Timeline Analog 5. John Buck

timecode display, was simply "render it on the CPU, blast it to the video memory, done".

      Zahn registered Fast Electronics U.S. and rushed to deliver a product for IBC then NAB.

       As IBC approached we formulated our goal: To be perceived as a valid contender we had to show just one successful A/B roll edit during the press conference, be frame accurate, just once, not drop any frame during the transition effect and then play the recorded result back from the recorder to prove we could do it.

       Matthias and Ali stayed in Munich until the last possible minute the evening before the press conference. So far our success rate was low, really low. Typically we would crash to a blue screen halfway through the transition.

      The FAST team set up on the show floor of the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Congress Centre to program and prepare a “demo script” to emulate a working VM.

       Matthias and Ali set out with the latest software (no Internet, you had to copy this to 3.5’’ disk and physically take it with you) and headed straight to the press conference. We bagged it. We made one successful edit, of course we crashed at the end, but the computer screen was not shown and the video monitor showed the output of the recorder, so no one noticed that actually we had failed.

       The applause must have been deafening, we had proved we could do it. We immediately started to get flooded with orders. This truly was VideoMachine’s birthday.

       The next day everyone at the office was running around the office, wearing a huge constant grin in the face and a T-shirt with the newly developed VideoMachine logo and the simple statement “I am the one and only.”

      Two days after the IBC demonstration, the FAST team crashed from exhaustion. When they resurfaced, the NAB conference beckoned.

       We headed out to Las Vegas and NAB to conquer the American market.

      Laser discs had promised much in the Eighties to create 'film like' non-linear access to rushes. In January 1992, Pioneer demonstrated the breakthrough VDR-V1000 LaserRecorder at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. 'The LA Times' reported:

       The unit, the first laser recorder on the market, obviously is not aimed at the average consumer. "We just wanted to show the public how the technology in this area is advancing," said Mike Fidler, senior vice president of home electronics marketing for Pioneer.

      The device sold for $39,950 and each disc was $1,295. Meanwhile far from from Pioneer's CES booth, the Texan company Sundance prepared the Quicksilver video editing software for NAB. Principal Rush Beesley recalls:

       When we were demonstrating this system, a young and very progressive TV station Chief Engineer, David Gray from KESQ-TV in Palm Springs, saw the presentation and offered us a ‘sea-changing’ proposition. Pioneer had just released a two-headed laser disc recorder/player that used the two heads for random access, “non-linear” playback.

       He said he’d provide us with two of those machines for testing if we could interface our editing software to control them. His ideas were to get completely away from tape as a playback medium and use real-time digital playback for inserting commercials in his tape-based long-form programming.

      Beesley delivered a working prototype that utilized multiple Pioneer VDR-1000 re-recordable laser disk machines controlled by spot insertion software running on a Macintosh SE computer.

      Prior to that the industry adopted Sony Betacart machines preceded by Ampex’s ACR-25 TV spot playback.

      Sundance followed with a new version of the Quicksilver editing system. Billboard's review:

       The ability to spend less than $5,000 for an A/B roll suite where student interns could easily learn to edit led Aloha, Oregon's Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue Service, to order a Mac Classic II and Sundance video-editing software from Sundance Technology Group of Irving, Texas, for its 6-year-old S-VHS studio.

      Aloha's studio fed a closed-circuit channel communicating via INET (Institutional Network system) to fire stations in suburban Portland.

       The TV manager, Alida Thacher, wanted a system that would grow with the studio, which she runs with the help of a staff assistant and several student interns.

       "The advantage of using a computer system is your ability to purchase software upgrades rather than having to buy hardware, which our budget doesn't allow," Thacher said. "And computer editing is the way video is going."