Hi. I remember the Phillips V2000 timer instruction video showing in our local Currys shop. I also remember watching a Rising Damp promo video featuring Leonard Rossiter, Richard Beckinsale, and Don Warrington in a small independent hifi and video shop. It promoted the original SL-8000 and played for around 15 minutes, repeatedly on a much longer tape. I would love to see this again as i remember it being quite entertaining!
Even my ancient Jvc piano key vcr had a two page booklet with the words "The Time Machine". Most vcr's can be worked out without a manual, helpful labels that made sense. Good old dennis norden, always enjoyable to watch :-D Shame he is gone.
I always found setting the timer and clock on a Philips V2000 machine to be super easy. I could set the timer in under 15 seconds literally! Ergonomically V2000 with it's sloped front panel made it much easier than having to get right down on the floor to see the buttons and display on a VHS or Beta machine if the machine was under the TV. Using the numeric keypad, setting the time was a breeze whereas VHS and beta machines required scrolling through the hours and minutes, so for example, on a VHS or Beta recorder to set a start time of 14:30 meant scrolling up or down first for the hours and then the minutes, and again for the stop time. On the Philips 2000 machines it was as simple as keying 14.30 on the keypad. Also, you didn't have to remember to press the timer button, you could just walk away from the machine and after about 5 minutes it would power down into timer mode automatically. The Grundig 2000 machines were another story however.
I have to agree, it may have seemed complicated with it's CALL / END buttons but it was much easier to program using the numeric keypad rather than holding down one key and scrolling with another like the VHS at the time. The Philips V2000 also had a 5 event timer as standard whereas most VHS recorders were still working with single event timers. Yes there was no specific timer mode on the VR2021, but once set I remember this red LED would light up labelled "Attention Timer". VHS eventually caught up when they got LCD screens on the remote (very late 80's I think for JVC) where you could type all the info in and then transmit it over to the recorder.
I suppose the problem was with buttons marked like that, you had to read the instructions to use it, at least for the first few times. But the Sanyo you could work just by looking at it. Products are best when you don't have to read instructions.
The N1700 demo tape doesn't look bad at all for a somewhat clunky format! Surprisingly good results both for the tape itself and your machine, which must be in the top five best-maintained units in existence.
I had an Aiwa Beta Hi-Fi demostration tape, but it was NTSC, and at the time I didn't have any NTSC beta machines capable of playing back Hi-Fi audio, so I flogged the tape on eBay. Now regretting that decision, as I subsequenty obtained and succesfully repaired a Hi-Fi-capable NTSC Beta machine. The tape came from Japan, but mostly contained footage shot in America, overdubbed with easy-listening type music, but also contained a few sound-effects sections (a helicopter flight over a waterfall, a steam train etc.) and a couple of live performances by a Japanese rock band called "Kazuo Takeda and Creation". I'm hoping whoever bought the tape from me has the wherewithal to capture it and upload it to UA-cam with Hi-Fi sound.
I remember a JVC demo tape for VHS that came with one of their first piano-key VCRs, the HR3300 in 1979. That was a video of a doll dressed in brightly coloured clothes, just going round and round on a turntable, with the words "VHS Video Home system" in the background. This was at school, and I always remember it because it was the first time I saw a VCR. The school bought the JVC VCR together with a new Philips colour TV, to record and play school TV programmes. This was a big deal at the time for us students, as previously they only had an old black & white TV mounted on a very high trolley. A wooden DER that had lockable doors on it, that was probably specially made for schools.
I remember my grandparents renting a Philips VR2021 Video 2000 and it came with the demo tape. Although I've still got various tapes from that time, the VCC120 demo tape went back with the rental machine when they changed to VHS. There must be a different cartoon for each model. That one you found online looks like it's for the original VR2020 as the display is slightly different on that model and the play button is in a different place compared to the VR2021/2022/2023.
