Ampex 1" type A

[Hanuman]

Originally Posted by ppppenguin

C format was developed by Ampex from A format. Sony made C format machines later. In the UK Marconi made (or at least badged) C format machines which looked rather like Ampex. Were there any other makers?

I thought that C format was a compromise standard (hence the German fellow's joke) nutted out between Ampex and Sony after they'd both built very similar but incompatible VTRs: the VPR1 (Ampex) and the BVH1000 (Sony).

There was certainly an RCA type-C, the TR800, of which I saw 2 examples in the Channel 10 Melbourne Videotape department in 1982. I didn't join the Tape department until 1983 by which the time the '800s were long after being sent back to RCA so I never operated one myself but I did see them in operation and they were not well-liked. In the days before Sony's movable guides (on the BVH2000) threading a 1-inch C was never a particularly quick task and it was particularly awful on the TR800.