U-matic video recorder VO-5800PS is nice. Don't buy one.
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- Опубліковано 6 сер 2024
- We look at the Sony VO5800 with RM-580 remote control option. Nice machine, but don't buy one.
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Music “Let It Run” with permission, copyright Cristie/MacFarlane.
Sorry I do not offer an audio or video equipment repair service.
00:00 Introduction
00:16 Features and machine condition
02:15 Dents
03:18 Rear connectors
06:23 Inside
07:24 Front panel repair
08:46 Underneath
10:44 Rear power board repair
12:22 Power up and test
18:03 Reset tracking
21:03 View deck in operation
23:17 Conclusion - Наука та технологія
I love the series 5 umatics, worked on hundreds of them over my 10 years at a pro/broadcast service centre. Looks in good condition despite the knocks - they were very well built. Had no idea they had RIFA's - good thing to note! Must have been serviced - even in the 90's when 'old' the pinchroller would get highly glazed, belts fail and cassette/VU meter lamps burn out, and the threading ring would seize due to old grease on worm gear or in the sliding sections of the ring itself. That pesky "colour lock" switch must always be in the middle - we used to get so many calls from customers (mostly editors) in a panic with colour problems, because they knocked the switch when inserting cables etc. Might be worth hitting it with some contact cleaner so it behaves itself! Good video - quite nostalgic for me.
First time I've seen a RIFA capacitor in a Sony product.
The colour lock switch is determining how the machine deals with the off tape SC-H phase flag and how it adds the colour sub carrier back in to the output video. Obviously the machine throws away the original subcarrier being a colour under recorder. So if the chroma output is low or poor rendition then probably the new added in subcarrier is 180 degrees out of phase with the original, and then theres a 90 degree option to split the difference. Hope that makes sense. A bit like the 2f 4f 8f switch on a Betacam, except I don't think it shuffled the capstan servo like the Betacam it just flipped the subcarrier o/p phase.
The B/W switch was a common setting for recording and playing PCM tapes with this machine in most of the cases. I'm still using two of these in my studio :)
I use to have a copy of other PCM video encoders! they made great audio recordings, but they were a bit of a pain to set up.
Thanks for posting! Great video as always.
It's a testament to Sony's capabilities to design a machine that works perfectly fine after almost 40 years and being thrown (not dropped) off a truck, from the looks of it.
The local TV station that I volunteered for in the 1980s had two Sony (low-band) UMatic editing recorders and an editing console with assemble and insert, and automatic preroll and everything. They had XLR inputs and outputs and all that stuff. If they didn't get rid of them, I bet they still work too. The one in this video looks like it was more for a semi-professional or business or school use.
By the way, I don't know if you're aware but with these recorders, you don't have to keep pushing the cassette while it goes in: You put it in until it doesn't go further, and then the recorder grabs it. Most home VCR's depend on you pushing the cassette against a rubber roller and when it senses that the roller turns because of that, it pulls the tape in. But on these recorders the mechanism that pulls the tape in doesn't engage until it starts running. Very nifty!
I used the VO-5850 recorders, slow transports like the VO-5000 players, but they were workhorses. Never seen one with unbalanced audio. Nylon worm gears that helped drive the tape threading would wear and get stuck halfway while threading tapes. The pinch rollers would get 'glossy' and slip and on occasion it's solenoid would get weak. That belt on the bottom was known to break while playing tapes, when they did the deck would go into auto off and it was a bugger to get your tape out. Always would happen with the decks running programs. While viewers enjoyed black on the air, I was playing the game of cycle the power and hold down the eject button hoping it would eject my tape before going back into auto off. Always took about a dozen times before it worked. My favorites are still the VO-2600 series (top loaders) and the BVU-800's blazing fast transports.
And don't forget the FF/REW shuffle if a sensor went wrong, getting a tape out of a machine like that was unpleasant too.
Brings back memories of installing type 5 units for cable ad insertions.
Did several emergency video drum change outs using an index card for rotational alignment.
So they were used for broadcast, despite being Low Band.