The first VCR my family got when I was a kid was a General Electric VG-7720 (made by Panasonic) for Christmas 1988, when I was 13, almost 14. It had onscreen programming which was extremely easy to use. You didn't even need the manual to figure it out because there was nothing to figure out; it prompted you through the whole process. Setting its clock/calendar was just as easy, as it was also done onscreen. An interesting thing about that VCR is that December 31, 2006 is as high as the calendar will go. The reason that's an interesting date is because of this: "The transition to digital broadcasts was pushed back several times. Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, with the original transition date being December 31, 2006. However, the transition to digital television was set back three times: first to December 31, 2008, then to February 17, 2009, and then finally to June 12, 2009." Is that a pure coincidence, or did Panasonic somehow know in 1988 that analog TV broadcasts in the US would be scheduled to end on December 31, 2006 (even though that date wasn't scheduled until 1996) and therefore there would be no point in having a calendar that could go past that date? I still have that VCR and it still works perfectly. It has never been professionally serviced or repaired, but I've done a few things to it. In the late 1990s its remote control started getting flaky, sometimes working, sometimes not, so I took it apart and notice that one of its battery terminals had a clearly cracked solder joint. I re-soldered it and it hasn't had any problems since. Also, about 20 years ago it needed its first head cleaning (staticky lines all through the picture). Originally I used one of those head cleaning tapes which fixed it for a while. Eventually I learned how to do it manually using alcohol on a piece of plain white paper while rotating the head drum, from, I think, a 12voltvids video, and that did a much better job. Finally, several years ago it showed signs of failing capacitors (wavy motion in the picture, especially noticeable on its blue OSD screens) so I replaced all of the electrolytic capacitors in its power supply and that took care of that. Mechanically it's never had any problems at all. It has a simple and robust design. My only real complaint is that it doesn't have A/V inputs (it only has A/V outputs, plus RF input and output), so you can't use it as an RF modulator for another device like you can with a typical VCR.
The Sears Cartrivision format from 1972 had a demo tape that served as a user manual for the device. There's a remastered copy of a very early UA-cam upload of the video by UA-cam user "videolabguy".
When I got a ZX81 way back in the early 1980s, my parents bought me a Sanyo audio cassette recorder to go with it (model M1530X) and it came with a demonstration cassette. If memory serves the music was an instrumental of "On Top of Old Smoky". I still have it somewhere. I also have a Sony Beta Hi-Fi demonstration tape that I believe came with the SL-HF100. My first Super VHS deck was a JVC HR-S6800 for which I bought the optional Teletext adaptor which allowed you to program it's timer from the Teletext TV listings, which together with PDC allowed for very easy timer setting and recordings which always started on time (assuming the broadcaster supported PDC). I think of it as a forerunner to modern HDD recorders that can be set from the listings and start when the now and next EPG moves onto the next event. I remember it perfectly recording the X-Files from BBC Two despite it being heavily delayed due to Wimbledon Tennis over-running. PDC was a great system, a shame it took digital TV such a long time to catch up.
I used to have the JVC S-VHS demonstration tape at work with side-by-side comparison against VHS quality. It did look extremely good as I remember. It can be found on youtube.
Just remembered another one - not sure if it counts, but I have a pre-recorded Video8 tape containing an instructional programme on using the Canon VM-E1 Camcorder. Sadly my copy has partially been recorded over, but the bulk of it still remains - Part 1 shows you how to use the various features of the camcorder, while Part 2 gives some shooting tips. I assume it would have been supplied with the VM-E1 camcorder in the UK.
What do you mean by complicated philips v2000 timers? They’re one of the simplest one’s to program (in my opinion at least) it easier than on my sl-hf150 with its fiddely buttons.
Because you have to refer to the user manual to decrypt buttons like "Call" and "End". Whereas the Sanyo you just look at the buttons and it's obvious.
You know what’s hard to program? A Panasonic NV-FS200 with an extremely dim display :) That deck has no OSD, and one can barely see what’s on the VFD. The FS88 is the same in this regard, just has no line TBC.
I have an FS-88 here, I bought from new. It had a pointless barcode scanner thing when new. But I seem to remember that this one can be programmed by the remote control using its LCD?
I always found my FS-200 (also owned from new) timer very simple and intuitive to program from the front-panel. I never used the bar code scanner - it's still sealed in its original crinkly polythene bag. The main remote was a big device with a jog/shuttle dial and a large flip-up cover over all but the basic transport buttons, but I don't recall it having an LCD.
@@timf-tinkering the timer might be simple and intuitive to program on a new unit, there the VFD is legible. On my unit (which I bought in 2019) one can barely make out what's on the display. AFAIK this is a common problem of the NV-FS series.
There is an electrolytic cap on the servo board that goes bad and causes the dim display issue on these machines, although the VFD itself could be tired.
