Tom:
We've been working with the Warhol collection for many years and have been
searching for a working Norelco machine to play back the tapes Andy made on
the one he had. In over 10 years of searching, we have only been able to
locate two non-functioning machines. Both machines were owned by collectors
who expressed no interest in allowing access to the equipment or accepting
offers to try and have the equipment fixed.
If your e-mail comes up with any information that could potentially provide
a lead to a working Norelco 1" machine, we would love to hear about it.
Thanks,
Peter Brothers
SPECS BROS., LLC
973-777-5055
[log in to unmask]
Tape restoration, disaster recovery and re-mastering since 1983
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 7:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARSCLIST] High Fidelity August 1965 -- several "dead end" video
formats mentioned
[Cross-posted to the Ampex List]
Interesting reading the 1965 "Annual Issue On Tape" of High Fidelity
Magazine.
Ampex content first. Mention is made on pages 39 and 104 of the Ampex
VR-303, "a video recorder that
runs at 100-ips and uses 1/4-inch tape." The article describes the machine
as using a 12" reel of
tape capable of 25 minutes in each direction, with auto-reverse. The machine
is described as using
fixed heads. Anyone have one of these machines? Any more details? Scans of
literature?
The same article describes the Norelco EL-3400 machine, which used 1-inch
tape "reeled off at 9 ips
past a rotating head - the result is a scanning speed of 1086 ips." The
machine is further described
as using 8-inch reels capable of 42 minutes recording time and costing $65.
Both the Ampex and Norelco machines are described as costing $3950 -- in
1965 dollars!
Interesting side note -- Norelco apparently loaned one of these units to
Andy Warhol in 1965,
wanting him to write an article about using it. See the description of its
short life in The Factory
about halfway down this page, under the heading "Outer and Inner Space."
http://www.warholstars.org/filmch/filmchro.html
Anyone have more details on the Norelco machine? Were they produced for
retail sale? How long was
this format in use? It seems to be a forerunner of the Japanese 1/2" reel to
reel video recorders of
the early 70's.
Finally, in the High Fidelity magazine, on page 31, "High Fidelity
Newsfronts," a section describes
Westinghouse's Videodiscs, a form of LP records "gets up to 400 still shots
and 40 minutes of sound
... playing at 33 rpm." Further: "the video and audio information in the
record groove is picked up
by the stylus of an ordinary audio cartridge, and fed to the scan converter,
which decodes sound and
picture and feeds them to the TV set." Also: "the technique involves
multiplexing audio and video
information onto the normal 20-kc bandwidth of a microgroove disc." I'm
assuming this is slow-scan
video, since it's still pictures? Was this ever commercialized?
-- Tom Fine
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