Pan Am Training Video: Trans Com Video Entertainment System (circa 1980s)
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- čas přidán 8. 05. 2022
- This was played during purser training as pursers bore the responsibility of operating the movie projector in flight.
Special thanks to Linda Reynolds for saving a collection of safety and training VHS tapes from the Pan Am Training Academy in Miami, Florida after the airline closed on December 4, 1991.
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Forcing the tape can cause a cabin depressurization
If you force the tape through a window, depressurization is assured.
It seems that this VTP (which he calls a VTR) is called "quad" not because of the tape size (it plays a Beta Max cassette), but because it works with four television systems (PAL, SECAM, and two NTSC).
VTR=Video Tape Reproducer. It's an IFE term. The multi-track tape or multi-disc CD player used for the audio channels is an "audio reproducer". Nowadays you have "digital media reproducers".
@@straightpipediesel , how can we tell whether the author meant "reproducer" or "recorder"?
It also played VHS; it had two tape decks. Somehow my uncle had one of the tape players used in this system when I was a kid in the 90's him and my aunt used it to watch vhs and beta max tapes from England.
@@smadaf I would not expect these units to record... they are only meant to reproduce (or play) tapes. There's no need to record for play-only units on an aircraft.
An actual Ampex Quad VTR would have been quite a sight installed on a jetliner, with all the size and weight of the machine, power requirements and also compressed air needed well above cabin pressure. It also requires a skilled operator to get it even working.
It initially made also me think that there is a mistake in the video as they call Betamax "quad", but the 4 formats explain.
But just those CRT projectors are so heavy that this arrangement surprised me a bit, even though it is from ages when nobody cared about jetliner fuel consumption.
My friend once had an Electrohome CRT projector looking very similar to the ones seen in the video, and he told me that it required more than 2 persons to get it installed into his apartment's roof.
I have watched a movie in that particular home theater and the contrast and black level were just incredible, though in an jetliner cabin it would be probably not be possible to set ambient lighting so optimal.
I remember these systems as a kid flying in the late 80s and in the 90s… Projection system onto a screen… Passengers on the front rows right in front of the screen would suffer and passengers on the sides would also find it hard to watch whatever movie was playing. Those were the days of listening to the airline’s radio channels (lots of comedy albums!) and/or reading books/magazines for the whole flight. And yeah, depending on whatever audio those flimsy headphones had as well.
Walkman heaven. In 1981 I flew west from CA to DC and listened to Fair Warning (Van Halen) ..
I dreaded the flights because all they would show were nature documentaries, end even for that you'd have to stick your neck out to watch (I was very young AND very short, so...). I remember getting so excited when they finally played a movie - Sneakers - back in the early 90s! Times have changed (thank god :-)
One plane I went on was like that, bust most of the ones I was on either had a huge crt hanging from the ceiling near the exits or seat back tvs. And even though it was a lot later, the headphones were still awful. Something to collect though! Alitalia had the most interesting type, they looked like stethoscopes!
For those eastbound flights we will be presenting working girl starring Melanie Griffith. Those going westbound will see Twins staring Danny Devito and Arnond Schwarzenegger. Headsets are available from your flight crew for $2.
During the film, your flight attendant will distribute application forms for our Pan Am MasterCard Gold with a special 14.99% introductory APR. You must have an annual household income of at least $35,000 to qualify for this prestigious card.
After making your first $5000 purchase with your MasterCard Gold card, you'll receive a bonus 35,000 points valid on any domestic flight Pan Am serves within the Tri-State area.
@@tommcmichael5278 honey where is your pen?
I have to return some video tapes...
@@DVincentW BE KIND! REWIND!
They sure made turning on and hitting play sound hard 😂😂
Just goes to show how much more technical we've become in the last 40 years!
We are glad to present in our flight "Final Destination"
In the meantime, enjoy this hit by John Denver... Then Buddy Holly.
those pneumatic headsets with the foam eartips that ultimately dug in to your ears
THANK YOU for posting these videos! I was a Flight Attendant for a major, US-based international airline in the late 1990’s and my training instructors (Zack, Mary, Edna) were all former Pan Am legends. These videos are classic and noteworthy. Keep up the good work!