WOW, these machines bring back memories of repairing them. Used to overhaul the machines and they would come up as brand new :)
I remember doing some pop video editing in a studio using low band using two players and one recorder and the controller was different, you could set exact time inserts hence why more digits on the remote controller and run through demo before actually recording, I recall a TBC and another machine called Maurice that could do basic effects like multi pic in pic type of thing. The video had to be uploaded to I think reel to reel before being broadcast as they wouldn't accept low band Umatic. Also serviced a few back in the day but I only saw a handful and recall spending extended time on the phone to Sony tech as some info in the manual was not how Sony told me to do it in practice, I seem to recall at least one machine I serviced being modified to high band. All long ago although the pop video (1 at least) are on youtube ) I don't touch them now but I do have an equally bulky Betacam machine (faulty) sitting doing nothing.
Could the Colour Lock switch have something to do with ScH phase, allowing you to switch between a free-wheeling chroma subcarrier, or one that is locked in phase to the line sync pulses? The latter being used to maintain the PAL eight field sequence for editing purposes.
Very good info on this Sony ! Question: what is the title /performer of the tune at the end ? Thanks !
If you can keep this beast alive on one of the most diabolical tape loading mechanism ever imagined, if not executed by the brilliant minds at Sony. Wow! Its complexity of that alone says no thanks. I maintained these in High School. Holy Cow what a machine. When VHS and the Panasonic IQ transport came, U-Matic was dead to me. Guess what? Still is! Cheers.
Hello. A Vo. Series. U.matic brings back memories. It was my first acquaintance with Professional video. I can tell you that the 8 pin "TV" connection is so that with a Sony TV of the same year (1984-85) and with a built-in TV Tuner, you can control the TV Tuner signal from the TV into the U.Matic video and thereby use it to record TV broadcasts on. The U.Matic video. We had at my school used to record educational programs broadcast on TV. To use the Sony TV Tuner, for the U.matic video, the TV should be switched on. and with a Timer UR, the whole thing could also turn both TV and U.matic on and off at once, so it worked like Timer programming on a normal video. A bit cumbersome, but necessary when U.Matic does not have a built-in TV tuner
@@mattquinn-caledoniantelevi2522 Yes, the connector was also found on U.matic High band and U.Matic SP. However, not from Betacam SP onwards. The timer I mention was not a Sony Timer, but a simple Digital clock timer that started the U.matic video by
button on the timer, when the power is connected turned on, the U.matic video and started recording. at the same time switched on the TV so that the tuner could be used from there
@@mattquinn-caledoniantelevi2522 The television whose TV-Tuner signal was used to feed into the U.Matic video was a Sony KV-2705E From 1984. The same year that the U.Matic Low band machine (VO 5630) was purchased. The Sony TV was also used by some Local TV and TV stations as a monitor that was, among other things, also BNC input. but the TV was also a good TV for the general public. home use.
@@mattquinn-caledoniantelevi2522 Yes, the set cost DKK 80,000 in (Denmark) money converted to 2023 money. The TV from Sony is described in several places as having been released in 1982. This is not correct, as various sales catalogs say that the Sony TV Sony KV-2705E could first be bought in Europe in 1984. However, it could perhaps be bought the year before in Japan. The Sony U.matic VO series was first available here in Denmark in 1983
hi you are right about them front panels coming away i had alot on all the betacam sp decks and some on the beta digi
one was very bad used alot of super glue and a solder iron to fix the front up
When I was on my TV production course back in the early 90's, the college had 2 playback only decks from this series of U-Matic, used for reviewing student work and as a source machine for copying to VHS. Having a quick check online I think they must have been Sony VP-5030s. For recording/editing they had a pair of Sony VO-2850s. Similar to the VO-2630 shown on PALSITE, but these were slightly wider and had switches for video and audio insert editing.
@@mattquinn-caledoniantelevi2522 It was called the Hawthorn TV Unit, no longer there now as it was knocked down for housing some years ago. It was part of Northumberland College. They were moving over to S-VHS as a replacement for Lo-Band U-Matic, but carried on using a Sony BVU150 U-MaticSP portable for editing in their Ampex VPR-2B 1 inch edit suite. I went back for a visit in 1997 and they'd swapped over to DVCam, with some sort of Sony PC with a built-in DVCam drive for editing. The 1 inch edit suite was still there but 2 of them had been swapped for Sony BVH2000's.
