Many years since I worked on a V2000 deck, watching your video bought back memories of just how bad these were, mercifully, they were a flop, so did not see too many 🤣
My first was a 2022 which cost about £850. I had friends who had the 2020 and I was asked to fix faults. The build quality was really bad on them. My 2022 was good and lots of friends got them. As faults came I was asked to fix them and I really got into them. I had all the extension boards that could be bought and made my own for ones that were not available.. I also fixed many in the grundig range and had the 2 x 8 of my own. I was quite well set up for testing and the local tv repair shop would bring the 2000 machines that they got in for me to repair. I never did any 2324s and they look like they are much more difficult to work on than the 2022. I have not done any for about 20 years now. My workshop was broken into and trashed so I sort of gave up then. I almost bought a 2324 recently on ebay and really pleased that I didn't having seen your video. When I first got my 2022, the local video shop was hiring VHS tapes and also hired a VHS VCR. V2000 was not bothered in the least by the Macrovision copy protection. It did however record it so it was not possible to then copy back to VHS. Eventually VHS was quite good. I had a JVC editing machine that had a dynamic drum so it could follow the tape path whatever the play speed. Happy days. 🙂
My observation is that Philips V2000 VTRs give better picture than Grundig, I have 6 different Grundig V2000 (including 2x8 and 1600 without DTF), and all of them have very noticeable chroma noise and awful edges. Test patterns on Grundigs do not show anything above 2MHz, when Philips can show 3MHz without issues. Also 2x8 has about twice narrower heads which also makes worse SNR.... I prefer to use VR2021 for tape transfers as the most robust mechanism and clean image. VR2220 is also OK, but my personal VTR has bad pinch roller.
Man, what a joy, what a battle! The ressurection of a V2000 machine nowadays, is a skill of very few... The logic thinking and the patience. Locking horns with that sweat vintage beast... Never buy one. Good advice! Cheers 🇵🇹
Philips, Masters of plastic. Styling wise they looked fantastic. So good to have a system so sophisticated and designed from day one for PAL. Sadly all wrong in the execution. All I did learn from tinkering as a kid before the days of the internet, VHS tape stock in the V2000 shell did not work very well!
Never tried VHS tape in V2000 shell but I understand certain combinations didn't work, probably due to differing bias requirements. This was a subject of some discussion in Television Magazine back in the day.
When I put VHS tape in a V2000 shell, I got a great picture. But that was in the late 90s early 2000s when VHS tape stock had better quality than in the 80s. Only downside is you had to be careful to press stop at the right moment when winding/rewinding (I'm not gonna splice tape on something this fragile). And I'm thinking Philips overcompensated for their first generation V2000 machines, you dropped them out of the second floor window (if you could lift them at all) and there's a crater in the sidewalk and the machine still works. I totally love the spaceship look of the Philips V2000 first gen control panel.
@@sonnylatchstring I recently got a Grundig SVR4004, replaced an obscure clock generator IC with some 4000 logic and that was the only fault. It's got pretty decent picture, but lots of color noise. I should do a side by side comparison. That thing packs 4 hours on a tape. I've found an N1700 on the e-waste that was waterlogged and missing parts including the head drum. But the electronics were all labeled and you could see there was an S-Video signal path on the boards, so that would yield a picture that can probably beat anything but S-VHS.
Indexing was added to VHS and Beta machines later. But V2000 machines were never particularly reliable and this gave the format a bad reputation. V2000 never gained hi-fi sound, but it was planned to add PCM digital audio which would have been cool.
Wow, this was a blast from the past. I was the proud owner of a Grundig 2 x 4 with added remote, and it was the most solidly built remote controller you could imagine. A beautiful solid metal jobby. And who couldn't love that beautiful brown and gold case? I had it for about 15 years, and it was still working fine when I sold it. Never had a problem with it. Was I lucky?
Very lucky that it lasted so long. I have that same remote, but the markings on it are cryptic so I've used a marker to draw on symbols for play, pause etc., so that I can actually find them. The weird battery isn't very easy to source, but still available.