I still have my demonstration program on my Philips Video 2000 tape and last time I watched, the quality was better than the UA-cam version - but digitizing that stuff is hard - after digitizing, it's almost guaranteed to be worse (my copy has less dropouts though)f. I also have a *later* V2000 stereo demonstration tape - for some reason, the left channel is much louder than the right channel (or vice versa), which gets slightly better after some time. But this just has some random demo clips and doesn't teach you the slightest about your VCR.
It's ridiculous how Philips made something that looked like a giant audiocassette. The idea of flipping it over must have been more of a marketing gimmic from the company that brought you the Compact Cassette.
Well 8 hours of recording on a single cassette is hardly a gimmick, to max 4 hours on vhs and only 3,5 hours on beta.( in single speed PAL region ) The vr2840 even had longplay, but that was not very good, especially the audio…
It's nice to be mentioned in the same sentence as those channels but they are way bigger than I can hope to be. I'll just have a little 10k subs celebration hopefully this year.
Hi. I remember the Phillips V2000 timer instruction video showing in our local Currys shop. I also remember watching a Rising Damp promo video featuring Leonard Rossiter, Richard Beckinsale, and Don Warrington in a small independent hifi and video shop. It promoted the original SL-8000 and played for around 15 minutes, repeatedly on a much longer tape. I would love to see this again as i remember it being quite entertaining!
Even my ancient Jvc piano key vcr had a two page booklet with the words "The Time Machine".
Most vcr's can be worked out without a manual, helpful labels that made sense.
Good old dennis norden, always enjoyable to watch :-D
Shame he is gone.
I always found setting the timer and clock on a Philips V2000 machine to be super easy. I could set the timer in under 15 seconds literally! Ergonomically V2000 with it's sloped front panel made it much easier than having to get right down on the floor to see the buttons and display on a VHS or Beta machine if the machine was under the TV. Using the numeric keypad, setting the time was a breeze whereas VHS and beta machines required scrolling through the hours and minutes, so for example, on a VHS or Beta recorder to set a start time of 14:30 meant scrolling up or down first for the hours and then the minutes, and again for the stop time. On the Philips 2000 machines it was as simple as keying 14.30 on the keypad. Also, you didn't have to remember to press the timer button, you could just walk away from the machine and after about 5 minutes it would power down into timer mode automatically. The Grundig 2000 machines were another story however.
i totally agree, setting the timer on the early VCC machines was easy. However not as easy as on the N1500 🙂
I have to agree, it may have seemed complicated with it's CALL / END buttons but it was much easier to program using the numeric keypad rather than holding down one key and scrolling with another like the VHS at the time. The Philips V2000 also had a 5 event timer as standard whereas most VHS recorders were still working with single event timers. Yes there was no specific timer mode on the VR2021, but once set I remember this red LED would light up labelled "Attention Timer". VHS eventually caught up when they got LCD screens on the remote (very late 80's I think for JVC) where you could type all the info in and then transmit it over to the recorder.
I suppose the problem was with buttons marked like that, you had to read the instructions to use it, at least for the first few times. But the Sanyo you could work just by looking at it. Products are best when you don't have to read instructions.
The N1700 demo tape doesn't look bad at all for a somewhat clunky format! Surprisingly good results both for the tape itself and your machine, which must be in the top five best-maintained units in existence.
There's a little lateral wobble at the start of the tape, I may have a go at improving that at some point.
I had an Aiwa Beta Hi-Fi demostration tape, but it was NTSC, and at the time I didn't have any NTSC beta machines capable of playing back Hi-Fi audio, so I flogged the tape on eBay. Now regretting that decision, as I subsequenty obtained and succesfully repaired a Hi-Fi-capable NTSC Beta machine. The tape came from Japan, but mostly contained footage shot in America, overdubbed with easy-listening type music, but also contained a few sound-effects sections (a helicopter flight over a waterfall, a steam train etc.) and a couple of live performances by a Japanese rock band called "Kazuo Takeda and Creation". I'm hoping whoever bought the tape from me has the wherewithal to capture it and upload it to UA-cam with Hi-Fi sound.
I remember a JVC demo tape for VHS that came with one of their first piano-key VCRs, the HR3300 in 1979. That was a video of a doll dressed in brightly coloured clothes, just going round and round on a turntable, with the words "VHS Video Home system" in the background. This was at school, and I always remember it because it was the first time I saw a VCR. The school bought the JVC VCR together with a new Philips colour TV, to record and play school TV programmes. This was a big deal at the time for us students, as previously they only had an old black & white TV mounted on a very high trolley. A wooden DER that had lockable doors on it, that was probably specially made for schools.
