Photo by Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.
VT editor, Ian Collins, took a number of photographs of technical kit as Pebble Mill was being cleared prior to kit being auctioned off, or taken to the BBC Birmingham, Mailbox.
This photo is of an Abekas 8150, which was a DVE machine, used in some of the video edit suites at Pebble Mill. The digital switcher could do colour correction, as well as a variety of wipes and other digital video effects.
Ian Collins adds the following information: the Abekas 8150 is a Digital Vision Mixer and currently resides in the Drama Production Village (BBC Birmingham) Finishing suite, though not used very much these days as it is not HD. It had a companion DVE called a Dveous which again is at the Drama Production Village but not used any more. They used to reside in Pebble Mill VT17.
Jonathan Dick, added the following comment on the Pebble Mill Facebook group: ‘never had one of these in the galleries, but we had dual-channel Abekas A-51s in all the galleries from about 1992. They succeeded the rather more limited EFlex DVEs. I used to enjoy concocting wacky DVE effects for all the daytime shows on the A-51s. They would look VERY dated these days!’
I worked for Abekas in the early 1990’s and was the product manager for both the 8150 and the Dveous products. I was searching for a copy of the “Dveous Fun House” demo video, and ran across this page. There were great products in their day. Thanks for the nice writeup!
Hi David
Glad you found the post!
Best wishes
Vanessa
Thanks for the info on the Abekas 8150 and A51’s. If anyone reading this knows where a manual exists for the Abekas A51+ series please let me know, they are impossible to find and several of us collectors are actively seeking a manual for this series.