It’s because PanAm has an archive posted on CZcams.
Did you fly for Allegiant?
@@natelong852 they started in 97
You're allowed to say which airline you worked for you know? 😆 it doesn't have to be a secret, unless you want it to be.
American's DC-10's had a camera in the cockpit that was used to feed the projectors during takeoff 😎
This should be required by law lol
@@LemonToGo just makes me wonder what everyone on American 191saw...RIP 🙏
@@brentboswell1294 I could have gone without that thought. ...RIP
Lufthansa has (or used to have, it has been a while since I last boarded one of their longhaulers) several cameras on their 747-8 and A380 models, including one that is mounted on the top of the tail fin. Now THAT is a view for a landing... Better than what the two people in the very first row get IMHO😍
Almost all planes today have that, luckily (except you can also switch to different camera positions, e.g. gear, wings, tail)
I remember these well - first saw them on the A300 and A310. Huge improvement over the god-awful film cassettes we had on the 747.
Damnit Carole , you forgot to turn on the quad VTR again!
The movie she was playing was Arthur with Dudley Moore 1981.
Remember the stethoscope noise cancelling headphones they used to pass out?
Since when those pneumatic headphones were noise cancelling?
@@rybaluc I was joking about that part. You could hear every background noise with those headphones.
I Remember flying on Qantas here in Australia in the late 90s and they still had CRT projectors on the 747s, genuinely had no idea how they stayed in convergence, A friend i knew had one in their home theater and it was hard enough to keep that thing in check let alone one thats flying around on a plane.
As a child, I flew from LAX to Sydney, and the plane had CRTs. Over the course of the flight, the video quality degraded till it was almost unwatchable at the end of the flight. I remember as we disembarked, they restarted the system, all the screens degaussed, and the image came back into focus.
I like when she got close to the 4 incher
LOL
She got pretty close to almost everything. I guess she was pretty short-sighted.
My right ear loved this video.
My right ear really likes this video. Yay mono to stereo.
An NTSC Betamax tape would be a bad enough picture to begin with, but blow it up on a big screen and would look pretty ropey. CRT projectors were impressive at the time if correctly aligned / converged, preferably in a fixed home theatre set-up. But I'm not so sure about maintaining convergence on a CRT projector in a jet which occasionally has hard landings, frequent temperature changes, and wobbly flip-over screens. I bet the colours and lines were all over the place and the maintenance teams would have been very busy constantly trying to re-align / converge the RED GREEN and BLUE tubes and lenses due to gradual movements. They are generally very sensitve to small shifts in alignment. I remember flying a lot in the 1990s and 2000s on plenty of old BA 767s, and some US and Australian airlines that had conventinal CRT monitors in the ceilings. Even those screens were badly affected by magnetic changes and always suffered from RF interferance. I always remember it being disappointing.
you never noticed the poor quality because at the time there was nothing to compare it to
At Beta1 speed it would look fine..
Agree if it was recorded on Beta3 speed..
@@festusbojangles7027the long haul flights I remember in the 1980s (Air New Zealand with 747s) had both projectors (for those seated in the middle) and CRTs in the aisles (for those seated near the sides). The CRTs seemed considerably brighter and sharper than the projected images, although everything went out of adjustment as we travelled around the earth’s magnetic field. It was all rather terrible even at the time (I remember not being able to hear clearly), but better than nothing, and no-one had handheld TVs :)
I am falling in love with this channel. Thanks for publicly preserving aviation history gems!
Quad VTR is self feeding...unlike other front loaders 😂
how far we have come is amazing
So cool to see this!
Great commercial ever. Thank you.
I remember this type of video system when flying in the good old days, and wearing those funny plastic headsets.
When I flew with Air Canada in 2005, they still had the in-flight movies. The start of the flight would have a special in-flight edition of CBC News, followed maybe by Radio-Canada. The first two audio channels were for the original audio of the news reports. But for movies, channel 1 would be the English audio, and 2 would be for French. The rest of the 10-something channels were different styles of music.
