Machines: VC lo-band top loaders, a Panasonic Edit Controller and a Hi band portable to dock into our Sony DXC1800 tube camera
I also learned my editing skills on U-Matics. I was at Trinity, Dublin. Our Video Society had purchased U-matics from RTE in the early 80's. The story goes that RTE upgraded to U-matic just before everyone else bought Beta so they sold off all their U-matics to colleges shortly thereafter. We had a few of the JVC lo-band top loaders, a Panasonic Edit Controller and a Hi band portable to dock into our Sony DXC1800 tube camera. Hi-tech stuff. Everything was fine until the portable recorder broke.
We then made the mistake of buying "pro-sumer" Hi8. The camera was great but for editing the format was a nightmare; the controller looked like a ZX81 and the deck kept breaking down. We couldn't overdub sound on the Hi8 without unacceptable loss of quality and so on one production we ended up jamming in a recording studio to get the soundtrack down. We had an editor with Hi8 editing suite at one end with two engineers on live desk/fx/ sampler and myself on turntables at the other doing sixteen hours of continuous passes to mixdown live to Hi8.
After that I started a college TV station and we shot on everything on Hi8 and did composite transfers to the U-matics to edit. They were big and ugly but you could spill a pint on them and they would still make an ok edit. Heady days.
If anyone knows of resources dedicated to Tube cameras I would be intrigued.
Submitted Thur, 04 Dec 2001 14:31:18 GMT