I remember those. There were colour ones too, which took an age to warm up, probably built on a Decca Bradford chassis or similar.
I remember my grandparents renting a Philips VR2021 Video 2000 and it came with the demo tape. Although I've still got various tapes from that time, the VCC120 demo tape went back with the rental machine when they changed to VHS. There must be a different cartoon for each model. That one you found online looks like it's for the original VR2020 as the display is slightly different on that model and the play button is in a different place compared to the VR2021/2022/2023.
The first VCR my family got when I was a kid was a General Electric VG-7720 (made by Panasonic) for Christmas 1988, when I was 13, almost 14. It had onscreen programming which was extremely easy to use. You didn't even need the manual to figure it out because there was nothing to figure out; it prompted you through the whole process. Setting its clock/calendar was just as easy, as it was also done onscreen.
An interesting thing about that VCR is that December 31, 2006 is as high as the calendar will go. The reason that's an interesting date is because of this:
"The transition to digital broadcasts was pushed back several times. Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, with the original transition date being December 31, 2006. However, the transition to digital television was set back three times: first to December 31, 2008, then to February 17, 2009, and then finally to June 12, 2009."
Is that a pure coincidence, or did Panasonic somehow know in 1988 that analog TV broadcasts in the US would be scheduled to end on December 31, 2006 (even though that date wasn't scheduled until 1996) and therefore there would be no point in having a calendar that could go past that date?
I still have that VCR and it still works perfectly. It has never been professionally serviced or repaired, but I've done a few things to it. In the late 1990s its remote control started getting flaky, sometimes working, sometimes not, so I took it apart and notice that one of its battery terminals had a clearly cracked solder joint. I re-soldered it and it hasn't had any problems since.
Also, about 20 years ago it needed its first head cleaning (staticky lines all through the picture). Originally I used one of those head cleaning tapes which fixed it for a while. Eventually I learned how to do it manually using alcohol on a piece of plain white paper while rotating the head drum, from, I think, a 12voltvids video, and that did a much better job.
Finally, several years ago it showed signs of failing capacitors (wavy motion in the picture, especially noticeable on its blue OSD screens) so I replaced all of the electrolytic capacitors in its power supply and that took care of that.
Mechanically it's never had any problems at all. It has a simple and robust design. My only real complaint is that it doesn't have A/V inputs (it only has A/V outputs, plus RF input and output), so you can't use it as an RF modulator for another device like you can with a typical VCR.
The Sears Cartrivision format from 1972 had a demo tape that served as a user manual for the device. There's a remastered copy of a very early UA-cam upload of the video by UA-cam user "videolabguy".
"Time Machine" still exists in the tech world. It's when you plug an external hard drive into a Mac to use for backing up. :)
When I got a ZX81 way back in the early 1980s, my parents bought me a Sanyo audio cassette recorder to go with it (model M1530X) and it came with a demonstration cassette. If memory serves the music was an instrumental of "On Top of Old Smoky". I still have it somewhere. I also have a Sony Beta Hi-Fi demonstration tape that I believe came with the SL-HF100.
My first Super VHS deck was a JVC HR-S6800 for which I bought the optional Teletext adaptor which allowed you to program it's timer from the Teletext TV listings, which together with PDC allowed for very easy timer setting and recordings which always started on time (assuming the broadcaster supported PDC). I think of it as a forerunner to modern HDD recorders that can be set from the listings and start when the now and next EPG moves onto the next event. I remember it perfectly recording the X-Files from BBC Two despite it being heavily delayed due to Wimbledon Tennis over-running. PDC was a great system, a shame it took digital TV such a long time to catch up.
Let me know if you ever find that Sony Beta HiFi tape, I would like to add that to UA-cam.
I had a VHS HiFi demo tape with about an hour of circa 1986 hits on it. Long since tossed unfortunately but the sound was amazing
I was always amused by those tapes with titles like "How to Connect your New VCR"! (think about it!)
"There's a hole in my bucket!"....
I used to have the JVC S-VHS demonstration tape at work with side-by-side comparison against VHS quality. It did look extremely good as I remember. It can be found on youtube.
