts held more. it was no surprise when MTV went on the air they chose Ampex.
Three companies made compatible TCR carts (RCA, 3M, and Calico Video) and Ampex carts were only made by them.
The ACR jammed more often than the RCA going into "test" mode which was really jam mode.

Not only common, but terrifying!! I cannot recall whether it was the ACR or the TCR that had the tape cartridge system driven by +/- 200VDC supplies, but if one of those supplies died, the belt would take off and if left unchecked would start throwing tape cartridges at everyone in the control room. At least that's the way my memory remembers it LOL.

Just imagine maintaining a machine with three complete 2" deck mechanisms inside it. .. one for cueing up the next spot, one for playing on air, and one for rewinding. And the tape handling mechanism wheeeeeeeeee all air and vacuum driven. Oy, what could possibly go wrong :)

The TCR's and ACR's only had 2 transports. When one was on air, the other was ejecting, loading, and cueing the next spot. For TCR's that time was 20 seconds. The carousel had to advance which slowed it down. Also the TCR's used mechanical threading.For ACR's the time was 10 seconds. The carousel was fully enclosed and moved at lightning speed. The threading was done by vacuum which was also fast. The operator could only access the ACR's carousel by a door which allowed access to 4 carts at a time. A beep would go off when you HAD to close the door since the machine needed to advance the carousel.
ACR's were more complicated to program than the TCR's and usually had a dedicated operator. Since the TCR's were sequentially programmed, the MC operator could switch and load his own TCR.
I never saw that condition on a TCR or ACR with the power supply going out. Occasionally the machine would miss the end of tape marker and the tape would wind off the end of the spool (still inside the cartridge).

Here's a demo of the ACR25:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_YXCNpTfAg
As you can see the carousel is vertical and completely enclosed (except for the access door).
Pay attention to the transport as it loads a tape. Its very fast (vacuum threading). The capstan pops out from the back. It holds the tape also via vacuum. (Neither ACRs or TCRs used a "pinch roller" on the capstan.) The capstan is also aided by the reel servos on the take up and supply sides.
There's a brief view of the electronics unit next to the transport unit.

Actually, it's really amazing these things ever worked at all. What could possibly go wrong?? LOL. We used to refer to both the ACR and the TCR as the "doomsday machine"... when they broke, only a very few could fix them. Kinda the same with the HS-100 slo mo, but that's another story. Probably paid for my house keeping that one tuned up :)

Wise operators who knew these machines could troubleshoot the TCR by listening to it going through the cycle, and know when it was going to have a meltdown.

We called the TCR a "huff & puff" machine. But the management called it a "bread & butter" machine.
I remember going to the meetings with the traffic and sales managers in the fall. The traffic manager lady would give us a "sermon on the mount".
We were SOLD OUT for the 4th quarter all the way up till Christmas. Any spot you lose, you will have to make it up "as best you can."
Those were the good old days in major market TV. We were busy.

Like what the funk I've just seen? :yikes:
I'm curios if they where ever used for video juking.

Doubtrul. Too expensive to buy, way too expensive to maintain, and too valuable as on-air ad spotbox machines. And too soon ... I don't think that particular trend started until the last 2" tape decks were long dead and buried. Although, we did a lot of 2" to 1" transfers and edits for MTV type reels.

Yes you are correct! I ran master control and the pit for years with a TCR. Later in it's life it developed some quirks, one of which was to not eject the first cart in the break and then it would keep playing the first two carts over and over again. Another quirk was the arms would come down but then wouldn't pull the cart into the tape threader. So if we were quick we could eject the first cart from the machine, while the belt was on the move (tricky) and then "help" the belt move forward and load the next cart. For the problem with the arms we could literally push the arms down a bit and then stuff the cart in to load it. I left the door open in master control so I could "listen" to the TCR. We had the speaker on so we could hear the machine tones as it cycled. If I heard it doing something wrong I could fly down into the pit and fix it quickly. We didn't need a second machine for short spots in the breaks, like ID's, because the company bought the accessory in-machine recording editor. That thing was great, we could edit FRAMES! So if we had a couple of 10 sec spots and an ID back to back we could edit a single cart with the three spots and the ID.

I recall the RCA TCR-100
 

I worked with the TCR-100 at 2 different stations in the 70's. The first one in 1974 would occasionally loose a drive belt and when it did it would often destroy the innards ( tape ) of the cart that belt was controlling.
The second one I worked with wasn't as bad . . . that was 1975.

I recall AMPEX came out with a similar machine , that used AIR to suck the tape out of the cartridge or something like that. It pulled the tape out it seemed by AIR. I never worked with one but did see it in operation in the late 70's.

Al

I think the Ampex cart machine was the ACR25. If memory serves it did use vacuum to help in tape handling. It also used a vacuum guide for proper headwheel contact with the tape. The vacuum, and the curved shape of the guide, would hold the tape in proper contact with the rotating headwheel.

Ahh the good old days. I wonder if anyone ever got their tie caught in one of these things ......... and lived to tell the tale. :)

My boss at station WFMJ-TV, in 1971, told me he once had his tie go through the headwheel assembly on their TR-70. Left a series of diagonal slits in his tie, and cost the station a headwheel.
But getting a tie caught in a TCR-100 would be really bad!

There's probably some old comic that made the rounds back then showing some tech's legs sticking out of a machine flailing around, and a caption like: Keep all loose clothing away from machine" lol.

Small world syndrome... a Post house I worked for in Cleveland was owned by WKBN Broadcasting out of Youngstown, but a little later than 1971. We were heavily into 1" and Beta by that time. But I had two quad machines for dubs still that had to be kept running. One RCA, one Ampex, just to keep things interesting. And a room full of VPR2 1" decks with CMX editor... oy

It is a small world... I live just over the PA line, about 30 miles from Youngstown; when I was a field engineer, I used to service a couple of theatres out there.

I do remember seeing one of those dual cartridge machines running, at a visit to WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh. That was back in the 80s; I don't recall the brand.

Love those 1970 era hairstyles and clothes on the girls; was that really 50 years ago??