Oh, Techmoan coffie mug! What a cute detail of this table :D
If I'm not mistaken, these machines were used by the medical community for recording sonar readings of the heart and its operation.
Im so surprised that non of the pcb's have any damage.
Is it possible that the drop shock might have upset the tension mechanism a tiny bit.
it could upset the tracking.
Or perhaps the tracking preset moved slightly.
Can video head wear effect the tracking.?
That machine is a beast :-D
What a sturdy machine, consumer VHS deck wouldn't survive that beating I think. Also that B/W switch makes sense for B/W monitors, it should give S-video-like sharp picture, that's how I remember it from the old Amiga computers.
Easy to spend many hours keeping these machines running. My VO 5630 behaves very strangely . The tape will only load and play when I have my work light shining down into the open transport bay. However when I turn the light off the machine will not load or unload the tape correctly. It will not latch into its final position and won't retract when I press the stop button. There must be a light sensor that I cannot identify causing this. The two red lamps that detect the tape as it loads seem to work correctly. My workaround is to install a bright light inside the case to enable full loading and unloading of the tape. Playback quality is excellent but working out issues like this can do my head in. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what other sensor needs to have a light source shining on it to load/unload the tape fully?
I still have the Sony low band units as a three machine edit suite with the JVC 2000 mixer and tbc’s one is the same TBC as you show plus a SPG and combined waveform/vector scope. Built like tanks in those days.
You have a DPS-375 TBC? They're pretty rare.
Great video, I have a Sony VP-5020 and a pile of tapes that I need to test and archive. I know that the u-matic tapes can have problems with being sticky and disintegrating, what is a good way to test/inspect the tapes before using. I know to look for mold on tapes, but not sure how to test for the problems u-matic tapes are having.
In general, if they are slow to FFWD/Rewind then they may be sticky. All AMPEX branded tapes will be sticky. Bake them at 50C in a fan assisted oven, dehydrator or incubator oven for 24 hours before running them.
Hello, Love the channel I have been always coming back to it when I am looking either to clean heads of cameras etc. I have a question for someone like you that has more experience then myself, I am looking to transfer old VCR tapes to PC I am looking for a old Editing style vcr recorder/player kinda like the style you have in this video, are there any kind that you would recommend (I know these are dinosaurs to us and mostly are broken/ hard to find, however any are there any good brand/models I can look for that you would recommend? (I appreciate the time you took to read and reply!)
Generally Panasonic or JVC SVHS models which include TBC (Timebase Corrector), missing out the Panasonic NV-HS200 because that's less reliable than later models. TBC equipped SVHS machines in good working order tend to fetch higher prices, if you get one for less than £200 then you are doing well.
Glad to.see it's.working.well after some.monor adjustments.
Well done.
Might be wrong, but I believe I read that in the NTSC world, U-Matic SP recordings will play on standard U-Matic VCRs, just without the full SP quality. I've come across a couple of SP tapes so far, and they played fine in our VP-7020. No idea if they actually had SP recordings on them, of course.
I suspect that they were not SP recordings then. My understanding is that SP recordings will never plan on a low band machine, be it PAL or NTSC.
I also heard sp on ntsc U-matic is downwards compatible. Weird!
@@avtransfersUK I have since found a couple of online sources that state that it's playback compatible for NTSC, but not PAL.
@@themaritimegirl thanks I have a ntsc sp U-matic machine here so maybe I should do a you-tube video and test it lol!
Is there also a possability to adjust the center point of the tracking for VO-5850p machines?
I have one of center and haven't found information in the service manual yet.
Would like to test capturing the rf signal with a domesday duplicator and decode it software wise.
It's possible that the tracking could just drift a little, yes. You could just trace back where the tracking control is connected up.
Is the Color Lock selecting between R G B ?