Ooh do you have a link to that? I’m currently having a play with a jvc gr-s707 - a svhs c camcorder. Would be interesting to see the comparison
@@voceyc Comparison starts at 2 min 52 sec
ua-cam.com/video/6xTIvWqpngg/v-deo.html
Just remembered another one - not sure if it counts, but I have a pre-recorded Video8 tape containing an instructional programme on using the Canon VM-E1 Camcorder. Sadly my copy has partially been recorded over, but the bulk of it still remains - Part 1 shows you how to use the various features of the camcorder, while Part 2 gives some shooting tips. I assume it would have been supplied with the VM-E1 camcorder in the UK.
Oh yes, that would certainly count. Pity it's incomplete but still worth recovering. I'll happily stick it on UA-cam if you don't have the equipment.
i have the philips video 2000 instruction tape, unfortunately, someone has recorded over it 😢 i got a machine plus box of tapes some years back
What do you mean by complicated philips v2000 timers? They’re one of the simplest one’s to program (in my opinion at least) it easier than on my sl-hf150 with its fiddely buttons.
Because you have to refer to the user manual to decrypt buttons like "Call" and "End". Whereas the Sanyo you just look at the buttons and it's obvious.
hi is there any test or line up tapes for the betcam sp that were posted to any studio's out there
Grundig Video 2000 System Videolar Vardı 🙂 Kasetler 2 *4 =8 saat and Kaset Normal Tape Kasetler Gibi Arkalı Önlü idi Hatırlıyorum 🙂
i remember one for jvc vhs hifi audio and I think there was one for svhs back when I worked for thorn emi
Do you remember the e30 vhs tune in tapes from the late 1978 which was shipped with the machine
I believe JVC included those with every machine until the early or mid 80s. I have one that came with an HR-D120MS.
Buena máquina saludos desde España
You know what’s hard to program? A Panasonic NV-FS200 with an extremely dim display :) That deck has no OSD, and one can barely see what’s on the VFD.
The FS88 is the same in this regard, just has no line TBC.
I have an FS-88 here, I bought from new. It had a pointless barcode scanner thing when new. But I seem to remember that this one can be programmed by the remote control using its LCD?
I always found my FS-200 (also owned from new) timer very simple and intuitive to program from the front-panel. I never used the bar code scanner - it's still sealed in its original crinkly polythene bag. The main remote was a big device with a jog/shuttle dial and a large flip-up cover over all but the basic transport buttons, but I don't recall it having an LCD.
@@timf-tinkering the timer might be simple and intuitive to program on a new unit, there the VFD is legible. On my unit (which I bought in 2019) one can barely make out what's on the display. AFAIK this is a common problem of the NV-FS series.
There is an electrolytic cap on the servo board that goes bad and causes the dim display issue on these machines, although the VFD itself could be tired.
I still have my demonstration program on my Philips Video 2000 tape and last time I watched, the quality was better than the UA-cam version - but digitizing that stuff is hard - after digitizing, it's almost guaranteed to be worse (my copy has less dropouts though)f.
I also have a *later* V2000 stereo demonstration tape - for some reason, the left channel is much louder than the right channel (or vice versa), which gets slightly better after some time. But this just has some random demo clips and doesn't teach you the slightest about your VCR.
So Colin i put the Demo video of the philips vr 2020 on you. Tube in 2 parts.Anthony
I own the EDbeta NTSC demo tape. Is it worth making a better transfer for UA-cam?
Oh yes.
It's ridiculous how Philips made something that looked like a giant audiocassette. The idea of flipping it over must have been more of a marketing gimmic from the company that brought you the Compact Cassette.
But then Philips made the Digital Compact Cassette(DCC). And with DCC it didn't have to flipped over.
@@michaelturner4457
It did, but it was auto-reverse. You just didn’t see it 😉
Well 8 hours of recording on a single cassette is hardly a gimmick, to max 4 hours on vhs and only 3,5 hours on beta.( in single speed PAL region )
The vr2840 even had longplay, but that was not very good, especially the audio…
Colin The Demo video is for philips vr 2023 there missing a Button in the vr 2023 on the 2024 there are a Button.
I also have a Demo video philips vr 2024 Colin
Record video99/Techmoan/Technology Connections videos about the format on the format.
It's nice to be mentioned in the same sentence as those channels but they are way bigger than I can hope to be. I'll just have a little 10k subs celebration hopefully this year.