JVC SVHS
During the latter half of 1994, the Panasonic MS4 was coming under heavy use in the field, in the studio and for dumping down to the Umatic. At times these roles were competing and in some cases to the detriment of the camera. In order to save the tape mechanism, it was decided to look for a SVHS recorder. In January 1995, Owain Davies pitched the PRO entry level JVC SVHS machine to the station, in a manner, as some people commented at the time, to a double glazing salesman. The JVC SVHS was not a cheap option (in excess of 1000 pounds), however it was hoped save the life of the MS4's mechanics and allow programmes to be archived with minimal degradation, while also offering a long lifetime befitting a piece of PRO equipment.
The machine saw good service, and it's light weight allowed it to form part of the two camera cable system.
When the Sony Umatic edit suit was sold off by Chris Ward in 1999Unverified or incomplete information following the introduction of the Mac digital editing system, there was an obvious hole in editing capability for programmes that required only simple cuts rather than complex editing.
This prompted the purchase of a second JVC SVHS recorder. The original model had been discontinued so a comparable model was bought, the BR-S800Unverified or incomplete information, which also featured an RS232 link through which it was envisaged that BBC Schedula could play out material out of hours - this wasn't implemented.
Finally, at great expense, the original PRO machine and newer recorder were renamed as VTA and VTB and joined by an RMG800U edit controller. Initially this caused great problems as the tape tension was wrong on the PRO machine after a recent servicing at Savilles in Nether Poppleton, this took several more trips back to get corrected. Both Lolita and Vanbrugh Paradise made use of the new kit, partly because the version of Adobe Premiere on the Mac tended to lose lipsync with longer clips.
The shuttle controller behaved much like the Sony Umatic one which had preceded it, only this controller used a single jog controller and A/B switch rather than two jog controllers. However, the firmware in the RMG800U was missing one glaring feature, that was the ability to do subtractive edits (where the two out points are set, then one in point is set). Fortunately the controller used an NEC 78k clone (78214) so its ROMs were extracted and disassembled by Rob Sprowson, but time ran out and the patch was never finished before graduation.