I've had a number of V2000 machines over the years but mainly Philips. My grandparents rented one around 1981, initially a Grundig model (early than the 2x4 Super, might be the 2x4 Plus or 2x4 GB), and it had lots of picture issues and was swapped for a Philips VR2021, which they kept until 1983 before switching to VHS. I managed to pick up a Pye 20VR22 ex-rental around 1987 which lasted for a few years before having drum servo issues. I've still have a few machines today, both the Philips and Pye versions of the portable with separate tuner/timer, a couple of VR2324s but one is just a pile of spare parts and finally a couple of VR2840s, one worked last time I checked and the other had gone totally dead. But one thing I've found with these 2nd generation Philips decks is that the pinch roller causes a lot of problems.
i still have an older version in silver casde with IR module in the front but before using it again, I have to change also the rubbers AND I have a version in this design for VHS. If this has been in stereo, would be the greatest VHS machine of this time
When seeing this it reminds me of fixing a Philips Reel to Reel Audio Recorder from the end of the 70's, very brittle PCBs that easily break, swirling plug-in cards and connectors that degrades when just looking at it. I know it is old stuff but it isn't quality that shines.
You will learn to hate - truly *hate* - Grundig for putting that little black “flag” that determines the drum speed on top of the drum and not the bottom! When getting a head clog during playback on Betamax or VHS, I just hold paper momentarily against the back of the head drum to clear the clog on the fly. You can’t do that with a 2x8 as you are at real risk of snapping off the fragile black plastic flag. Without that in place, the head drum speed goes crazy.
I remember being a kid and feeling like all my Christmases had come at once when my dad brought home our first video recorder and being totally flummoxed when the VHS copy of Weird Science id rented from the local video shop didn't seem to fit,,,,, yeah it was the exact same model of V2000 that you struggled to get working properly,,,,, I came to believe that the v2000 was a superior platform compared to VHS and beta ,,, better picture, sound, freeze frame and the rest,,,,, so to see you trying to get a picture and not getting anywhere ,,, I soon thought to myself that if you bothered to give the internals a clean rather than relying on the tape cleaning the delicate bits you may have got somewhere
Our first video recorder was a V2000, It was awful. It did exactly what yours was doing with the tracking. We could never get a good picture, it was so frustrating. We were with Radio Rentals at the time and they replaced it for another one that did exactly the same after a while, and with the added difficulty of finding new films to rent on that format we went with a VHS recorder in the end. It felt lightyears ahead and much simpler to use.
Some people loved V2000 but many had bad experiences with it. Reliability was a real problem and never really got sorted out even with later models like this. Meanwhile, Sanyo made Beta machines that would work for 40 years with just a little light servicing every 5 years or so. VHS reliability was reasonable too, once manufacturers stopped using incandescent light bulbs in the auto stop system. From what I've seen, V2000 picture quality wasn't especially good either. You were wise at the time to rent a machine, early video recorders were expensive to buy and maintain and would go out of date quickly.
I have a Philips/Pye 20VR22 which was 95% working last time I plugged it in which was some time ago. I saved it from my own scrap pile of VCRs (when I closed down my repair shop) for someone who wanted it then they got one elsewhere. I always (back in the day) wanted the VR2324 and matching VHS machine but I've never seen one in person despite at the time working for a large chain repairing and selling Philips brand. For some reason I randomly have the remote receiver (no remote) add on for the Grundig V2000. I also saved Betamax (mostly SLC9) and some better Panasonic G decks and a few nice VHS machines and a betacam player
Its hard to work out if the passive parts or chips are the problem. Ill pick on the capacitors in the servo's, maybe a hand full of low esr capacitors could fix the sloppy operation. Circuits on the edge of working?. I had a vhs vcr made by philips , it worked well but if the heads were worn out the head drum had a nasty clamp to hold it in place, screws not good enough for philips lol. Special jig required, never simple. I could swear that philips and bmw were the same company, over complex and special tools required lol :-D
I'd guess the main issue with these is that they're past their expected lifespan by 25 years or so. I've yet had to see a VHS recorder of that era that wasn't broken by the early 2000s so I'm not sure the format is to blame here. In fact, all my and my family's VHS recorders require some level of attention to make them work again, including early-2000s machines. In some cases it's simple like cleaning contacts and replacing capacitors and batteries but it's still one fault after another. I recently tried to get a Grundig VS680VPT working again by replacing the clock battery (and while I was at it, the filter caps in the power supply, Grundig used the same evil metallised paper caps well into the 90s and these are now old enough to release the magic smoke too). Got that done, plugged it in, F1 (tape lacing fault). Most likely a dirty mode switch from the way it behaves. Fix one issue and another pops up. Some say it's best to replace every single electrolytic capacitor in these before proceeding with any repairs, especially in Grundig ones. Grundig used plenty of Roederstein (Labelled ERO or ROE) and Frako electrolytics that have a fairly poor reputation, some simply drying out, others shorting. I remember one chap telling me he replaced power supply caps in V2000s on a daily basis as early as the mid-80s when these machines were only one or two years old.