In the US, SP U-Matic tapes were not very common. By the time they came out most facilities had transitioned to the superior 1/2" Betacam format, which used a component analog recording scheme.
Nice looking machine. It's lucky the damage was only superficial and no boards were damaged. :)
I used to service these heavy Sony Umatics on weekly basis changing the belts and cleaning the heads, i used to dread seeing piles of them to service as Local TV broadcaster wanted them back ASAP... and serviced local university media decks too
RobertHellier, Easy to spend many hours keeping these machines running. My VO 5630 behaves very strangely . The tape will only load and play when I have my work light shining down into the open transport bay. However when I turn the light off the machine will not load or unload the tape correctly. It will not latch into its final position and won't retract when I press the stop button. There must be a light sensor that I cannot identify causing this. The two red lamps that detect the tape as it loads seem to work correctly. My workaround is to install a bright light inside the case to enable full loading and unloading of the tape. Playback quality is excellent but working out issues like this can do my head in. Do you have a suggestion as to what other sensor needs to have a light source shining on it to load/unload the tape fully?
Hey, my VO-6800 (S model) is eating tapes now. It complains about slack as soon as I put any cassette inside. Is there anything I should check?
Start with the reel drive belt, easy to get to under the deck. Also the reel idler tyre, possibly a bad reel motor. I've had all of those fail.
What kind of grease do you use on these Sony machines? I can't seem to find the actual Sony grease called for in the U-Matic service manuals anywhere.
I don't know, and I would really like to know the correct grease for Umatic and Betacam machines. If anyone knows, please let us all know!
After reading about U-Matic, I am still confused about the whole low, high, and SP things. I guess, first they made high for Europe only, then when they went with SP labelling both for Betacam and U-Matic, they basically renamed high to SP and added some bells and whistles, but in terms of what is recorded on tape I understand that high and SP are the same? So they introduced it in the U.S. just as SP. Am I right?
No, High Band uses normal tapes and can be retro-fitted to a Low Band machine. SP uses Chromium Dioxide tapes, different heads, and can't be retro-fitted, but provides higher performance. High Band was released only for PAL (and to some extent SECAM) countries.
How should I configure my u-matic to connect it to a TV or to digitize a video through a capture device on a PC? thank you
Umatic machines have Composite Video out which can be connected to a TV which has analogue input (Yellow phono connector usually), and either stereo or mono phono connectors for audio. Similar connectors can be used for video capture to a capture card or external video capture device. This won't give anything like the quality I get with a professional digital timebase corrector and capture system, but will probably work.
I respectfully disagree somewhat. I keep several cheapy cheapo VO-5800's purely to pre-test all Low / High / and SP tapes - before loading into 9000 series SP machines. If a tape is problematic - like Sticky Shed - I want to find out on the 5800 head drum as a ' sacrifice ' first. So I fast-forward / re-wind each tape fully on the 5800 Low-Band, then scroll forward to 10 seconds before programme start. I ignore picture quality completely. Irrelevant. Then eject and load in the 9800 SP ready to go. Ten seconds after the end of the transfer I eject and then rewind back on the 5800 Low-Band again. It's a great slave. Overall - my objective is to minimise the work the 9000 Series SP machines do . All these machines are getting old and worn of course, so I think only using the superior 9800 SP's to work as little as possible makes sense. If I lose a 5800 Low-Band in the heat of battle well no big deal - it gets fixed or stripped , but the 9800s soldier on perhaps longer than if they had to do all the work. Anyway that's my two-pennyworth. I am not an engineer so I have had to figure a few things out myself by stripping dead Low-Bands. Which is why I so appreciate your excellent videos and your kind generosity in sharing your expert knowledge. You have taught me a lot. Thank you and regards.
Wrote software to control a couple of Sony U-matics via RS232 expansion cards. Had to cut a link inside to stop the tape despoiling too quickly when cued to next program.
Hi my Umatic player is actually on neutral Position but the videos plays not good on all videos if i set the Tracking knob to left i have a clear picture. Any idea to fix it?
Either it's out of alignment on the deck, or the control has drifted out as I have shown.
