Anyone Bid on the ex-BBC Cardiff Studio Auction?

I knew about the auction, seems it's a good job I didn't comment about it to spare your bank balance.

Nothing there for me though.

nuvistor said
I knew about the auction, seems it's a good job I didn't comment about it to spare your bank balance.

Nothing there for me though.  

My bank balance thanks you! I would have liked to walk through before the auction started. Then I'd have to sit very, very, still.

Peaker Pattinson's auctions are usually carried out online, and there's no "sniping" like on eBay - a bid placed in the closing seconds will extend the auction by a few minutes.

This is the company that carried out the clearance auctions for Television Centre a few years ago: I picked up some kit from that auction, and also some ex-MoD kit in another - bulk quantities of Fluke 25 DMMs for example, and some lovely HP variable high voltage PSUs.

What struck me about the contents of the catalogue was that there's some kit listed that has clearly been sitting in a store or a bay for a *long* time - that Marconi synchroniser would be the best part of 30 years old for example. When I looked at the auction earlier in the month, as expected the items making good money were the LS3/5As and the EMT 950 turntable, as I expect the analogue audio kit would.

SD-SDI video kit is frankly, only worth its weight in scrap.

I though about bidding for something but after looking at the list I thought to myself what would I do with anything I bought? The answer was "nothing"! So I didn't bid on anything and consequently am a bit better off financially

I'm curious to know what use is a bog-standard VHS recorder to a broadcasting studio?

ntscuser said
I'm curious to know what use is a bog-standard VHS recorder to a broadcasting studio?  

They're old hat now, but they had plenty of uses: rushes for off-line viewing, or PasB recordings for legal purposes. Some early digital audio encoders recorded on standard video tapes: see Sony's PCM-F1 and others for examples. Or just cheap sources of off-air signals.

Cathovisor said

ntscuser said
I'm curious to know what use is a bog-standard VHS recorder to a broadcasting studio?  

They're old hat now, but they had plenty of uses: rushes for off-line viewing, or PasB recordings for legal purposes. Some early digital audio encoders recorded on standard video tapes: see Sony's PCM-F1 and others for examples. Or just cheap sources of off-air signals.  

Okay, thanks

Cathovisor said
Peaker Pattinson's auctions are usually carried out online, and there's no "sniping" like on eBay - a bid placed in the closing seconds will extend the auction by a few minutes.

I've only been in one traditional live auction room. I was worried that if I sneezed or scratched my ear I be on the hook for something expensive!

bulk quantities of Fluke 25 DMMs for example, and some lovely HP variable high voltage PSUs.

Cool! You can never have enough of those.

What struck me about the contents of the catalogue was that there's some kit listed that has clearly been sitting in a store or a bay for a *long* time - that Marconi synchroniser would be the best part of 30 years old for example.

I did a word search for Grass Valley and found some very old kit unused and "in original boxes" - wonder how that happened?

When I looked at the auction earlier in the month, as expected the items making good money were the LS3/5As and the EMT 950 turntable, as I expect the analogue audio kit would.

Ah, send in the Audiophiles...

SD-SDI video kit is frankly, only worth its weight in scrap.  

Exactly!! Time to restock the storage locker. When it's gone, it's gone!

The last SD TBC I landed cost as much in shipping as the winning bid.

ntscuser said
I'm curious to know what use is a bog-standard VHS recorder to a broadcasting studio?  

Sometimes home format tapes show up with "found video" for local news.

Here's one story. A local citizen was thinking of buying a video handycam and was in a high street retailer. He stepped outside to check the camera in daylight, and quite by chance, taped a building exploding across the street. (Illegal fireworks or something)

He bought the camera on the spot to get the tape and gave the tape to a local TV station. They aired the story. It was picked up by the network and replayed on the national news. He got a check for five thousand dollars!!

When I freelanced for WREX-TV the station was all analogue NTSC, and we were not allowed to play VHS or Beta to air unless it was bumped to type-C one inch VT.

FordAnglia said
When I freelanced for WREX-TV the station was all analogue NTSC, and we were not allowed to play VHS or Beta to air unless it was bumped to type-C one inch VT.  

Thus adding another generation to the material!

That reminds me of the alleged Sony marketing ploy to get the original Betacam format established in the field. There was no was of recording onto a Betacam machine in the studio as the only studio machine was a playback only device. This machine was used in an edit suit to playback the required material up to a 1" C format machine. Thus there was no way to go from Betacam to Betacam, the 1" machine was always the record machine in the suit. One always wondered, being somewhat cynical, why this was. It was, of course, nothing to do with the degradation of the material due to generation losses.

Brian Cuff said

Thus adding another generation to the material!

Think about it though, Brian - how many synchronisers could cope with the ropey syncs coming off a VHS machine? Not many... plus you and I both know that there have always been preferred media for playout - it's not that long (within our lifetimes) that film passed into history, and now file-based methods (MXF format) are the first choice, with HDCAM-SR being the tape format approved for transmission.

Another use for a VHS machine going back to my trainee days in a pre-automation world: assembling the ends of programmes onto a cassette for the continuity announcer to review so he or she knew where to make their announcements.

I certainly wasn't suggesting that VHS machines were used for any form of play-out except in extraordinary circumstances. I my experience, they were very much production department based equipment with very little use in technical areas except for dubbing from broadcast media to VHS for use off-line.