Replacing every capacitor in these would be a mammoth task and would very likely cause a new fault somewhere on the double-sided PCBs. V2000 machines were certainly less reliable than VHS and Beta from the same vintage, partly due to extra complexity but I suspect also because some models were rushed out without proper testing. A Sanyo VTC5150 is hugely reliable compared to any V2000 model.
Sorry spoke a bit too soon,,,, I commented about a third of the way through your video,,,, rather than watching the whole thing first and finding that you eventually did clean the internals
this is not a DTF problem this is a pinch roller problem (bad Audio and at the outrun of the heads [bottom the pictures the noise field]) [but the bad news there are no pinchroller anymore available] - Then during you start up the machine there are some non known interruptions! this happend from the oxidation on all Regulators left side on the backside. Cut all the wires and solder it to the Regulators.
I've resolved the regulator problem by cleaning up all the connectors and device leads for those. On at least one of these machines I installed a VHS pinch roller to good effect.
@@video99couk Hello and thank you very much for your replay! I see this sounds good and where you can get such pinch rollers from the old days (or from the old machines)?
Hope it's ok im asking you here. I have that philips vr 2324 working fine. I have digitilized all the material that I wanted, so I will sell this machine to another persen, he had some of his tape with him, but his tapes were running faster on the one side and normal on the other side. any idea what that could be. did Video 2000 have long play ? Best regards
The 2x4 super is an older machine than the VR2324 but are they more reliable ? I remember back in the 1980's when i had a 2x4 super the TV repair guy was able to repair it due to the modular design.
The 2x4 Super though is a proper front loader unlike the VR2324, and also displayed the tape running time (not sure the VR2324 does that). But the VR2324 is smaller, looks smarter and has a SCART socket rather than non-standard DIN wiring. The 2x4 Super is more modular than the VR2324, but alas that is largely thwarted by very unreliable edge connector cables. All in all, I probably prefer the 2x4 Super.
Quick question. Do you fast forward and rewind each tapes before you play them? It's probably a case of 'teaching my grandmother to suck eggs' but sometimes the simplest things get missed.
That varies depending on the condition of the tapes and the format. For some formats, the extra wear on an old tape is highly undesirable, such as N1500. Other formats it's just not necessary such as 8mm and miniDV. But I do when I think it can help.
For domestic use, not much since none have digital tuners so it would be a pain to set up. However it would be technically possible to record TV programmes if you were determined to. For professional use, yes professional video recorders can still be used occasionally. And of course all machines can be used for recovery of tapes, which is what I use them for.
Hi. Great video, but are you sure the Video 2000 was never reliable? My German service colleagues, however, confirmed that the high failure rate of these machines strongly improved after 1983. And there were already quite a few durable copies. But still not enough compared to VHS machines. Maybe it was different in the UK. Greetings.
Behind the Total Rewind, Format War website "" VHS machines were also cheaper to repair, since parts cost less. Whether this was a natural consequence of the technology, or a cunning move by the manufacturers is unknown, though it is hard to see why VHS parts should be inherantly cheaper than Beta. Whatever the reason, this was another incentive to buy VHS - and another to avoid V2000, which as time went on gained a reputation for unreliability. One survey (in Which magazine) found that 59% of V2000 machines had been returned for repair, compared with around 25% for the other two formats".That is, they didn't all break down after all.
The tape in these is NEVER sitting down properly. The drives are nightmare to work on thanks to the attached boards all around. I had several of these and none of them played properly. The white grease in the mechanism gets hard over time and needs to be replaced.
These have a TDA-based PSU (can’t remember which chip). There is an electrolytic capacitor linking the TDA with the BU208A chopper transistor. If any of those go, all three need to be replaced…
There are two things I've thought about. When you test the tape in the machine..what's the reverse side of the tape like? I.E....if side A has the tracking issue at the bottom, what is side B like? And.... Hitchhikers guide on tape number 42?!!! Lol
That's why I prefer as dumb a TV as possible - no "I don't like that signal so I'm giving you a blue screen" nonsense. And yes, all Grundig 800s I ever had had the problem with the back tension in the last 7-3 minutes of the tape. And I had like 5 or 6 machines... I still have 3 complete ones, but only one that's working.
I had a feeling it was a design issue. I do now have the VR2324 I can use when required, it's still working just fine (apart from having to select reverse picture search to start with some tapes).
You say the V2000 recorders are unreliable, but my father used 2 of them daily for over 30 years without any problems. In my own V2000 I did replace the slipring contacts many years ago (when parts were still available), but eventually they failed again. Must try fixing it again with some contact spray now many years later. I loved the quality of my own V2000 video recorder and the quality was definitely far superior to VHS at the time.
