International Video Corporation
The European versions of the IVC800 in PAL and SECAM were particularly popular in Great Britain, France, and Germany where IVC operated subsidiary companies.
Bell & Howell also provided some financial support to IVC in the founding days, as well as a number of key engineering and commercial staff.
The 800 series, together with spares, accessories, service and support, gave rise to revenues in excess of two hundred million dollars during the 20-year lifetime of the range.
The IVC 871 won the trials and subsequently became the “de facto” standard for education broadcast networks in Britain and most of Northern Europe.
In all of the competitive trials leading to multiple sales, the IVC800's 5.0 MHz bandwidth and high S/N ratio were unbeatable in 1” VTRs at that time.
but also designed and produced a range of complementary Digital Time Base Correctors, Dual Imaging Effects Units, and Zoom Machines.
IVC UK Ltd also re-engineered the IVC7000P broadcast portable colour camera in 1975 in order to meet the IBA code of practice.
The R & D and support operations at IVC UK Ltd were particularly strong and went on to engineer many other products, and product variants, not least of which was the world's first Digital Audio transport for Decca records, and then the supply of IVC9000 transports for the world's first Digital Video recording project at the famous Independent Broadcasting Authority research centre in the UK at Crawley Court.
IVC UK and Cox management advised Carlton that such a merger would not work well due to operational style and product overlap, but the advice was not heeded.
Vacuum column tape handling and modular plug-in electronics made the machine a delight to work with, and the multi-generation capability was exceptional.
It was extensively used in mastering and duplication centres where high quality coupled with long head life and low tape wear were important.
IVC UK also made video heads for the 1” 800 series in partnership with local glass bonding ferrite manufacturer Ferrac.
In the early 1970s, IVC entered into an arrangement with UK company Quantel for the design of a Digital Time Base Corrector (TBC) to enable the output of the 800 series VTRs to be synchronous with the studio drives, hence enabling mixing and switching as if the VTR was another studio live source.
Quantel subsequently moved into other areas of digital TV equipment and the arrangement terminated when the 2000/2001 design team left in 1976.
This resulted in an entirely new modular design concept leading to further groundbreaking digital TV products which included substantial software code.
The first resulting product was a dual TBC with picture-moving effects and mixing, the IVC Gemini, which was released at the 1983 Montreux TV Symposium to packed crowds.
It was capable of recording a 10 MHz bandwidth, designed for medical and scientific markets, but the US operation of IVC did not follow through with volume production.
The early color cameras were used in many institutional, scientific and medical applications and were also branded for sale by Bell & Howell.
