This is how you recorded your TV programs in the 60s

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stillusesfloppydisks@reddit

My dad told me that my grandad would 'record' shows for my grandma on occasion using a tape recorder. Just audio so she wouldn't miss her episode. Must've been mid-70s to early 80s ish.

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downsj2@reddit

That's precisely how we have audio from some of the missing Doctor Who episodes.

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Colonel_Barker@reddit

We have the audio of all of them, against the odds.

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WarthogOsl@reddit

I used to do this in the same time period, and then listen to them on long car trips.

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bashuls2@reddit

Can confirm still in use and in demand. These machines are used to digitize film and archives. The motherboarders are a work of art. We have these types of machine in our warehouse.

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Colonel_Barker@reddit

Can confirm. We have one in use at our work. Amazingly beautiful boards.

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Fresh-Palpitation-72@reddit (OP)

Wow

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new2bay@reddit

Can I get TV from the 60s if I power it with 1.21 gigawatts?

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PrincessWalt@reddit

And it needs a good air compressor to run as well

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Cybrknight@reddit

Damn, and here I was complaining how big and bulky VCR's were back in the 80's...

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SirTwitchALot@reddit

This was professional studio equipment. No one had one of these at home

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Fresh-Palpitation-72@reddit (OP)

Unless ur super rich

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PioneerLaserVision@reddit

No, there would be no way to record from a television broadcast using this machine. Rich people had 16mm or 35mm film projection setups.

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new2bay@reddit

That’s okay, just buy the TV station.

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lutello@reddit

It was possible to connect a TV tuner to this at home but you'd have to be insanely rich and dedicated. There were smaller more practical 1" and 1/2" b/w recorders for rich consumers at the time.

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3Cogs@reddit

... and the rest of us used Standard-8 or Super-8, (with sound if you were posh - we weren't posh so our movies were silent). A film reel would typically play for 8 minutes.

I remember my dad changing film reels in a darkened room in our holiday apartment (you didn't need full blackout but you needed to be in a darkish room to prevent light leakage spoiling the film).

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thatvhstapeguy@reddit

There are several known 2” off-air recordings, including an August 1964 episode of The Tonight Show. That particular tape is believed to have been recorded at ABC’s Prospect facility.

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don_teegee@reddit

Engineers: we didn’t leave room for the monitor.

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nixiebunny@reddit

This is how your local TV station recorded shows. Ten years later, Sony sold a home VTR the size of a standard reel to reel deck. It was black and white and had a 30 minute run time, but it worked.

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And before these were invented in the early 50s (or late 40s?), troupes of actors would travel from station to station performing shows in-studio, not a heck of a lot differently from medieval times, in fact.

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tomxp411@reddit

My understanding was they used motion picture film. They either had a camera pointed at a TV, or they actually had a machine that was basically a TV screen and film camera in one box.

So if you watched a show in New York, you'd be seeing a live presentation. People on the west coast would be looking at a filmed version.

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DogWallop@reddit

My sources are the magazines that appeared after World War II chronicling the new medium of the televisor. If you go to World Radio History you will find them, but you'll have to do a bit of digging. Those magazines are a brilliant window into a medium that was finding its feet and place in society philosophically, technically and economically.

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Jim-Jones@reddit

And now RCA is no more, just a label you can rent.

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tomxp411@reddit

Honestly, I am not surprised to hear that was happening for a while. But film delay was definitely a thing in the pre-videotape years. :)

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WarthogOsl@reddit

Kinescope.

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tomxp411@reddit

Thanks.

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WarthogOsl@reddit

Sorry, that sucks.

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Jim-Jones@reddit

Now: 512 GB Micro SD card - $35 each.

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ZappaLlamaGamma@reddit

And it only did 480i.

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thatvhstapeguy@reddit

The quality of 2” tape is superb and not adequately described just by the number of lines.

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ZappaLlamaGamma@reddit

Oh I agree. There’s a certain element in an analog world where things “hit different” and this would be one of those things

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3Cogs@reddit

Ampex ftw!

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pimpbot666@reddit

240i

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lutello@reddit

The Sony CV2000 did 240 line skip field if you wanted a 1/2" home recorder in 1965. This thing does proper 480i. Not sure what the TVL resolution is on low/high band Quadruplex through.

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Hjalfi@reddit

The only place I've seen stronger 'what the hell am I doing here' vibes from the model (provided 'for scale') was from some of the adverts for laboratory equipment in Scientific American.

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2raysdiver@reddit

Yeah, the gal in the picture with the lab rat liquifier clearly did not want to be there.

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MechanicalTurkish@reddit

lab rat liquifier

🤢

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2raysdiver@reddit

I believe the correct term is "homogenizer". I recall the ad saying something about turning laboratory mice into a "fine homogenized paste"... 😧.

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DeepDayze@reddit

This is like the Univac of the video recording world and would need a big room for it. At the price it would been only the rich that could afford this device.

Thankfully it took another decade or so to bring down the size and the ease of use (think Betamax then VHS).

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Ouch

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