Im going to edit an AMV on VHS with a setup that cost over $25,000 in the 90's

[justin_]

Hey guys! So i'm new to the forum, but I love anime and AMVs, i've made a few, and I have an interesting project that I am about to start on.

I have access to proper pro VHS edit gear that to the best of my research abilities likely cost about $25,000-$30,000 in the 1990's and I have about 75 anime VHS tapes (and I will be grabbing another 60 or so soon) so why don't I combine everything and make an anime AMV on 30K of edit gear like they did in the 90's?

So i'm going to take a Sony FXE-120 edit deck

Three Sony SVO VTRs (VCRs)

4-5 Sony 14" PVMs

A Videonices PowerScript character generator for subs and titles
(no photo, gray 1U box)
Special Effects Generator (don't know brand/model yet)
(No photo) Special Effects means spinning videos and fancy fades, remember this is the 90's
and some other gear

and make an AMV with it all.

Going into this I was looking around online to see if there was any videos about using the edit deck (I know people who used them professionally for years, but online guides would be cool) and I didn't see anything, I couldn't even find photos of a proper VCR edit station. So one thing I started wondering is if anybody would have any interest in me making a how to style video or some other video about the hardware itself.

I've yet to decide on a song, or even an overall theme, but im only just starting, and while I would like to be able to finish this by the end of summer I don't know if I will. Remember this is not digital editing, every time I want to use a diffrent clip I will need to potentially need to switch VHS tapes, and then find the right spot by fast forwarding/rewinding the tape. If I want to move a clip over a few seconds I need to record it to a diffrent tape, blank the first tape, the copy it back over. Plus all of this is real time. With digital editing you can drag a 45 minute clip to the timeline and it is there, with analog editing that will take 45 minutes to add to the 'timeline' VHS. Most of all is i've never used an analog edit system before.

Anyway, i'm going to be kinda busy the next 1-2 weeks so I don't think I will have the gear for 2-3 weeks or more, but this WILL happen.

Any thoughts or comments? Ask away!

[MaboroshiStudio]

If I only had a setup like this back in the 90s when I started... How did you get this btw and how much did it cost?

[MaboroshiStudio]

I made this live at AWA some years ago using a Laser Disc Player and a SVHS deck in I think about an hour. Someday we will have equipment for a Iron Editor duel using SVHS decks...

[CrackTheSky]

This is awesome and please post it here and on AMVCentral when you're done. Also this might be helpful, I don't know.

[MaboroshiStudio]

This is awesome and please post it here and on AMVCentral when you're done. Also this might be helpful, I don't know.

I love the douchebag / snarky introduction in that guide... hahah

[justin_]

If I only had a setup like this back in the 90s when I started... How did you get this btw and how much did it cost?

Well I work at a TV studio that has had it in storage for years and they are going to move buildings in a year so they are moving stuff to off site storage.

I am semi perminitly borrowing this stuff as I want to mess with it and they need a bit more storage, so it's free to me, but it's not really mine.

[justin_]

This is awesome and please post it here and on AMVCentral when you're done. Also this might be helpful, I don't know.

I don't know how much that will help for this gear, it's all timecoded and I can set the mark-in mark-out points and the edit deck will make the edit perficy to the frame every time. It can store up to 100 edits before it runs them through.

That was a fun read though

[justin_]

Ok a few quick updates/notes/revisions. First off it turns out that I got a bit confused, the Sony FXE-120 and the special effects generator are the same price, It can do editing and effects.

Next off I got what may be the first piece, or may not.

[a few more photos https://imgur.com/a/TMfOW56]
This is an NTSC Television Generator. What it does is many fold. First it generates a special video called Black Bar Burst that you put at the beginning of all of you tapes so that if you pull them out of the machine and put them back in they can sync up all of their time code so that 10:15:20 is always at the same part of the tape. It also uses the same video pulses to synchronize all of your systems, basically it is the master clock for your VCRs, edit deck, and any other devices like your character generator. It makes sure that everything is in sync so that the time on one tape matches the time on another tape and also helps to ensure that you don't stop playback in the middle of a frame (field) of video

Bit of a lengthy explanation... anyway I actually pulled this out of the main broadcast rack yesterday at work, but it hasn't actually been in use for years, just some legacy gear taking up space. You can tell because even though it was in the rack and connected to several devices it doesn't function, it doesn't output anything. So I decided to take a look at it and see if I can fix it up, if I can I may use it, and if I can't i'm sure they have plenty more around I can use. Just thought I would have some fun trying to see if I can get it to work.

[justin_]

So like I thought it took quite a bit of time to get the gear together and get it home, buuuuuuuuutt. IT'S HERE! So the hardware is not 100% what I had lited, and I currently only have 2 VTRs, but I am hoping to get another one before I get too far into this. Anyway I don't know how long it will take before I have anything to show, I have no idea how how most of this gear works. Anyway if you want to see how any of this works, let me know. When I was looking around I didn't really find any videos about this stuff so I might make a few YouTube series on the gear itself.

Here is the photo!

[seasons]

Are you going to sit in front of this while you work or what