Thank you.Nice treat.Nice demonstration ..Did not know that the purser did the job running it..
Thanks goes to Ms Reynolds for save these videos from going in to the rubbish or somebody recording their favorite TV shows on them.
my right ear really enjoy this one :D but, cool video, thanks! the 3-Röhren Beamer i used by myself long times ago :D
Great Channel. I never got to fly Pan AM since I was a kid, but always heard everyone loving it! This is when flying was done with class! Everyone was dressed nicely and no one was picking fights on a plane or looking like they just got out if bed!!
That's not true. You were a kid, how would you know? It was a lot more expensive to fly back then, but there were still plenty of people picking fights and looking like they just got out of bed. People haven't changed that much.
I remember several flights from Chicago to Madrid in a 747 that used this system. On Ibera the headphones were these weird tube things that connected to the arm rest where the speaker actually was.
Lol even well into the 90's as a kid I remember taking a few flights on Ansett planes that used the old "stethescope" type headsets. First time flying on a plane that didn't use them was an Air NZ 747 in 1995 that used regular headphones.
@@davidshepherd265 As a kid, the only way I figured out where the sound came from was to put my ear to plug on the armrest.... I just had to know how those things worked.
"Airphones" they were called. Even in the late 70s some airlines were already offering electronic headsets in first & business.
You could kink the tubes and stop the sound on these air type headphones aswell
i remember that I figures out that I could roll a piece of paper up into a cone, and then stick the narrow end into the hole the headphone plugged into, and I could then hear the sound without needing headphones ;) It acted like a horn on an old victrola phonograph
Transom was state of the art system and expensive
So, are they launching the space shuttle or playing a video tape?
Ah, memories.
I remember flying to and from Europe in the early and mid 80s as a kid a few times with my family.
In flight is where I saw for the first time: Trading Places (Eddie Murphy, Dan Ackroyd), Chariots of Fire, and Evil Under the Sun w/ Peter Ustinov.
I’m completely shocked they managed to get front projection systems working in an aircraft environment, especially with three lamps to keep in alignment! I’d always thought movies were shown through a classic projector before seat-back screens came into being! 🛫📽😮
Any idea how much space and weight the VTR hardware took up? In this video the setup is a non-aircraft installed training/demo rig, but I doubt they’d let any hardware be so spread out in the aircraft itself. Even back then, every inch of space had to be paid for, and unless you’re the only airline with on-board movies that equipment isn’t netting you any extra dollar! 💰
Those aren't lamps, they are three CRTs! CRT projectors were commonplace for video until LCD projectors got better in the mid '90s or so
What you may not understand is that back in the day, airline prices were regulated, so airlines had to stand out with service and amenities. Although this video is from a post-deregulation year, many airlines continued to try and offer better service than the others for a number of years into that era. Showing a movie, even one that may still be in the theater, was a common thing on long flights back in the day. If you went to Hawaii, you'd see several films.
I flew on a number of 747s in the 80s and 90s that had a projector like this in each section, and even on a few other models that were similarly divided into sections. One time they even had the gear on a cheap charter 727 flight down to Mazatlan. There was the one control unit located in a galley, normally with the tape deck right by it, and that system fed signal to the projectors and speakers in each section.
I remember flyting to California via Dallas Ft. Worth from Frankfurt/Germany as an 11 year old in 1987. The airline was Amerian Airlines, not Pan Am, but the projector looked just like the one shown here. Three huge lenses, I found that very impressive. They played "Legal Eagles" on the system.
i remember projectors like this in flights as late as 2005
And in just 38 simple steps you too can operate a VCR
Sweet...
The Trans Com
Hello everyone this is your daily dose of Recommendation
Oooooo... I want one! Now I know how to use it too!
What happened if you don’t rewind did the passengers each pay a dollar.
be kind -- rewind. :)
They tack on a .50 cent rewind tax on every ticket....LOL....................
I had such a projector in my home cinema
Rumor has it that in her free time from flying, she repaired neighbors' TVs. And during the holidays, at the speed of light and with her eyes closed, she refilled the film in cinema theaters with IMAX
Watching this progrem on my 4 inch monitor.
yooo this new analog horror goes hard!!
