Very nice site, but where are the famous Ampex VR-1000B, VR-1100 and the remarkable VR-2000B?

Whilst I've done videotape editing in the days when it was in vogue, for me it was always a chore—just a means to an end. I mention that for the reason that quite some decades ago videotape editing was all around me in ways I couldn't avoid. Within about two half yards of my microwave link maintenance workbench was a swinging door to the VTR department just behind which was an Ampex VR-2000B (one of many 2" quadruplex videotape machines including some old VR-1000s and newer VTR-1s, etc.). The sounds of a 2" videotape department in full operation is unmistakable—not only do the machines have a unique sound but the clatter emanating from the editing area was also regularly punctuated with loud swearing and the overly-loud clanging of tape canisters whenever edits went kaput (editing deadlines were always very tight and a lost edit could or would mean a lost ad—and that could cost thousands).

The VR-2000B was a breakthrough, it was both low-band and high-band and it did color in multiple standards (NTSC, PAL, SECAM) and it had an excellent editing system called Editec that allowed precision frame-by-frame editing.

Editec was a vast improvement over the very early VR-1000 days when mechanical splicing/editing machines somewhat akin to the 'razorblade' edit blocks for audio tape recorders were the norm. For the curious, it's interesting to note how this was done. To stop video tearing and glitching, video edits had to be made during the vertical blanking period and to do that one had to know where they were on the tape. The solution to this was to coat the tape with a 'magnetic developer' that made the magnetic tracks visible to the eye. Quoting from this very interesting site about the early development of Ampex quadruplex machines: https://ethw.org/First-Hand:My_Ten_Years_at_Ampex_and_the_De...:

"In order to be able to see where the recorded tracks were located we found that a solution of a volatile liquid (e.g. turpentine) with a little powdered iron (called carbonyl iron) evenly dispersed in it and spread thinly over the recorded tracks would allow the iron particles to be attracted to the magnetically recorded tracks on the tape. These tracks were then plainly visible."

By the time I had anything to do with VCRs, the use of 'magnetic developer' had long since passed but we still had plenty of stocks of it in our maintenance stores and naturally this invited lots of experimentation by yours truly. The type that I had access to was Ampex's own and it was called Edivue Kit or Edivue Diluent (Ampex part # 50 495-02). The kit consisted of a capsule containing shiny silver-like iron (I assume stainless steel) of powder-like consistency, the diluent solution and a jar to put the mixed [now-colloidal] solution in. From memory, the capsule was about double the size of a large medicinal capsule. (I think the reason why it didn't come premixed was that if supplied in parts it would allow for various dilutions and this would allow for different visual contrasts to appear on the 'developed' tape.)

There were other brands/types of 'magnetic developer' but I've not used them, specifically, they were: Columbia Magnetics Magna-See, and Nortronics Mag View. There's also Ferrofluid mentioned in the My Ten years at Ampex link above but I strongly suspect that it's not the same Ferrofluid as per Wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrofluid. For starters, the Ferrofluid mentioned in the Wiki is very different and dates from 1963; the Ampex reference is much earlier (mid-to-late 1950s). It's likely the commercial Ferrofluid was like Ampex's Edivue (if anyone has better knowledge then let us know). There's a reference to these other 'magnetic developers' here in this PDF in footnote 3, page 206: http://thehistoryofrecording.com/Papers/Jay_McKnight/Low-Fre...

Interestingly, it seems there's a modern-day 'magnetic developer' that's still available: https://www.q-card.com/products/magnetic-developers/magnetic... Perhaps for fun it's worth experimenting on some old VHS tapes. ;-)

There's more about how these edits were performed here: https://www.videomaker.com/article/c3/1221-edit-points-a-his...

Incidentally it's well worth checking out My Ten years at Ampex link if for no other reason than the site's excellent photos. Therein, are probably the best photos you'll ever likely to find of both the VT head assembly and the 2" editing block.

Diehards, you'll likely find this page on quadruplex theory interesting: http://www.lionlamb.us/quad/theory.html