The U-Matic era was in Public Access Television with simple RM-440 controllers using non-frame accurate control track pulses for marking edit points.
Moving to two different local broadcast stations, the Betacam/ Type C era was with Ampex A-B editors with timecode and computer controlled edit decision lists and simple Grass Valley Model 100 switchers for wipes and dissolves. The match frame editing worked well, and the EDL worked for 'opening up' an edit to insert a new scene, but required a full new rendering to the recorder.
Our first NLE editors were Media 100s running on Macs with a small shared drive array that had just enough storage for the raw footage of about a dozen projects at a time, then eventually transitioned to Avid Xpress editors with a video server large enough to hold the entire station's video library. Not part of your video, but on-air playback also transitioned from computer controlled videotape playback using an Odetics robotic videotape handler, to having just interstitial spots on a video server but long format programs on videotape, to 100% video server.
Sadly, I am no longer in broadcasting. But read all of the trade magazines in the 1985-2010 era and closely followed the NLE development during that time. Thank YOU for the trip down memory lane.
Incredibly exciting! I was rank amateur but loved the whole field. I used to make the 1” broadcast repairman stay for as long as they paid him (half day or full day) to teach me about details. One of my most prized possessions was a timecode calculator. I am definitely going to get husband to respond to your post with the details of his configuration. He misses it to this day. If I ever find my white paper I’ll put it up on my site as a PDF.
My site has the most bizarre stuff from an 1802 book on how to collect electricity with your lightning rod and then use it to cure EVERYTHING, to the language reference manual we submitted for the contest to design the Department of Defense standard language. I adore bizarre and eclectic.
I’ve been hogging the editing system to make the Animal video and just got it up on YouTube, so I’ll go back and encode Part 1 of the non-linear demos. It’s Montage and the first part of E-Pix.
I worked with Quad, 1” inch, some 3/4, Beta SP & Digital, and DVC Pro.
The RM440 I learned how to use in the television curriculum at a tech college. I edited quite a few projects.
The AVIDs were becoming mainstream about the time I escaped the public TV world.
AVIDs were for the elite producer/director class and a couple of dedicated editors. Never mind most of them knew next to nothing about computers of any kind.
I did and even carried a few certs all paid for by myself. A couple of times an editor job came open. I went through the kubuki theater of the process. The end result - someone from outside that knew very little got the job. Typically that person was a pal of someone higher.