Just a rebadged SONY Betamax? I was expecting something more exotic. Cool video!
I was a FA for a major carrier in the mid 90s for about 10 years. These systems were never intuitive. You really needed to know your procedures on how to operate them.
Dam this system looks like it would overheat lol. Also I like how the tapes need to be kept behind lock and key hahaha
Oh a Betamax!
Planes originally had actual film projectors. This was a big upgrade
i took notes
Can I get the Beta airplane version of "Airplane!" please!
Surely you can't be serious!
@@offrails Don't call me Shirley :p
"excuse me, are you a doctor?" ..
How do you display the Airshow Moving Map?
Step 1: Get a newer system.
When done, come back and ask again. 🤣
With a paper map, a pencil, and a really good eye. And a window seat.
"Your in-flight movie today is Fearless!"
Got any door training videos? In particular L-1011?
People are spoilt these days being able to chose what and when to watch whatever. I remember getting to my seat and planning out the flight what times id have to watch the video I wanted to.
In reality, if you are using your phone, you have much less control over what you watch.
@@DVincentW Very much not true, i have lots of control over what i watch on my phone,
Amazing how they now just have you download an app on your personal device to access the in flight enrollment
This disappoints me as someone who only flies a few times in life. It feels less pleasant and less magical.
If they don't want a screen in every seat, at least I wished it was a shared screen like the system shown in the video.
@@NopWorks Heh, so if you're sitting too far from the screen you can't see anything, or other people's heads are in the way? No thanks, I've flown on a couple flights long ago that had CRT projectors - wasn't great. I'll take a tablet with my own content and good picture and sound quality and that doesn't get interrupted by the announcements, and I can start watching at the gate and keep watching until we're at the other gate any day thanks.
The announcer keeps saying there are two types of VTRs, but they cut out all references to the other one...
Yeah what's the deal with that
The other one can only be used by Level 20 Flight Attendants and above. 🤣
@@Colaholiker the other one records the flight attendants to make sure they're using the first one correctly
The one on the left was a Philips VCR, Video Cassette Recording, player. It came out in the 70's and used two stacked reels. See Techmoan for a overview.
This inflight entertainment system may seem advanced for its day but appears to be so old fashioned compared to the highly sophisticated inflight entertainment systems available nowadays.
You mean the one where you bring your own tablet loaded with content you actually want to watch that has good quality audio and video and isn't interrupted every 15 minutes by some useless announcement? Yes, how far we've come!
😂😂😂 they literally keep the tapes locked up 🤣🤣🤣
The narrator is so serious like one mistake could cause the wings to fall off
Lots of Sony equipment in there -- I also wonder if that 4 inch video monitor is really a SONY "Indextron" display.
Probably. Sony ended up buying Trans Com from Sundstrand in 1989, then ended up selling them to Rockwell Collins in 2000.
My right ear really enjoyed this video...
My right ear enjoyed this
I miss the grainy VHS noise on the v-v-video!
That system used Beta. You can see the logo on the cassette. 🤓
But being analog video, it was also noisy.
I wonder if any examples of these systems survive.
Techmoan should get on it if he already hasn't
@@visionist7 LOL when I watched the video, he came to my mind as well. He's the type of guy who would install that in his garage... Jokes aside, those systems designed for aircraft use have very strange power requirements, something around 400 Hz odd-voltage AC, that you won't find on the ground, so they are really hard to get working outside of an aircraft.
@@Colaholiker It's 110-120 V, 400 Hz.
@@straightpipediesel When you live in the 230V part of the world, 110-120 V AC is odd. 😅
However, unless the device has a switch mode power supply and rectifies the input right away, running a 400 Hz device at home is not a trivial task.
Are you guys aware your videos lack a left channel? Just set the video audio to mono.
_Ladies & gentlemen, tonight's film will be Passenger 57 starring Wesley Snipes and a ravishing young Elizabeth Hurley. Please be informed this film contains scenes of an aircraft in distress. Discretion is advised._
But how do you get it to stop flashing 12:00 ?
would the tape still play during heavy turbulence? I can't remember now.