It is no secret that V2000 machines were less reliable than other machines of a similar vintage. You might get lucky, but on average they were a pain. V2000 used some techniques to try to hide the poor signal to noise ration inherent in the format, but in the end the picture tended to have more edge noise particularly compared to Beta.
@@saint_and_holy_unicorn Compared to modern expectations, Beta was slightly less crappy as there was a bit less “noise” on the picture and slightly higher video bandwidth. Sound quality of the mono track was slightly worse, though, as Beta tape moves slightly slower than VHS (at SP speed). It’s all chalk and cheese now as they’re commercially dead formats.
@@saint_and_holy_unicorn VHS was only the best concerning reliability as more manufacturers made the machines. You still had loads of shite like Akai and own-brands like Matsui (aka “Crapsui”). Most Sanyo Beta VCRs were just as reliable as an 80s JVC. Sony were to Sanyo what Panasonic were to JVC - Sony and Panasonic had the edge on picture and sound quality but Sanyo and JVC were the more reliable. To be truthful, machine reliability was nothing to do with the formats themselves but the manufacturer’s attitude towards build quality.
A few other formats sometimes used two cassette motors on some models such as the Sony SL-F1/CL-C9 Beta machines and many professional decks such as Betacam.
Why will the VCR caps explode, when in my 1984 Sony SL-F1 Betamax they're just fine? Did Philips used shit capacitors? I also have several Philips CD104 CD Players from 1984, and again, no exploding caps.
Many manufacturers put their faith in a previously well respected brand RIFA of Sweden. But they had a serious design flaw which caused them to break up and explode. Sony didn't (as far as I know) use RIFA capacitors.
Sorry for rambling on again but I totally disagree about the machine,,, they were great,,,, they had 8 hour tapes 4x2 !!! Well before any other company had long play video
I don't take on repairs, I have a backlog of my own equipment to work through. Almost anything is possible of course, especially if a service manual is available, but would take some skill and patience.
I work on these machines quite a lot myself, I find them quite easy to work on, but maybe that's just me. The Grundigs are the worst machines out there by the way, I wouldn't bother to use or fix them. On the machines you have shown you can get to the RIFA cap a lot easier, just 2 screws to remove the black heat sink, remove it and you can access the RIFA. You don't need to replace it, just get it out is enough. Later models don't have a RIFA at all anymore. Also you can easily change the power supply input voltage from 220V to 240V, then the machine runs a lot cooler (as we now don't have 220V anymore but 230V).
We all become familiar with certain machines. I prefer the Grundig 2x4 Super myself. All V2000 models are shockingly unreliable so there's not much to choose between them on that. But this VR2324 is still working fine so I'm happy to add it to my fleet. Will have to try the remote control upgrade.
Many years since I worked on a V2000 deck, watching your video bought back memories of just how bad these were, mercifully, they were a flop, so did not see too many 🤣
My first was a 2022 which cost about £850. I had friends who had the 2020 and I was asked to fix faults. The build quality was really bad on them. My 2022 was good and lots of friends got them. As faults came I was asked to fix them and I really got into them. I had all the extension boards that could be bought and made my own for ones that were not available.. I also fixed many in the grundig range and had the 2 x 8 of my own. I was quite well set up for testing and the local tv repair shop would bring the 2000 machines that they got in for me to repair. I never did any 2324s and they look like they are much more difficult to work on than the 2022. I have not done any for about 20 years now. My workshop was broken into and trashed so I sort of gave up then. I almost bought a 2324 recently on ebay and really pleased that I didn't having seen your video. When I first got my 2022, the local video shop was hiring VHS tapes and also hired a VHS VCR. V2000 was not bothered in the least by the Macrovision copy protection. It did however record it so it was not possible to then copy back to VHS. Eventually VHS was quite good. I had a JVC editing machine that had a dynamic drum so it could follow the tape path whatever the play speed. Happy days. 🙂
🙂
My observation is that Philips V2000 VTRs give better picture than Grundig, I have 6 different Grundig V2000 (including 2x8 and 1600 without DTF), and all of them have very noticeable chroma noise and awful edges. Test patterns on Grundigs do not show anything above 2MHz, when Philips can show 3MHz without issues. Also 2x8 has about twice narrower heads which also makes worse SNR.... I prefer to use VR2021 for tape transfers as the most robust mechanism and clean image. VR2220 is also OK, but my personal VTR has bad pinch roller.
Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder when talking of video recorders !
Man, what a joy, what a battle!
The ressurection of a V2000 machine nowadays, is a skill of very few... The logic thinking and the patience. Locking horns with that sweat vintage beast...
Never buy one. Good advice!
Cheers 🇵🇹
Philips, Masters of plastic. Styling wise they looked fantastic. So good to have a system so sophisticated and designed from day one for PAL. Sadly all wrong in the execution. All I did learn from tinkering as a kid before the days of the internet, VHS tape stock in the V2000 shell did not work very well!
Never tried VHS tape in V2000 shell but I understand certain combinations didn't work, probably due to differing bias requirements. This was a subject of some discussion in Television Magazine back in the day.
When I put VHS tape in a V2000 shell, I got a great picture. But that was in the late 90s early 2000s when VHS tape stock had better quality than in the 80s. Only downside is you had to be careful to press stop at the right moment when winding/rewinding (I'm not gonna splice tape on something this fragile).
And I'm thinking Philips overcompensated for their first generation V2000 machines, you dropped them out of the second floor window (if you could lift them at all) and there's a crater in the sidewalk and the machine still works.
I totally love the spaceship look of the Philips V2000 first gen control panel.
The earlier Philips N1700 had even better image quality than the V2000
@@sonnylatchstring I recently got a Grundig SVR4004, replaced an obscure clock generator IC with some 4000 logic and that was the only fault. It's got pretty decent picture, but lots of color noise. I should do a side by side comparison. That thing packs 4 hours on a tape.
I've found an N1700 on the e-waste that was waterlogged and missing parts including the head drum. But the electronics were all labeled and you could see there was an S-Video signal path on the boards, so that would yield a picture that can probably beat anything but S-VHS.
V2000 used chromium dioxide tape. BASF VHS tape stock should work in a V2000 shell.
The V2000 system was so much better than the VHS. 8 hours recording and indexing was some of the great features.
Indexing was added to VHS and Beta machines later. But V2000 machines were never particularly reliable and this gave the format a bad reputation. V2000 never gained hi-fi sound, but it was planned to add PCM digital audio which would have been cool.
Very much enjoyed that. Cheers
Wow, this was a blast from the past.
I was the proud owner of a Grundig 2 x 4 with added remote, and it was the most solidly built remote controller you could imagine. A beautiful solid metal jobby. And who couldn't love that beautiful brown and gold case?
I had it for about 15 years, and it was still working fine when I sold it. Never had a problem with it. Was I lucky?
Very lucky that it lasted so long. I have that same remote, but the markings on it are cryptic so I've used a marker to draw on symbols for play, pause etc., so that I can actually find them. The weird battery isn't very easy to source, but still available.
Fantastic MACHINE 👍 Bravo! 💪
I've had a number of V2000 machines over the years but mainly Philips. My grandparents rented one around 1981, initially a Grundig model (early than the 2x4 Super, might be the 2x4 Plus or 2x4 GB), and it had lots of picture issues and was swapped for a Philips VR2021, which they kept until 1983 before switching to VHS. I managed to pick up a Pye 20VR22 ex-rental around 1987 which lasted for a few years before having drum servo issues. I've still have a few machines today, both the Philips and Pye versions of the portable with separate tuner/timer, a couple of VR2324s but one is just a pile of spare parts and finally a couple of VR2840s, one worked last time I checked and the other had gone totally dead. But one thing I've found with these 2nd generation Philips decks is that the pinch roller causes a lot of problems.
Yes I had pinch roller trouble when working on the other VR2324 a while ago, but was able to fit a VHS pinch roller and that was fine.
Back when spare parts were more easily obtained, there was a pinch roller for one of the Philips VHS decks that fitted these models.
30:25 - Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy! Great choice!
Forget Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, if ever there was a beautiful example of human aspiration, ingenuity and technology, the VCR is it 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
i still have an older version in silver casde with IR module in the front
but before using it again, I have to change also the rubbers
AND I have a version in this design for VHS. If this has been in stereo, would be the greatest VHS machine of this time
.good Colin
When seeing this it reminds me of fixing a Philips Reel to Reel Audio Recorder from the end of the 70's, very brittle PCBs that easily break, swirling plug-in cards and connectors that degrades when just looking at it. I know it is old stuff but it isn't quality that shines.
The 2x8s by GRUNDIG have also similar issues like the VR2324 on some models, albeit being from Grundig.
I have a 2x8 machine (branded something else but it's Grundig), I need to work on one day.
