Ampex VR-2000 (1964)
A broadcast quadruplex recorder that made third-generation color copies practical and forced editors to anticipate their edits by two-thirds of a second.
Overview
Ampex introduced the VR-2000 in 1964 as its second-generation broadcast videotape recorder. It followed the VR-100, which had arrived fifteen years earlier as the world's first practical VTR. The company's own promotional literature made big promises: a recorder "so advanced it can make superb, broadcast-quality fourth generation black-and-white tape copies" and, for the first time, "superb, broadcast-quality third generation color copies." Collectors and broadcast engineers who worked with these machines tend to remember the engineering more than the ad copy. It was a new signal-handling standard, not an incremental tweak to the low-band designs that came before.
The core of the VR-2000 was a new high-band carrier/deviation frequency spanning 7.06 to 10.0 Mc. Ampex engineers arrived at it after what the company described as an exhaustive mathematical reexamination of the signal-handling theory behind every recorder built over the preceding nine years. That rethinking forced a completely new head assembly, a completely new mechanical design, and a completely new signal electronics system with built-in Intersync television signal synchronization. The published results were a signal-to-noise ratio up to 46 dB, basic frequency response to six megacycles depending on the standard used, and a transient response "K" factor of less than 2%. The literature described moiré as so minimal as to be virtually nonexistent. A frameby-frame animation capability was available when the machine was fitted with the exclusive Ampex Editec system.
Mix (November 1985, p.49) noted that solid-state design didn't improve picture quality but did make life easier for video maintenance engineers. It placed the high-band VR-2000 as the next step in the evolution of video recording, exceeding 5 megahertz. The machine's significance was less about raw picture improvement than about making high-band recording, and therefore multiple-generation copies, a practical broadcast workflow. By the time Beat Instrumental reported on the state of the market, more than 2,000 VR-2000 units were in use worldwide.
Electronic editing is where the VR-2000's limitations show. According to a period account by John Silva, Chief Engineer, the VR-2000's introduction made electronic editing practical thanks to a new solid-state servo, a solid-state signal system, and high-band recording. But the position of the video erase head relative to the video recording head meant the operator had to anticipate the edit point by two-thirds of a second. Since human reaction time varies, edits could not be made accurately. There was also no way to rehearse an electronic edit and then duplicate it exactly when actually recording. Ampex's answer was Editec, which recorded a pulse on the cue track to activate the electronic editor. It predated the time-code approach CBS and EECO developed in 1967.
DB Magazine (October 1970, p.39) described synchronization being maintained between a VR-2000 and an MM-1000 during programming segments. The operator compared, on a Tektronix oscilloscope, a 240-Hz signal recorded on the MM-1000's track 10 against a 240-Hz signal derived in the VR-2000's servo. The trace drifted as the two machines ran.
These are large, heavy, mechanically complex broadcast machines built around a rotating head assembly and a servo system that expects a trained engineer nearby. The VR-2000 was the recorder that made high-band color workable for teleproduction, but today it is a restoration project, not a plug-and-play collectible. Parts scarcity, head wear, and the infrastructure required to run one are the problems. Ampex's own words called it "the turning point of what can only be called a new era in television tape technology."
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