First quad machine to be used in Australia
 

Hi all.

I've been doing some research on the history of the usage of videotape recording in Australia out of personal interest and I've came across a great article in a "Radio, Television & Hobbies" magazine from October 1958 illustrating the usage of videotape recording over here in Australia which I thought would be interesting to share with you's all, particularly the Aussies who post here in the forums.

Anyways as it appears the first Ampex quad VTR to be put into operation in Australia was installed at ATN-7 Sydney sometime in 1958. This VTR had to be modified to suit our B&W TV standards at the time which was 625 lines at a bandwidth of 5 Mhz which was a challenge for the Ampex team.

I've attached this article for you's all to see.

I'm personally trying to find out what the earliest surviving B&W videotape recording in Australia is and am hoping to somehow get a hold of a copy of the program. So far the oldest videotape recording I know of to date is an episode of "In Melbourne Tonight" from 31st December 1961 hosted by Australia's king of television Graham Kennedy, the show runs into the new year, I have a very poor probably 6th generation copy of that show. If anyone here knows what the earliest surviving Aussie videotape recording is and could tell me it be much appreciated.

great find :) I wonder when the recorder was retired! and if any tapes from it still exist!

earliest quad recording i have is around 1962 best of kennedy compile...its a direct copy from quad to digital, at the time i saw it playing directly to the B&W monitor on the quad machine and the resolution looked better than any high definition plasma/lcd i have seen today!

These first videotape recordings were recorded as whats now know as a "low band" B&W quad recording, It not only looks a lighter color and thinner to the eye, the tape formulation is totally different to the later high band color recordings.

Because of this, the tapes generally dont suffer the dreaded "sticky shed" syndrome issue that later tape did..however only certain quad machines are capable of playing the early low band variant.

I wouldnt be surprised if there are a few earlier recordings about

james

Prolly took a lot of "guts" to bring one of those into Oz then...Parts & service were what, a WEEK away then...Unless Ampex had a branch down there...But how many of those things could they have expected to sell there back then ?

well by the mid 60's just about every station here had them, infact ATV0, which was an all "RCA" station opened with the most modern videotape facilities in the country...however ironically...they have the worst track record for the amount of "missing programs" and what does exist is only in the form on kinescopes now!