You will learn to hate - truly *hate* - Grundig for putting that little black “flag” that determines the drum speed on top of the drum and not the bottom! When getting a head clog during playback on Betamax or VHS, I just hold paper momentarily against the back of the head drum to clear the clog on the fly. You can’t do that with a 2x8 as you are at real risk of snapping off the fragile black plastic flag. Without that in place, the head drum speed goes crazy.
I remember being a kid and feeling like all my Christmases had come at once when my dad brought home our first video recorder and being totally flummoxed when the VHS copy of Weird Science id rented from the local video shop didn't seem to fit,,,,, yeah it was the exact same model of V2000 that you struggled to get working properly,,,,, I came to believe that the v2000 was a superior platform compared to VHS and beta ,,, better picture, sound, freeze frame and the rest,,,,, so to see you trying to get a picture and not getting anywhere ,,, I soon thought to myself that if you bothered to give the internals a clean rather than relying on the tape cleaning the delicate bits you may have got somewhere
Our first video recorder was a V2000, It was awful. It did exactly what yours was doing with the tracking. We could never get a good picture, it was so frustrating. We were with Radio Rentals at the time and they replaced it for another one that did exactly the same after a while, and with the added difficulty of finding new films to rent on that format we went with a VHS recorder in the end. It felt lightyears ahead and much simpler to use.
Some people loved V2000 but many had bad experiences with it. Reliability was a real problem and never really got sorted out even with later models like this. Meanwhile, Sanyo made Beta machines that would work for 40 years with just a little light servicing every 5 years or so. VHS reliability was reasonable too, once manufacturers stopped using incandescent light bulbs in the auto stop system. From what I've seen, V2000 picture quality wasn't especially good either. You were wise at the time to rent a machine, early video recorders were expensive to buy and maintain and would go out of date quickly.
I have a Philips/Pye 20VR22 which was 95% working last time I plugged it in which was some time ago. I saved it from my own scrap pile of VCRs (when I closed down my repair shop) for someone who wanted it then they got one elsewhere. I always (back in the day) wanted the VR2324 and matching VHS machine but I've never seen one in person despite at the time working for a large chain repairing and selling Philips brand. For some reason I randomly have the remote receiver (no remote) add on for the Grundig V2000. I also saved Betamax (mostly SLC9) and some better Panasonic G decks and a few nice VHS machines and a betacam player
I would be able to use that remote receiver on my second 2x4 Super if it's spare.... colin@video99.co.uk
@@video99couk will pm you
Its hard to work out if the passive parts or chips are the problem.
Ill pick on the capacitors in the servo's, maybe a hand full of low esr capacitors could fix the sloppy operation.
Circuits on the edge of working?.
I had a vhs vcr made by philips , it worked well but if the heads were worn out the head drum had a nasty clamp to hold it in place, screws not good enough for philips lol.
Special jig required, never simple.
I could swear that philips and bmw were the same company, over complex and special tools required lol :-D
I'd guess the main issue with these is that they're past their expected lifespan by 25 years or so. I've yet had to see a VHS recorder of that era that wasn't broken by the early 2000s so I'm not sure the format is to blame here. In fact, all my and my family's VHS recorders require some level of attention to make them work again, including early-2000s machines. In some cases it's simple like cleaning contacts and replacing capacitors and batteries but it's still one fault after another. I recently tried to get a Grundig VS680VPT working again by replacing the clock battery (and while I was at it, the filter caps in the power supply, Grundig used the same evil metallised paper caps well into the 90s and these are now old enough to release the magic smoke too). Got that done, plugged it in, F1 (tape lacing fault). Most likely a dirty mode switch from the way it behaves. Fix one issue and another pops up.
Some say it's best to replace every single electrolytic capacitor in these before proceeding with any repairs, especially in Grundig ones. Grundig used plenty of Roederstein (Labelled ERO or ROE) and Frako electrolytics that have a fairly poor reputation, some simply drying out, others shorting. I remember one chap telling me he replaced power supply caps in V2000s on a daily basis as early as the mid-80s when these machines were only one or two years old.
Replacing every capacitor in these would be a mammoth task and would very likely cause a new fault somewhere on the double-sided PCBs. V2000 machines were certainly less reliable than VHS and Beta from the same vintage, partly due to extra complexity but I suspect also because some models were rushed out without proper testing. A Sanyo VTC5150 is hugely reliable compared to any V2000 model.
Sorry spoke a bit too soon,,,, I commented about a third of the way through your video,,,, rather than watching the whole thing first and finding that you eventually did clean the internals
Can you loan Matt of techmoan a decent running machine to revieuw the V2000 format.
