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The biggest week in electronic editing history arrived. CMX Systems debuted its random access video editing (RAVE) system at NAB in Chicago 1971. On March 28th the CMX System/600 was released publicly and with its futuristic console looked to have been taken straight from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Jerry Youngstrom recalls the launch:

Thanks to the hours of work put in by the skilled people at CMX, it was a major change from what had been available. The concept we had turned into a reality was a genuine leap forward from the Moviola.

The 600’s modern lines, state-of-the art monitors and light pen were far from the noisy and cumbersome design of the Moviola, or any electronic editing system. Lon Priest reviewed the CMX System/600:

With the light pen system, an editor can display in writing all the editing decisions he's made, the running time of the show as it is cut so far and the length of each individual piece he's added. Indeed, the light pen seems almost wand like in the hands of an editor.

By simply touching the appropriate word or symbol he can dissolve from one frame to another (no optical lab needed here); stop frames or run them slow, normal or fast backwards and forwards on either monitor; splice; view his built sequence in its entirety and then change it or erase it completely, almost as quickly as he thinks.

This solution has many advantages. For one, it is almost the fastest way to execute physically what the brain wants done. Also, at any given time in the editing process an editor is concerned only with those push buttons that relate to the task at hand.

Setting aside its outward appearance, the CMX System/600 (the System/200 Assembler was not displayed at NAB) represented a paradigm shift in editing and the role of an editor. CMX had split the editing workload between two distinct machines.

CMX stated explained that the 600 'Controller' was for offline editing and the 200 'Assembler' took an edit list and turned it into a high resolution video master. Akin to editing a film workprint and then producing a negative master.

The CMX engineers had known from the outset that it was not possible to store full frame high resolution images to edit with, but it was within the technical constraints to edit in an offline capacity.

To store and replay all the camera rushes, the 600 was linked to a stack of six Memorex removable storage platters which each held around five minutes of low resolution black & white video images plus the associated audio and time-code.

Because the Controller was using low resolution images, much like a film work print, Dave Bargen had invented an electronic method to read the final cut list and share it with the Assembler.

Bargen's critical invention, the Edit Decision List or EDL linked the two devices. Even though he was surrounded by brilliant engineering minds, Jerry Youngstrom is unequivocal:

Put simply, the CMX would not have shipped without Dave Bargen.

Engineer Gene Simon recalls:

Since the CMX 600 did not come close to broadcast quality video, it by definition was an off-line editor which needed another system to record (assemble) the creative edit decisions made using the CMX 600 onto a broadcast quality 2-inch videotape. Initially this was the CMX 200, which could only assemble the edit decision list (EDL) that was loaded via punched paper tape on a very slow ASR-33 Teletype. The CMX software was also installed into the PDP core memory from the painfully slow Teletype.

The paper tape EDL created by the 600 system was manually fed into the ASR-33 teletype and then onto the CMX 200 that controlled source and record two-inch videotape recorders to build the final program. CMX’s research had also discovered that the primary ‘sales negative’ that videotape editors had with their working environment was the noise of the traditional tape rooms.

CMX made a point of telling prospective customers that the console could be located 200 feet from the bank of disc drives. It went further in promotional material and proclaimed an editing console that was:

...designed by editors for simplicity and convenience. The easy-to-learn system completely frees the editor from any contact with hardware and from all laborious record keeping chores, which have been a distraction to the creative effort.

Art Schneider, the veteran Laugh-In editor recalls:

I thought what a great editing system! I wondered if I would ever get a chance to play with it.

CBS installed a CMX System/600 in a trailer on the Republic Studio Lot. The network had purchased the 70-acre lot outright from Republic Pictures in February 1967 and most recently had rented the space to independent producers like Mary Tyler Moore.

Jim Adams recalls:

The (Republic) system was managed by Al Malang and he was committed to the 600 and requested quite a few changes to the operating software.This entailed me shuttling back and forth between Sunnyvale and Hollywood frequently. Pacific Southwest Airways (PSA) flew from San Jose to Hollywood-Burbank several times a day for less than $17 each way.

One could purchase a booklet of tickets, and if you were at the gate before the plane left, you would get onboard. I often stayed overnight to get in two days of work at CBS.

A 200 was located in the basement at CBS's main office in Hollywood where they had a large number of VTRs for the recording of network programming for the west coast delayed broadcast.Three of these machines were allocated for the 200 to be used after the last programs were aired.This required me to work on the 200 very late at night when software changes were necessary.

The union operators of the VTRs were not pleased with the necessary cabling between 'their' machines and the 200, and the control cables and video coax would mysteriously disappear nightly. We actually had cots placed in the basement such that we could sleep there to 'guard' the cables.

CMX had successfully emulated film-style random access editing and enabled the first working generation of digital nonlinear editors but it had two immediate problems. A complete system that included the 600, 200 and Memorex disc storage was expected to cost between $400-500,000.

The second problem was more troublesome and one that Adams had seen at CBS itself. The broadcast television workplace unions didn't like the affect that CMX editing workflow could have on its members. Thomas Baggerman, Assist Professor of Communication, Capital University, wrote:

Today’s production environment owes a great deal to the CMX 600. A quick look at the broadcast schedule of the major broadcast networks and many of the cable networks shows a preponderance of single-camera production on videotape, a conceptual descendant of the introduction of the CMX editor.

Disk-based editing and nonlinear editing are now the norm for video production, with the CBS engineers’ dreams of freeing up videotape machines fully realized in the desktop Avids and Final Cuts.

Union dynamics have changed dramatically in the years since the CMX, usually in favor of the conglomerates and the CMX was an important catalyst in that change. A third of a century later, the repercussions of this impressive technology continue to resonate in our industry.