Sony VP2000 U Matic no playback 4K

An old Sony 3/4" Umatic gets a quick service

[@d.a.d.divorcedanddetermine8385]

When I worked at a TV station in San Antonio back around 2009 they still had one working Umatic deck and I would get old tapes and just gush over all the history that was on those tapes.

[@Raw774]

You're legitimately a wizard

[@fadhlematrook1248]

yes its little deferment from other u-matic its like sanyo beta vcr half threading and u-matic futures coooool clean by finger

[@FindLiberty]

NICE! In the 1970's, Fuji brand 3/4" U-matic tape always gave the best results to prevent head clog. Back then, other problematic tape brands caused high abrasive wear and/or would clog the heads frequently; add a half-century of time and all those old tapes will have even more video head clogging troubles. The finger friction unclogging trick should only be used as an emergency quick-fix. Use alcohol to carefully clean heads and look for any shadow of tape residue on the drum that trails just after the video head to help reduce re-occurrence! The "Loading Arms" pull the tape from the cassette for FFWD and REW modes. It's called the "Threading Ring" that continues to wind the tape loop around the video head drum for the PLAY mode. This UA-cam shows the 2000/2600/2850 model design with improved mechanisms. Replacing that entire treading ring, especially on the oldest 1000/1200/1600/1800 models, was a pain because those posts that stop along the way are tricky to align for proper tape path video track interchange; not something for the faint of heart to attempt. BTW, lol, have you ever seen the early after-market editing modifications made to the Sony 2850/2850a decks to allow it to run backwards? A company called Datatron cobbled Sony 2850's with a tiny little solenoid w/"shepherd's hook" that reached deep in the mechanism and enabled it to creep backwards while searching/selecting an edit point and then pre-roll and edit (using clrl track or SMPTE) while defying all known laws of nature, but only on a good day. OMG, I really need to stop watching these MEMORY TRIGGERING retro videos...

[@12voltvids]

The fingernail clean was used by operators when a head clogged during playback as they couldn't stop the tape an unload as it would screw up their time card for breaks. So an op would "clean" on the fly, and then Re clean after the tape was played. Remember in a TV station the heads were cleaned constantly so there is never any build up. Consumer machines for sure but not on pro gear. Maintenence people are always working on them.

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

My Grundig VS 310 VHS machine loads EXACTLY the same way! Cool...

[@MarcelOoms]

Your recording image quality is excellent in 4K ! Even when watching it in 1080p, the details are very sharp and crisp. It's quite striking, on other channels as well, that recording in 4K gives a much better picture even when viewing HD.

[@12voltvids]

Yes recording in 4k really improved picture even when scaled to FHD. I just picked up a cheap 4k TV for the studio an even though it is an Lcd screen it looks incredible. Has me rethinking keeping my old plasma sets. I want to go oled, but the cost is still way too high to even consider it now. The Lcd panels are getting really good now an they are diet cheap. A 4k Samsung 40" for 425! Now that is cheap, and it has HDR too!

[@MarcelOoms]

Got a Samsung 4K LCD myself. Can recommend it! The OLED will have to wait for when I have won the lottery. Should be any day now :=)

[@12voltvids]

The one I picked up is a un40ku6300, which is a lower end 4K display, but is is an HDR display, and the picture is fantastic. It came with the smart remote, which also controls my cable box. For the price it was a steal. Sony apparently has abandoned the entire OLED thing, as they say their new LCD panel technology with full array backlighting will match OLED in picture quality. Their price tag seems to indicate that they really believe they have the solution, as they are in the same price range of OLED. Anyway this 40", which is small is just fine as my studio reference monitor. It is short on analog inputs though only having a single shared composite/component input with a break out dongle cable that takes the Audio and green / video in on one mini plug, and the R/B components on another mini plug. My plasma has 2 component, 3 HDMI, 2 composite and or course the tuner. I need those as I connect VCRs and DVD recorders to it for tape transfers, but on this new one I would be plugging and unplugging constantly. So the plasma stays as my edit monitor, and transfer monitor, and the new one becomes my TV watching set, and 4K inspection monitor for checking my 4K content on.

[@MarcelOoms]

Sounds like a nice setup. Analog is on its way out, which is a problem for vintage video fans. I'm transferring all my analog tapes to digital any way, to stop the degradation. Samsung may be right in choosing LCD over OLED in their high end models, and OLED certainly has its problems. But those deep blacks on OLED make the picture so realistic. Have never seen an LCD come close, even with HDR. But I love the value for money the Samsung delivers, the crisp 4K, and the kids like the Smart TV interface.

[@12voltvids]

Its not replacing my plasma reference monitor on the edit station, because the speed of plasma and the color accuracy, but for sheer resolution the 4K shines. It is going to be mounted on the opposite wall to my studio, for me to check 4K content on, watch youtube 4K, and of course watch TV. I won't stress over leaving this one turned on while working, as it doesn't suck back the power like the big plasma sets do.

[@ver64]

Awesome, thanks for the finger nail tip 👍

[@12voltvids]

I learned that trick from the engineers at the TV station I work at doing master control.