@@video99couk Thank you, i also have a vo-5630
Why when I play a umatic/BVU on it it doesn't let me see the image, but when I press pause it let me see the still frame?
There's clearly a fault somewhere. I would start with cleaning the heads.
Is the "DUB" connection compatible with component video ? because it's not s-video i understand… the Panasonic ES35V outputs the VHS deck also on component..
It does the same function as S-Video but the signals are not compatible.
Recently picked up a 5850 that is extremely dusty, but otherwise cosmetically fine on the outside. I haven't plugged it in yet, and where I currently live I don't have easy access to any tools for servicing (or any equipment to go with the machine yet, for that matter). How much of a risk would it be to plug it in given that there's a chance for a capacitor (RIFA) to blow up upon turning it on? I should note that I don't know if there's a RIFA inside of it, but seeing this it looks like there's a chance.
RIFA capacitors are relatively rare on Sony products. I would say it's relatively unlikely to have one, but just be prepared for a big bang if it does. It won't do any great harm, even if one explodes.
I've got a real appreciation to how complex these units are, not just the mechanicals but the layout design, boards on hinges so you can get to serviceable items inside. Could the people that code software to do video editing ever put together something like this? I very much doubt it, this is quite a lot clock-maker grade precision engineering.
Sony professional machines are a delight to work on, unlike Panasonic professional like MII or DVCPRO.
Yes rhey van be a bit of a handful.
By the way where did you het that remote control from ide like to know
Came with the machine.
Just found 50 U-Matic and U-Matic-S tapes in my university lecture hall (veterinary medicine, Munich, Germany) with interesting recordings from the 80´s, but the player in the huge tech rack is gone. Damn it, I want to digitize that stuff (not throwing the tapes away, just for saving them) but with no player, it costa A LOT if you let someone do it and I can´t afford that unfortunately...
Thank you another great video. Cheers
I bought a pallet of 6 of these machines for $5.00 at a government auction in the early 90's. Got real tired of lugging them around so I just left them in a rented garage and forgot about them. I knew the transition to digital was coming so it wasn't a great loss.
They would now be worth a bit more than $5. But it's the SP capable machines that fetch big money.
Somebody made a small device which would convert the chroma from the U-Matic dub output to something compatible with S-video so it could be recorded to other formats. i did think of buying one, but they were quite expensive.
I've heard of those. But it can't compare to a full digital timebase corrector complete with digital dropout compensator..... if you can get one.
Umatic is extremely rare in the realms of ex-USSR, so i never had a chance of using it. Interesting though. Thanks for the video! As always!
What did they use? Soviet 1-inch reel-to-reel?
@@ConsumerDV that depends. On the prosumer market we were using VCR format, professionals were using 1 inch portable and betacam since 1986.
As for shoulder cameras, soviet cameramen of that period were using either Ikegami HL79E attached to the 1 inch portable VTR, or Soviet made cameras KT-190, docked to betacam recorder.
@Matt Quinn - Caledonian TV no, by VCR i mean coaxial cassettes from 70s. U-matic was marketed as a professional format, whilst VCR was targeted particularly at educational but also domestic users.
As for SVHS, some productions in our country left SVHS and moved forward approximately in 2009.
@@ritterss1983 I am particularly interested in the period from mid-1970s to mid-1980s. So, pros used 1-inch reel-to-reel then. Thanks for the info. I suppose, longer pieces still used 16-mm film.
@@ConsumerDV exactly so.
Have you ever thought about using a capture card to capture small excerpts from the tapes during the tests and put them on the video...
I think this is a nice refusal.
I like to see the reproduction of this type of media.
to watch the videos could be interesting.
because it gives an idea of how the reproduction is during, before and after the maintenance
What about trying a Sony BVU-950P PAL U-Matic SP direct-drive VTR?
I have a BVU-850P, but they don't play low band tapes.
Witam posiadam JVC BR 7000 nie wchodzi kaseta nie działa winda kasety co to może być
ua-cam.com/video/9eO9M9G2kko/v-deo.htmlsi=dbMM_DL3nmIru4oV
Probably a slipping drive belt. You need to listen to where the noise is coming from and look at the mechanism.
