Pre-digital. How were videotape masters for duplication distributed?

[lingyi]

The thread about how Macrovision was added to videotapes brought up a thought. Pre-digital, if you didn't have a production/duplication house create your videocassettes, in what format were the masters received? 1" machines were very expensive, but maybe BetaSP, et.al. analog formats? And prior to that U-Matic?

For the actual duplication, in the pre-contact printer era, I'm sure there were banks of VCRs feed by distribution amps.

Once the duplication process was completed, what happened to the master/intermaster? I'm guessing it was locked away, as evidenced by some high and sometimes mediocre quality masters/intermasters being found in someone's basement/attic.

Edit: If the video didn't belong to whomever was doing the duplication, I'm guessing the master/intermaster was returned to the copyright holder.

[lordsmurf]

Pre-contact, duplicates were from non-VHS masters, using a bank of VCRs. But that was short-lived, contact came soon after.

Ultra low budget was like that until the end.

[lingyi]

Forgot about this thread in which you and I participated. I forgot that Cornucopia answered my subject question there!

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/396464-Macrovision-question

[aramkolt]

Forgot about this thread in which you and I participated. I forgot that Cornucopia answered my subject question there!

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/396464-Macrovision-question

That's a very interesting thread. I had kind of assumed that it wouldn't be worth setting up the "contact printing" machine (what I was calling a "magnetic master before" haha) for small runs 20-50k tapes for blockbuster movies sounds crazy to me, but yeah, that'd take forever on individual VCR machines.

Interesting in particular they did have a "macrovision generator" box that was macrovision branded. I mean, it does make sense that you'd be able to replace certain lines of the VBI with different repeating signals, but even then, it would require that the recording machines had AGC disabled somehow to not cause a problem during recording it.

Many commercial macrovision releases have other visible text or logos buried within the VBI usually off to the right of the macrovision signal. I assume is more for tracking in terms of which machine or production house made the tape (watermarking), but it's really something you'd never otherwise see without HV delay or a full frame viewer. When there's custom visible text, I'd assume some macrovision generators must have had customizable options.

As for integrating the macrovision signal on the master, I think you still could, most of the professional TBCs have options to turn on or off VBI blanking, so you wouldn't automatically lose a macrovision signal if present.

[lordsmurf]

As for integrating the macrovision signal on the master, I think you still could, most of the professional TBCs have options to turn on or off VBI blanking, so you wouldn't automatically lose a macrovision signal if present.

That wasn't the order of operations. The master was clean (and non-VHS), then Macrovision appliance, then distributed, then recorded by often-customized VTRs. There's no reason to have Macrovision (or other anti-copy) embedded in a master.

[lingyi]

Being careful with my words. Wouldn't the Mother Mirror tape (which would be the the duplication master?) for contact printers have to include the Macrovision in the VBI?

https://www.digitrakcom.com/TechDocs/SONYsprinter.pdf

[aramkolt]

That's a pretty interesting machine! 240x realtime duplication and the "Mother mirror tape" is just kind of loosely stored in a container so that it can be continuously looped? Interesting to think that most blockbuster/commercial releases were probably put on the tape in only 30 seconds? This kind of also suggests that the mother mirror tape does not rapidly lose its magnetism if its doing new "printings" of the full run of tape every 30 seconds for a 2 hour tape. Sounds like one such tape could make theoretically up to around 3000 copies of a 2 hour loop PER 24 hours with the "mother magnetic mirror" tape. Still think it'd be pretty cool to see one of these machines in action in video somewhere.

[aramkolt]

I guess this video explains all of this, would just turn on closed captions and auto translate to English:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvLXuFSogw0

Part 4 discusses the contact printing method which apparently also requires the blank tape to be heated by a laser and then allowed to cool while still in contact with the master mirror tape.

[lordsmurf]

I guess this video explains all of this, would just turn on closed captions and auto translate to English:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvLXuFSogw0

Part 4 discusses the contact printing method which apparently also requires the blank tape to be heated by a laser and then allowed to cool while still in contact with the master mirror tape.

That's a great find. (How did you find it?)