If he asked, I would find something.
My two Philips 2340 VCR's are still working
Hope they keep going, they're not the easiest machines to work on.
this is not a DTF problem this is a pinch roller problem (bad Audio and at the outrun of the heads [bottom the pictures the noise field]) [but the bad news there are no pinchroller anymore available] - Then during you start up the machine there are some non known interruptions! this happend from the oxidation on all Regulators left side on the backside. Cut all the wires and solder it to the Regulators.
I've resolved the regulator problem by cleaning up all the connectors and device leads for those. On at least one of these machines I installed a VHS pinch roller to good effect.
@@video99couk Hello and thank you very much for your replay! I see this sounds good and where you can get such pinch rollers from the old days (or from the old machines)?
Hope it's ok im asking you here. I have that philips vr 2324 working fine. I have digitilized all the material that I wanted, so I will sell this machine to another persen, he had some of his tape with him, but his tapes were running faster on the one side and normal on the other side. any idea what that could be. did Video 2000 have long play ? Best regards
Yes a few models had long play, called XP mode. It's very hard to find working XP capable V2000 machines, I don't have one here.
The 2x4 super is an older machine than the VR2324 but are they more reliable ? I remember back in the 1980's when i had a 2x4 super the TV repair guy was able to repair it due to the modular design.
The 2x4 Super though is a proper front loader unlike the VR2324, and also displayed the tape running time (not sure the VR2324 does that). But the VR2324 is smaller, looks smarter and has a SCART socket rather than non-standard DIN wiring. The 2x4 Super is more modular than the VR2324, but alas that is largely thwarted by very unreliable edge connector cables. All in all, I probably prefer the 2x4 Super.
Quick question. Do you fast forward and rewind each tapes before you play them? It's probably a case of 'teaching my grandmother to suck eggs' but sometimes the simplest things get missed.
That varies depending on the condition of the tapes and the format. For some formats, the extra wear on an old tape is highly undesirable, such as N1500. Other formats it's just not necessary such as 8mm and miniDV. But I do when I think it can help.
Colin i Found the demo version for the philips vr 2020 .
I have a Grundig 2x4 Stereo. But it seems to wind painfully slow. What could be the reason?
Daft question, out of the VCR loop for years, but is there any way a VCR can be used these days? 🤔
For domestic use, not much since none have digital tuners so it would be a pain to set up. However it would be technically possible to record TV programmes if you were determined to. For professional use, yes professional video recorders can still be used occasionally. And of course all machines can be used for recovery of tapes, which is what I use them for.
@@video99couk Many thanks 🙏
It's the digital tuner. You might be able to disable the blue screen with the TV settings.
Not using the tuner, the V2000 was connected via SCART cable.
Hi. Great video, but are you sure the Video 2000 was never reliable? My German service colleagues, however, confirmed that the high failure rate of these machines strongly improved after 1983. And there were already quite a few durable copies. But still not enough compared to VHS machines. Maybe it was different in the UK. Greetings.
Behind the Total Rewind, Format War website "" VHS machines were also cheaper to repair, since parts cost less. Whether this was a natural consequence of the technology, or a cunning move by the manufacturers is unknown, though it is hard to see why VHS parts should be inherantly cheaper than Beta. Whatever the reason, this was another incentive to buy VHS - and another to avoid V2000, which as time went on gained a reputation for unreliability. One survey (in Which magazine) found that 59% of V2000 machines had been returned for repair, compared with around 25% for the other two formats".That is, they didn't all break down after all.
The tape in these is NEVER sitting down properly. The drives are nightmare to work on thanks to the attached boards all around. I had several of these and none of them played properly. The white grease in the mechanism gets hard over time and needs to be replaced.
Can't wait for you to look at your 2x8, as have 2 with power problems.
Change the electrolytic capacitors. I always found the ESR to go high causing many strange faults
These have a TDA-based PSU (can’t remember which chip). There is an electrolytic capacitor linking the TDA with the BU208A chopper transistor. If any of those go, all three need to be replaced…
Just remembered, it’s a TDA4600.
There are two things I've thought about.
When you test the tape in the machine..what's the reverse side of the tape like?
I.E....if side A has the tracking issue at the bottom, what is side B like?
And....
Hitchhikers guide on tape number 42?!!! Lol
That's why I prefer as dumb a TV as possible - no "I don't like that signal so I'm giving you a blue screen" nonsense.
And yes, all Grundig 800s I ever had had the problem with the back tension in the last 7-3 minutes of the tape. And I had like 5 or 6 machines... I still have 3 complete ones, but only one that's working.
