RE: OT - He's just fine, right?

["Hollis, Mark (NBC Universal)" <Mark.Hollis(at)nbcuni.com>]

According to Groucho Marx, "You're only as old as the women you're feeling." My fiancee is 42 so I'm younger than several of you in Groucho years.

 

Started out with JVC (Junk Video Corp.) 3/4" machines with an edit controller that was based roughly on Sony's RM-440. I then did stand-up Edittech (occasionally on RCA 2" Quad machines; the station had three, one being scavenged for parts while the other two ran, more or less. We had just bought 3 Ampex VPR-2B 1" machines, which were regularly rolled out of our "telecine" area onto a sports truck to do college hockey. When not doing slo-mo capable sports truck work, they were hooked up to a CMX edge, which I never learned. At the station I was strictly a BVU-800 cuts only editor, being used mostly for camera work.

 

My first real editor was a BVE-800, then a Convergence Super 90 (It does fades to and from black!), using a Chyron VP-1 character generator that needed an outboard computer to run it. I then transitioned to the Convergence ECS-1000, which was based on the 204 and was capable of A/B-Roll editing and controlling a switcher. I went to NAB two years for Convergence, showing off how the ECS-1000 was better than the Sony 900 and 910, which I also learned and knew at the time. I took a job editing on 910s with GVG 110 switchers and the Abekas A-53-D doing magazine show work and was romanced away by a post house that put me on a CMX-3400 and a Grass 300-3 in an edit suite that looked like a NASA control room.

 

Laid off from there after 9 months, I learned the Calaway and did beta testing for their software. That is how I learned what the GVG editor could do because it was more a Grass clone than a CMX clone. I started working with the Avid Media Composer for offline work with the Calaway. The edit room had an Ampex Vista switcher and an ADO. Freelance editors would come in, take one look at the Vista and turn around and walk out, usually saying, "good luck."

 

I transitioned to the Grass editor at NBC and learned the Aacom Axial. I'm still using the Axial in a linear room while doing graphics and learning to do headlines for Nightly News on the DS. Oh, and I also learned the Avid Newscutter, as well as the Grass Valley Vibrint (now called News Edit) along the way.

 

If equipment gave us personalities, we'd all be like Sybil.

-----Original Message-----
From: Chasteen, Howard [mailto:Howard.Chasteen(at)fotf.org]
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 4:03 PM
To: DS(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: RE: OT - He's just fine, right?

Older than all of you but I don't feel it a bit. You are as young as you feel. Sometimes I feel 15 or so. The problems occur when I act 15 ;-)

 

Howard

 

PS:

 

The first Quad decks I ran had 5 racks of electronics and the B&W video would tear up if there was a draft from the control room door being held open to long!

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From: owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Tom Harris
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 1:19 PM
To: DS(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: RE: OT - He's just fine, right?

I spent a few years running RA 4000(Look it up at the museum) from ampex, it could run 3 avr1's (quads)...we edited a show called SCTV on it. We got paper logs from ¾ inch offline and it would take a week to online it......circa 1979.....

Tom (Grandpa) Harris

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Chasteen, Howard
Sent: July 27, 2005 8:31 AM
To: DS(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: RE: OT - He's just fine, right?

 

Here is the EECO front panel. this is a 900. We had the older model.

 

http://www.sssm.com/editing/museum/eeco/eeco.html

 

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From: owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Mark Rachall
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 9:07 AM
To: 'DS(at)Softimage.COM'
Subject: RE: OT - He's just fine, right?

I am not familiar with the term EECO but I may have used one. I do remember the quad days, when the two inch machine took up an entire room and it took two engineers and an editor to complete an edit. We told the clients that the horizontal phase shifts were special effects and upped the rates J

 

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From: owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Chasteen, Howard
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 9:53 AM
To: DS(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: RE: OT - He's just fine, right?

 

I began editing with old EECO controllers and strange color/horizontal shifts from the beginning to last frames.

 

EECO invented the first practical electronic video tape editing system that controlled the decks remotely and displayed the TC on big Nixie tube displays.

 

When you mention EECO and get no or few responses it must means you are so phenomenally young and cutting edge that no one has heard of you yet :-))) Just give it time;-)

 

Famous Howard

 

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From: owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Mark Rachall
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 4:48 PM
To: 'DS(at)Softimage.COM'
Subject: RE: OT - He's just fine, right?

Yes Howard, you can be famous too J

 

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From: owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Chasteen, Howard
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 5:30 PM
To: DS(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: RE: OT - He's just fine, right?

 

Hey I ran an EECO! Does that make me famous??? Lots of Nixie tubes. Color horizontal phase hell on old quad decks!

 

Howard

 

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From: owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Jim Fink
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 4:13 PM
To: DS(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Re: OT - He's just fine, right?

hmm... I don't resemble the famous part..
but does ... The West End Still Rock Dude ?

now moved to the West End of Chapel Hill....
where are you mark...?
j


Mark Rachall wrote:

Hey, are you the famous Jim fink that used to work and ampex ace editor in

Dallas?

Mark O. Rachall

-----Original Message-----

From: owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM]On Behalf Of

Jim Fink

Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2005 8:50 PM

To: DS(at)Softimage.COM

Subject: Re: OT - He's just fine, right?

oh, so that was friday.

now I recall how I felt too, thanks.

vamooshnya

love it..

j

Tony Quinsee-Jover wrote:

Reporters interviewing a Russian miner following an accident.

Investigators are now following up on the possibility that the 

accident might have been drink related....

www.hdheaven.co.uk/DS/nadrbanykolega_1.mpg

T :)

t +44 (0)121 224 7555

f +44 (0)121 224 7557

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-- 

Jim Fink

New Century Digital Media

Chapel Hill, NC

Avid|DS

(919) 929-5228 Voice or 423-4363 (Cel)

http://www.NewCenturyDigitalMedia.com

http://www.NCDM.TV

jim(at)ncdm.tv