Ampex ACR-25 Commercial Player Question

[NewVista]

These machines were sold all over the world:
Once in Riyadh a crew chief asked his assistant "where are the carts I had here!?"
The assistant replied: "Oh-some-are Bin-Loadin' "

[KentTeffeteller]

Ironic things. Ampex was the best in TV, RCA was owned by NBC Television and Radio. RCA had to never fail, be simple to maintain. Ted Turner got his start in Chattanooga, Tennessee radio as an owner. He bought the lowest rated dump of a UHF TV station. WTCG-TV (UHF was the movie about it starring "Weird Al" Yankovic. WTCG (Watch This Channel Grow) led to CNN and Turner Classic Movies and TNT. There's a song about being a frog, who became a King. By Neil Diamond. I am, I said. Happened due to a simple problem. Luther- the longest serving, most honest radio announcer in the market. Worked at competitor WDEF. Ted Turner offered obscene amounts of money and everything he could to hire Luther (in the Radio Hall Of Fame) and said no. He worked at the same station from 1942 till his death in the next century. Ted could not succeed in Chattanooga. So he decided to change from Radio to Television in a different market.

[Hurty]

Hello all, I was based to Thames Television in London. We had 4 ACR-25 machines, two used for the main channel commercials and two used for Channel 4 commercials. They where indeed phenomenal machines. The vacuum tape handling was a joy to watch. I was a maintenance engineer. Common problems where the "trombone" as we called it cassette loading mechanism as the rubber diaphragms would fail with the distinctive "whoosh" of air. Power supplies, photo sensors and lamp failures. The TTL logic IC's would keep you entertained on occasions. These machine where incredibly fast and quick to program which suited Thames as they sold commercials using a bidding system so changes could be last minute. I used to operate these on nights, this was sometimes a bit stressful and you would realise in the morning when you left the building and your stomach would hit the floor as you let out a sigh of relief. When you where driving these and things were going well all was o.k. but then you would first hear something that was not the normal sound!! You then would immediately look at the control panel to see which fault light lit up first! as the machine would then grind to a halt and loads of fault lights would then come on! the first to light was the clue. I also worked at the BBC where they had an AVR-1, again an excellent machine used for promo playout. Real television in those days with real machines.

[kf4rca]

When I was at CNN in the early eighties, they had young, just graduated, journalism students as operators in Tape. They could handle the 1-inch machines but the ACR's were out of their league. Mostly I remember the girls crying over the intercom when the machines malfunctioned. I re-assured them by telling them this was real television.