ElectroMotion was an animatronic control system developed in 1988 by Grant Schellekens and Todd Merrick, two employees of AHF Animation Productions based in Chula Vista, California. The system was developed for Virginia-based Carwardine Parks to combine video and audio for showtapes for their parks' animatronic shows and the animatronic shows of the company's then-two FEC chains Circus Playhouse & Food Emporium and Tex Critter's Pizza Jamboree.
It was similar in concept to Showbiz Pizza Time's CyberStar system, however ElectroMotion utilized Betacam SP and Betamax tapes instead of S-VHS tapes.
The system was succeeded by ElectroMagik, a more advanced system also developed by AHF, but some Carwardine Parks properties still used ElectroMotion systems up until 2006.
Overview[]
There are 2 (3 on Rock-afire Explosion and New Rock-afire Explosion installations) Sony BVW-75 Betacam SP tape decks and 1 Sony HF77ES Beta Hi-Fi VCR that run the showtapes. One Betacam SP tape deck runs the main showtape (a Betacam SP tape) and the second Betacam SP tape deck runs the special shows (birthdays, live shows, holiday shows, etc.). A third used on RAE and New RAE installations runs the Show Selector Mix tapes. The Beta VCR runs the backup showtape (a regular Betamax tape), used in case the main showtape is broken or has corrupted programming data. The showtapes contain show video along with the show's audio on the left surround and right surround audio channels, and inaudible programming signals on the center audio channel.
The two Betacam SP tape decks and the one Beta VCR are wired up to the ElectroMotion A/V Program Decoder, a decoder unit. The programming signals on the center audio channel are sent to the Decoder which retrieves and decodes the signals. The Decoder sends signals to the ElectroMotion A/V Router, which sends the signals to the character driver boards.
Trivia[]
- During the installation on AVG shows, the speakers behind each character were no longer needed due to the new sound system, and were thus removed or placed elsewhere in the store.
- The last ElectroMotion control system was removed in November of 2006, nowadays, the only places to find ElectroMotions are at museums or collector's houses.
- The system was patented by AHF/Carwardine Parks, thus making it exclusive to those two companies.