I had a feeling it was a design issue. I do now have the VR2324 I can use when required, it's still working just fine (apart from having to select reverse picture search to start with some tapes).
HOW DO I CONTACT THIS FELLA THANKS
You say the V2000 recorders are unreliable, but my father used 2 of them daily for over 30 years without any problems. In my own V2000 I did replace the slipring contacts many years ago (when parts were still available), but eventually they failed again. Must try fixing it again with some contact spray now many years later. I loved the quality of my own V2000 video recorder and the quality was definitely far superior to VHS at the time.
It is no secret that V2000 machines were less reliable than other machines of a similar vintage. You might get lucky, but on average they were a pain. V2000 used some techniques to try to hide the poor signal to noise ration inherent in the format, but in the end the picture tended to have more edge noise particularly compared to Beta.
V2000 has a “Marmite” reputation with reliability - they either work for ages (but not perfectly) or they break every week. There’s no inbetween.
You never saw a difference between VHS, v2000 and beta. The same crappy picture. VHS was the best concerning reliability.
@@saint_and_holy_unicorn Compared to modern expectations, Beta was slightly less crappy as there was a bit less “noise” on the picture and slightly higher video bandwidth. Sound quality of the mono track was slightly worse, though, as Beta tape moves slightly slower than VHS (at SP speed).
It’s all chalk and cheese now as they’re commercially dead formats.
@@saint_and_holy_unicorn VHS was only the best concerning reliability as more manufacturers made the machines. You still had loads of shite like Akai and own-brands like Matsui (aka “Crapsui”). Most Sanyo Beta VCRs were just as reliable as an 80s JVC. Sony were to Sanyo what Panasonic were to JVC - Sony and Panasonic had the edge on picture and sound quality but Sanyo and JVC were the more reliable.
To be truthful, machine reliability was nothing to do with the formats themselves but the manufacturer’s attitude towards build quality.
I'm about halfway in the video and not really familiar with the format but could it be a tape tension problem?
Tape Tension trimming Potentiometer for the 2 Motors Winding direct Drive was tested.
A few other formats sometimes used two cassette motors on some models such as the Sony SL-F1/CL-C9 Beta machines and many professional decks such as Betacam.
Tape tension does indeed come to haunt me later in this episode, but on a different model.
You have to put a remote on the Philips. :)
The V2000 format proves you could have 1/4 inch video tapes.
So did the CVC format of course.
Akai had 1/4-inch RTR in mid-1970s. 20 years later DV used 1/4-inch in a tiny cassette.
You didn't mention anything about cleaning heads, capstan or changing belts
Cleaning the deck is very similar to any other video recorder, though access isn't great and I did mention that. There are no drive belts.
Why will the VCR caps explode, when in my 1984 Sony SL-F1 Betamax they're just fine? Did Philips used shit capacitors? I also have several Philips CD104 CD Players from 1984, and again, no exploding caps.
Many manufacturers put their faith in a previously well respected brand RIFA of Sweden. But they had a serious design flaw which caused them to break up and explode. Sony didn't (as far as I know) use RIFA capacitors.
4:53 It's shocking to see a device with a chassis made out of processed cheese sporting a c-core transformer...
Top 🙌
Mine still works… 40years+
It’s a Philips, dusty as f*ck but still works - no nylon gears
Sorry for rambling on again but I totally disagree about the machine,,, they were great,,,, they had 8 hour tapes 4x2 !!! Well before any other company had long play video
But having to flip the tape over didn't give the user an actually longer recording time in one session.
Do you think you could repair an old Russian FM tuner ? Power supply has gone I guess. No life
I don't take on repairs, I have a backlog of my own equipment to work through. Almost anything is possible of course, especially if a service manual is available, but would take some skill and patience.
42
I work on these machines quite a lot myself, I find them quite easy to work on, but maybe that's just me. The Grundigs are the worst machines out there by the way, I wouldn't bother to use or fix them.
On the machines you have shown you can get to the RIFA cap a lot easier, just 2 screws to remove the black heat sink, remove it and you can access the RIFA. You don't need to replace it, just get it out is enough. Later models don't have a RIFA at all anymore.
Also you can easily change the power supply input voltage from 220V to 240V, then the machine runs a lot cooler (as we now don't have 220V anymore but 230V).
We all become familiar with certain machines. I prefer the Grundig 2x4 Super myself. All V2000 models are shockingly unreliable so there's not much to choose between them on that. But this VR2324 is still working fine so I'm happy to add it to my fleet. Will have to try the remote control upgrade.