Are you much of a Michael Crichton fan? His 1992 book Rising Sun (far superior to that silly 1993 film) goes into deep detail about the featured 8mm digital video recorders, in typical Crichton fashion. The film still confuses me. Even as a kid the very idea of a mini CD sized disc holding 12 hours of video seemed completely ridiculous. I guess it's just hard to adapt his books. Only adaptation I can really be alright with is the Jurassic Park books. In any case it also goes way deep into digital manipulation of video and effects etc. He certainly spoke nerd extremely well.
Not heard of him but will do some research.
@@video99couk Sorry? Haven't heard of him? Aside from Jurassic Park he also created the television series ER, wrote Congo, Sphere, the Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery. I think I'll go sit in a corner and twitch angrily for a little while.
The tracking is off-centre because the record/playback interchange is not set to a factory spec. in other words, it can't play back another VTR's tapes, because the tape path, guides, heads, tensioning, and RF envelope are not set to the proper specs. hook up an oscilloscope to the RF head amp output and check the RF envelope for tracking, guide, and tension failures.
I don't believe that to be the case, it's not an alignment fault, just a little wear in the tracking control itself.
My SONY VO-9600P's Feet are only missing because it was installed in a Video Production Studio and not because it was "carefully" handled. The first thing I'll probably do is see if there's a RIFA Bomb installed before I get to grips with the Loading Mechanism. If you have only invested €1, you cannot expect a refurbished Device.
That's what tv stations.and.video.production companies did to them when they chucked them out.
What city or state are you in?
Near Plymouth, Devon, UK.
Color Lock Switch, service manual says: "As a rule, set to normal. If the playback picture has no color or if the hue is abnormal, set the switch to the upper or lower position." 😀
Só tenho uma cassete U-Matic com o trailler de um filme de 1987,e não tenho vcr!
It's weird how the VO-3800, VO-4800, and VO-6800 are all portable decks, but the VO-5800 is a full sized studio deck.
Weird numbering scheme.
Damn, too late, I got VO-5600.
support NTSC?
No, not this one. I do have NTSC Umatic machines though.
it's not a broadcast VTR machine, it is only an industrial non-pro VTR... Can't edit on colour frames, and doesn't have a timecode or a TBC. It is useless, and only good for boardroom playback.
I had an entire box of dozens of dub cables! long since tossed out in the garbage. The colour lock is a colour frame Sc/H phase 2, 4, and 8 field edit frame colour under and colour over subcarrier phase.
But it does support TBC operation, it's intended as an edit deck, not just as a player. Timecode is supported on the remote control. Low band machines were sometimes used for broadcast, even though they really shouldn't have been.
@Matt Quinn - Caledonian TV Highband Umaticwas used for news at both BBC and ITN... How do I know? I was a soundman back then and lugged beasts like the BVU110 on my shoulder umbilically tied to the cameraman, which was torture compared to a lovely nagra when it was film! Betacam couldn't have come soon enough!!! Lowband was the preserve of offline editing and for boardroom viewing at advertising agencies.......
Contrary, To what you say, DON'T BUY ONE. I disagree, this is a normal professional Broadcast Sony VCR Playback/Recorder. In it's day It was the first of it's kind. For the novice it would be good to play with. As you know, They have a higher end unit. The high end has more features and processing power. Plus, you did not mention if you clean any of the heads or NOT. That's the First thing you should have done. CLEAN THE HEADS. In other words, you didn't do any detail cleaning whatsoever to that VCR machine to get it to perform like it should. If it did not perform to your expectation that's on you. This was a Good Machine, Back in the Day.
I didn't clean the heads or tape path, which it probably could have used, but it clearly wasn't very badly contaminated. It had been serviced not too long ago when new belts were installed before the previous owner bought it. My reason to say "don't buy one" is to help potential buyers avoid buying one in the belief that it will be all they need to a video transfer business, but being Low Band only, it won't be much use. These get sold to the unwary, sometimes at inflated prices.
BVU-820 was a better machine