[@ver64]

+12voltvids wow that's one of those tips that you can't find in books.... Thanks again

[@jasejj]

Always interesting to hear the anecdotes in the broadcast industry. I remember speaking to a family friend who worked in the transmission department of one of the UK ITV stations in the 1980s. We were a little late to the whole ENG party in the UK as the government had decreed u-matic as being insufficient quality for broadcast; they finally acquired it in around 1981 at this station. I remember him describing a more expensive approach to networking programmes to the rest of the UK from the studios - rather than risking dropouts on air they actually had two, two inch machines playing the same programme out, one as a fail over for the other. Given the price of those things it's a wonder they made a profit having to do that (though in fairness this was a big network in the UK, albeit one of the smaller member companies)

[@12voltvids]

Yes but in the UK it is all the BBC anyway right. Government organization.When I worked in the broadcast industry, we considered 3/4 to be too low for our operation, and we were a community TV station. We used Ampex 1" A format. We did out our productions out of a 30 foot motorhome that was a production studio on wheels. 3 CEI Plumbicon studio cameras, 2 Ampex 1" recorders, one was a VPR1 for slo mo playback on sports, a full audio booth, and video switcher booth in the back. Finally in 81 we got an ENG package, which was a Sony VO4800 with a Hitachi FP40 camera, and 2 Panasonic decks, an NV9200 and NY9850 editor.I left in 83 to go onto engineering, and started my own side line production company, starting out with an SLO-340, and a used Sony M3 camera, but I wasn't shooting for broadcast in this venture. I was shooting corporate, and promotional videos, weddings, real estate ect. In the end, everything was headed to VHS, so shooting on Beta was more than good enough. I would have liked to have gone UMatic but the cost was too high.

[@jasejj]

+12voltvids This was ITV (a private network) but at the time it was very heavily regulated. yes. This small company that served around two million viewers was expected to follow the same technical standards as the BBC; a few of the stations on the network did nearly go under as a result of this. The government used to inspect for technical quality and if even just a vision mixer was out of whack (in use 18 hours/day) there were fines coming. Different world now - we finally got community station nationwide in the last couple of years, and they don't seem viable with many struggling. Sad really.

[@12voltvids]

Regulations as to technical quality of the signal were on this side of the pond too. For broadcast. Cablecast was a different issue, but if a signal hit a broadcast transmitter, regardless if it was AM radio, FM radio, or TV, the signal had to be absolutely perfect, on frequency, in phase. Levels perfect. The reason was an out of spec signal could cause interference. The FCC in the US, and CRTC in Canada would issue massive fines to the broadcasters is things were not perfect.16mm film was still used for news work right up into the early 80 for many stations.

[@RhythmGamer]

learned a new trick!

[@MichaelBeeny]

Interesting in that if you try to view soon after your upload, the only viewing option is 1080p Nothing higher or lower. It seams to take YT some time to complete the options. Now some 20 mins later, all options are available.

[@12voltvids]

UA-cam has to re-compress to suite their needs.

[@Improchannel]

Hello. I have one of these machines which worked well but now the cassette won't turn when I hit play. Tires or belts maybe? I don't know how to change them. Any thoughts?

[@fadhlematrook1248]

FindLiberty .. you are right ..using finger to clean for quick clean we must use alcohol with paper..but..12volts know abut that he do this to cheeck if the heads is clog. he is pro

[@zx8401ztv]

Ive never seen a machine load like that, 3 stage guide deployment.
Sony came up with interesting methods didnt they :-).
Why did the head run when the machine was in stop mode, is there a fan being driven to keep the machine cool or something?

[@12voltvids]

Exactly. The motor runs as it blows air down over motor and into bottom of Machine. Cooling.

What is your upload bandwidth? I have 2 megabits per second (~200KB/s) and it takes ages to upload 1080p60, even though i encode them at 7 megabits per second, imagine if i tried 4K...

[@12voltvids]

Mine is 7 megs up, and yes it takes awhile. The Tsawwassen tour in 4K for example took about 10 hours to upload.
Mt down stream is 25, which is not fast enough to stream. I could get 50 down 12 up, or 100 down 25 up if I was willing to pay the price for it. It depends on what I encode for. Most videos I encode at 50 meg/bit because I want the best quality, but for this one I cranked the compression to about 20. For the scenery I generally encode to 50, which makes for big files. Off the camera I have 2 choices, 60 and 100 megs. 60 looks great, and thanks to the firmware upgrade that Sony offered AX100 users, now we get 100, and the quality off that is simply incredible. I just picked up a 128 gig memory card, so I have been shooting my RAW files at 100, but will still edit down to 50, because that looks good enough, and after youtube gets through with it, they re-compress it anyway.

[@miroslavkaticic2965]

Hello my friend... i have a big problem with my sony vcr, it's a sony slv-se725 i think... When i turn it on into the grid i'ts all normal, i can even turn it on and work on it normal, but after a few minutes it goes on a stand-by mode and it's all dead... I can't turn it on, and i can't do anything... What can i do? Please help me, it's on a mint state and i want to give it up... Please help...

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

Replace those crappy capacitors on the power supply.

[@12voltvids]

I second replacing those crappy caps in the power supply.

[@brancarr1]

Note to self: when your player stops working, give it the finger. I've been doing it wrong this whole time.

[@12voltvids]

The finger works in a pinch for sure. I could have cleaned it by hand, but I have done that before. This shows another way to get it working.