Thinking about how VTR transports work: Probably a lot better than modern disc-based media! Except that a VTR is about 20-40x the size & weight of a modern laptop blu-ray drive, and any modern operator will put weight (And fuel savings) way ahead of resilience! 💽
Of course, the most appropriate option would be just having the movie on an SD card… 😉
@@dieseldragon6756 shaking around the crt tubes in the projector though ...
@@mipmipmipmipmip Yeah, that won’t do them any good. Given just how close to tolerance modern projectors drive their lamps, I don’t think modern projection systems would work well on aircraft either! 🛫↕️😯
Besides: There’s no way a single projector and screen would work on todays aircraft when most passengers have their own screen, could (And would expect to) stream their own choice of content from a media server on the plane, and those pax without a device can always be lent a tablet for the flight. 📱🎞😇
One of my grandma’s friends has this in their mansion on the basement. I thought to myself, “What in the world is this?” I thought it looked really cool, but now I look at as “wow that’s a giant projector there”
Does she have to lean forwards for the entire duration of the procedure for the benefit of the by standing steward?
Something about 80s flight attendants...
It seems like they made this amazingingly complicated for playing a video tape
Welcome to aviation. You should see the paperwork involved with just changing a light bulb.
These were on PLL LOT 767s in the 90s. Once, the president (Lech Walesa) was on the same flight as I was on (got a pic with him) , they removed the projector from the economy class and moved it up to business class because that's where he was and that one was broken. So, 1/3rd of the plane went without the in-flight movie.
I find it hard to believe that stewards / stewardesses removed a projector from one section and moved it to another section. Your story sounds like complete BS. They were mounted to the ceiling, not something easily moved.
@@gorak9000 They removed the innards, it does open up in a clamshell manner. Whether you believe me or not, it does not change the fact that I saw it occur lol. My dad also saw it happen, as he was the station manager for YYZ cargo at the time, so did a handful of others - how else did I get a picture with Lech Walesa aboard the craft?
Idioto zajebany :P
It was a joint venture between Sony and Rockwell, hence the use of Betamax.
That makes sense. I’d assume the CRT projectors are made by Sony
You're thinking too late. You can see from the logos (7:58) it was when Trans Com was part of Sundstrand. Trans Com started with 8 mm film. In the video era, they cozied up with Sony, which ended up buying Trans Com in 1989. Sony Trans Com was then bought by Rockwell a decade later in 2000.
3:02 Betamax!
Howard Hughes..." imma build a hugeamongous plane out of wood and fly round the world.....round TRIPP ..."
Juan Tripp..... "Surely you cant be serious... "
Howard Hughes..." I am serious.. and don't call me Shirley "
It'll fly to the Belgian Congo in 18 minutes! (sic)
😂😂😂😂😂
That flight attendant is amazingly slow.
How long would my job last as a flight attendant, if I stuck my personal copy of Deep Throat into the Trans Com Video Entertainment System, started the tape and then locked the cabinet, so the passengers can enjoy the movie without interruption?
Or playing old Gene Wilder films - crap I forgot he said the "N" word and he played black face - I should have just played Willy Wonka!
Don’t forget to turn the PA on to maximum volume
No, no, no! The training video told us not to do that! Do you want us to get into trouble?
Naturally, by not getting caught. We live in the times of alternative truths, remember?
@@frankh.2669 Yes. If I was a flight attendant, started to get tired of the job, just won the lottery and wanted to leave with a bang. Maybe? If not, "I thought the tape had 'An Officer and a Gentleman' on it, along with ESPN highlights, as I told the passengers when we took off. There must of been a mistake at the Trans Com Video offices. That tape must have been mixed up with one sent to the strip club." Mistakes happen. ;)
Anyone know what company was contracted to develop the Trans Com system? GE? Sony? Westinghouse? JVC?
Tandy Corp, Magnavox, Montgomery Wards, Sears. Low budget here folks.
