Quadruplex Videotape - 2-inch Quad Today

2-inch Quad Today

2-inch quad is no longer used as a mainstream format in TV broadcasting and video production, having long ago been supplanted by easier-to-use, more practical and lower-maintenance analog tape formats like 1" Type C (1976), U-matic and Betacam. Television and video industry changes to digital video tape (DVCAM, DVCPro and Digital Betacam) and high-definition (HDCAM) have made analog tape formats obsolete.

When it was in use, 2-inch quad VTRs required ongoing maintenance, usually 3-phase power or one phase 220V to operate, plus an air compressor to provide air pressure for the air bearing that the spinning transverse headwheel rode on due to its high rotational speed (some quad VTRs, such as the portable Ampex VR-3000, used ball bearings instead due to the lack of availability of compressed air, but these wore out quickly).

Operation of 2" quad tape machines required the skills of a highly trained video engineer. When a tape is changed, the operator must spend as many as 15 minutes, and with problematic tapes possibly as much as half-an-hour, "lining-up" the VTR — that is, carrying out specialized technical adjustments to calibrate the machine to the tape before it is ready for playback and/or recording. Furthermore, because of the tendency of the settings of the analog electronics inside the VTRs to "drift" over time (often due to the heat generated internally), the machines had to be constantly monitored while in use, and recalibrated mid-session as necessary.

The few quadruplex VTRs which remain in service are used for the transfer and/or restoration of archival 2-inch quad videotape material to newer data storage formats, although mainstream TV serials from the 1950s to late 1960s have mostly already been remastered onto more modern media some years ago, even digitized within the last decade.