old a/v effects boards and analog video

[pantaley shlopapa]

I'm looking to find a forum or at least a stepping stone to delve into analog video and whatnot. I'm not sure how to properly convey what I want beyond saying "shit you'd find in a mid-90s high school a/v room."

I need to learn more about effects boards, if that's even what they're called, as well as any software information or techniques you can share such as how to manipulate VHS magnetic tape and things of similar nature.

I basically just need a point in the right direction. Thanks

 

[knightly]

There really wasn't software to speak of back then... if you had a linear editing doohicky, it was a piece of hardware (pretty cool stuff too)... the easiest way is to get 2 VCRs and plug the output of one into the input of the other. The source deck loads your footage, play to just before your in point and hit pause... then in your destination deck, your tape is at the end of the last clip you've recorded... timing is everything:

Record and pause the destination deck...
play the source footage...
when you hit your in point on your source footage, unpause the dest deck...
pause the dest deck at the end of your clip...
cue up your next shot in the source and repeat until done with the edit...

as for an analog video switcher, check ebay, it does basically the same thing with 2 inputs and one output as mentioned above, but is generally made for live mixing of camera feeds down to a single output deck - although, you can use it to perform fades from one clip to the next from two source decks (more timing issues).

 

[pantaley shlopapa]

Cool stuff, I used to do that a few years ago just for shits and giggles but now I suppose I have a better application for it, lol.

What about adding things like text and visual effects? I hate to use it as an example since it's a different tone than what I'm going for but I need to achieve similar effects to what Tim and Eric use, more specifically the skits with Casey and his brother and their Channel 5 bumpers.

 

[knightly]

Most of those were done by pointing the second input at a card with the title on it, then using the mixer to comp them... most/all analog video effects are done as a live process.