That "Quad VTR" is actually a modified Sony SL-T50ME Betamax VCR. Quad or Quadruplex refers to the 2"-wide tape format by Ampex.
Trans Com was originally owned and operated by Sundstrand (you can see their S logo in the video), but I guess all the AV hardware was Sony (the tapes were Beta after all) and in 1989 Sony acquired Trans Com and it became Sony Trans Com. Later it was sold again to Rockwell.
@@KarlBaron this is why i troll the comment section-- to find diamonds such as your comment!!!
@@crashbandicoot4everr I'm pretty sure the "quad" refers to four video standards. NTSC 3.58 & 4.43, PAL, and SECAM.
Ampex never made a quad VCR.
I’m sorry the tape has broke so we can’t show any films
6:05 WOW they used Betamax instead of VHS.
And from the look of it, the other deck might have been Video8, which ultimately became the standard in airline video until digital came along.
@@tookitogo Yeah but Video8 came out 10 years after the Betamax. Also that mini 4 inch CTR looks like one of the Mini Sony Trinitrons. And Sony was the one who also introduced the Betamax. But during the mid 80's after the big format war VHS became the dominate winner for home media. Although Video8 and Betamax was around they didn't have a huge big notoriety for home entertainment HiFi systems.
@@michael1234252 That’s all factually correct, but what’s your point? This video is from the 80s, most likely after Video8 debuted, and the tiny deck they first point to (when saying there are two players) is decidedly too small to be Betamax or VHS.
That’s not Video8, that’s Philips VCR, Video Caseate Recording. It used two stacked reels. Look it up on Techmoan’s channel.
@@sarahl7080 Ooh, good catch! (I’ve seen the techmoan video about it.) Is this a suspicion or do you have concrete knowledge that that’s what it was? I wish this training video was sharper - the closest image of that deck is at 1:01. The only thing that gives me pause is that I’m not aware of any front-loading decks for the VCR format. Is that one a top-loader mechanism with basically a hood over it?
I remember these
Poor PanAm is gone. Just sold to CSX
They are moving the locomotives are being moved south, through Binghamton. Not sure where they are going from there.
They are using BNSF, NS and other foreign power
You needed to hire a dang engineer just to watch a movie
doesn't look any worse than operating a stereo in the 70's.
Really? Audio only on the right Channel?
my right ear hurts
Why am I watching this?
top 10 movies not to wacht in Flights
Why did I watch this
Those echo tubes for the sound were HORRIBLE! I could barely understand what people were saying.
Anybody else get stoned and watch these videos lmao??
This and many...
Not me!! Hahaha Harupff..
1. I always assumed the pilot controlled it.
2. I didn't realize planes in the 80s had those cheesy drop ceilings.
3. It's just a Betamax. Why do they make it seem like it's the Starship Enterprise or something? You pull the screens down, pop in the tape and press play.
4. They keep the tapes in a safe? Seriously?
About 3 - absolutely. 8 Minutes of instructions, filmed at a time when I would think most households had a VCR at home, so any adult person would be familiar with their operation, which only leaves the power switching and projector source selection to be explained.
Today's in-flight entertainment systems are so much more complex, even from a passenger perspective, but you don't get any training.
4. Yes. Even today, movies come out on in-flight entertainment during the window of time after theaters and before home video (streaming)... at least 1-3 months before stores. That made it popular for theft, it was a secondary reason why they used weird formats like Beta and later Video 8. Some illegal rips on the Internet show things like "Property of United" for this reason. I remember when Titanic was shown in flight, it was a big deal.
Where’s the WIFI button to get CZcams up?
映像の字幕が日本語っぽい
I didn’t know that airplanes have tv projectors
This seems like A LOT of very complicated work just to play a movie on what is essential a “big screen” TV.
I wonder how many FA’s got confused by all this “modern technology.”
It was confusing to me and I have a phd in a tech field ;) Considering there were a million other tasks to take care of, I'd say respect for any FA that had to operate this monstrosity.
And
Worst movie I've ever watched on a plane was "Alive"!
So this is the system the Wright brothers had on their plane?
More like 1970s