BBC Pebble Mill - Memories of Videotape Editing

[Paul Vanezis]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Just over 10 years ago the final edit at BBC Birmingham VT took place and the moment was captured on video. Some may like to take a look. At about 1' 35" there is a photo of the edit pair VR2000 quad machines used to record/edit may of the shows we still enjoy today, including The Basil Brush Show, Doctor Who (Horror of Fang Rock), Gangsters etc... and one of them was the machine I used many times to transfer archive tapes for 'Telly Addicts' and 'Thirty Years in the TARDIS':

vimeo.com/120808046

I wasn't able to make the evening of the last cut as I was away filming, and this is the first time I've been able to see what happened. I do hope you enjoy seeing it as much as I did watching a lot of old friends reminiscing. There is a further selection here:

vimeo.com/120802473

vimeo.com/120179147

vimeo.com/120179146

And here's a video of John Duckmanton operating the Ampex VPR6 one inch machine that I used to transmit 'Top Gear' and 'Countryfile' on in the early 1990's:

vimeo.com/57325399

Paul

[Hugh Pearson]

Thank you for sharing these - always interesting to see just how some of this worked.

[Gary Critcher]

Bliemy. When I started in VT in TVC we were still recording the 'live' Wogans on two inch!

[Richard Marple]

That must have been late to used 2 inch tape in 1985, unless you mean the earlier versions of Terry Wogan's chat shows.

I'm basing that on the fact that Dr Who was using 1 inch by the autumn of 1983, or was that an early adopter?

[Gary Critcher]

Yes, I started in VT in 1983, so it was certainly being PasB'd on 2" at that point, not sure now how long for though.