Timeline Analog 2. John Buck

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СКАЧАТЬ the creative edit decisions made using the CMX 600 onto a broadcast quality 2-inch videotape. Initially this was the CMX 200, which could only assemble the edit decision list (EDL) that was loaded via punched paper tape on a very slow ASR-33 Teletype. The CMX software was also installed into the PDP core memory from the painfully slow Teletype.

      The paper tape EDL created by the 600 system was manually fed into the ASR-33 teletype and then onto the CMX 200 that controlled source and record two-inch videotape recorders to build the final program. CMX’s research had also discovered that the primary ‘sales negative’ that videotape editors had with their working environment was the noise of the traditional tape rooms.

      CMX made a point of telling prospective customers that the console could be located 200 feet from the bank of disc drives. It went further in promotional material and proclaimed an editing console that was:

       ...designed by editors for simplicity and convenience. The easy-to-learn system completely frees the editor from any contact with hardware and from all laborious record keeping chores, which have been a distraction to the creative effort.

      Art Schneider, the veteran Laugh-In editor recalls:

       I thought what a great editing system! I wondered if I would ever get a chance to play with it.

      CBS installed a CMX System/600 in a trailer on the Republic Studio Lot. The network had purchased the 70-acre lot outright from Republic Pictures in February 1967 and most recently had rented the space to independent producers like Mary Tyler Moore.

      Jim Adams recalls:

       The (Republic) system was managed by Al Malang and he was committed to the 600 and requested quite a few changes to the operating software.This entailed me shuttling back and forth between Sunnyvale and Hollywood frequently. Pacific Southwest Airways (PSA) flew from San Jose to Hollywood-Burbank several times a day for less than $17 each way.

       One could purchase a booklet of tickets, and if you were at the gate before the plane left, you would get onboard. I often stayed overnight to get in two days of work at CBS.

       A 200 was located in the basement at CBS's main office in Hollywood where they had a large number of VTRs for the recording of network programming for the west coast delayed broadcast.Three of these machines were allocated for the 200 to be used after the last programs were aired.This required me to work on the 200 very late at night when software changes were necessary.

       The union operators of the VTRs were not pleased with the necessary cabling between 'their' machines and the 200, and the control cables and video coax would mysteriously disappear nightly. We actually had cots placed in the basement such that we could sleep there to 'guard' the cables.

      CMX had successfully emulated film-style random access editing and enabled the first working generation of digital nonlinear editors but it had two immediate problems. A complete system that included the 600, 200 and Memorex disc storage was expected to cost between $400-500,000.

      The second problem was more troublesome and one that Adams had seen at CBS itself. The broadcast television workplace unions didn't like the affect that CMX editing workflow could have on its members. Thomas Baggerman, Assist Professor of Communication, Capital University, wrote:

       Today’s production environment owes a great deal to the CMX 600. A quick look at the broadcast schedule of the major broadcast networks and many of the cable networks shows a preponderance of single-camera production on videotape, a conceptual descendant of the introduction of the CMX editor.

       Disk-based editing and nonlinear editing are now the norm for video production, with the CBS engineers’ dreams of freeing up videotape machines fully realized in the desktop Avids and Final Cuts.

       Union dynamics have changed dramatically in the years since the CMX, usually in favor of the conglomerates and the CMX was an important catalyst in that change. A third of a century later, the repercussions of this impressive technology continue to resonate in our industry.

       CFI

      Youngstrom and Will Pearson made the trip to Consolidated Film Industries (CFI) in Hollywood in early June 1971 to install the first commercial CMX System/600. CFI had been in the film production industry since the 1930s and company president Sid Solow wanted to create a new facility to exploit the growing use of videotape. Art Schneider edited on the breakthrough device and described in his memoir, Jump Cut.

       If you wanted to find shot 27A-2, you would access the logbook and scroll down to that slate number. By merely touching the name 27A-2, the first picture frame of the show would instantly appear in a still frame on the monitor.From the time I touched the name with the light pen, it took only 1/70th of a second for the shot to appear.

       That's about twice as fast as an eye can blink. I could blaze through a sixty-second commercial in less than thirty minutes, with an unheard of technique of dissolves and fades.”

      New York businessman George K. Gould was looking to get a competitive advantage for his postproduction company Teletronics and bought a CMX System/600 to install at E. 51st Street. Gould, a television pioneer at CBS Inc., had established his first videotape production studio in 1957.

       We de-emphasize equipment here. When it comes time to edit you can just sit in a room with the edit, away from the machines. In fact we don't even charge by the hour, we charge a flat rate, it eliminate pressure and we still make out.

      Teletronics realized that the upkeep of the system was beyond its maintenance personnel. Robert Lund had spent five years at Bell Labs on the Picturephone project when he responded to a New York Times advertisement for a ‘video-computer engineer’.

      Lund was hired to maintain the CMX 600 and taught himself how to program its PDP-11.

       I made certain changes in the program. I added the ability to split scenes, to record over scenes, to make changes as we went along. The changes I made were mostly utilitarian modifications. It didn't radically change the things you could do but refined the process, providing access to abilities that were hidden in the computer.

      Lund remembers the CMX system in operation at Teletronics.

       The reaction of people who saw the 600 in action was (an almost eerie silence). Try to imagine a time when there were no computers around, NO digital video of any kind and you can envision the stunning effect of touching a screen with a "light pen" and immediately seeing the first frame of the selected take.

       It's still a concept that's unique. Within its limitations it's the best editing machine extant.”

      Another group viewed the CMX 600.

      Walter Murch later told Scott Kirsner about his experience alongside Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.

       “This is the future, I thought and it'll be here in five years. Francis and I produced a paper looking at the feasibility of using that machine to edit The Godfather.”

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