RCA TCR-100 Videotape Cartridge System, amazing!!

[KentTeffeteller]

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.

[Patrice]

Originally Posted by KentTeffeteller

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.

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.

[alok]

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