Wow... you have a working museum, absolutely incredible. And a fascinating career. Someone mentioned Techmoan... you're like a professional-grade version of him, an absolute expert, with professional-grade gear, using it professionally. Awesome.
Video technology Noah's Ark is here! Tremendous collection of machines and also TBC honey hole. Keep on the good work. Very interesting, what a joy to hear all your insights over this VCR galore. Cheers 🇵🇹
That was genuinely fascinating!! I'm been doing a bit of video conversion recently for donations to the local animal sanctuary (nothing major, just basic camcorder and VHS stuff via Firewire/ADVC 300) and this is an amazing look into what's obviously a rather deep rabbit hole! 😃🤘👏👍👍👍👍Nicely done!!!! Thanks a million.
Im only 2 videos into this channel and you've already got my subscription. This is absolutely fascinating. I love vintage gear and this channel is like Techmoan but for the pro equipment. I hope you keep uploading I can see this channel getting huge.
Seeing the Technicolor CVC format brought back some memories. Back in high school in the early 80s our drama class had a camera and recorder setup for recording and playing back our crap performances. I remember it used a small cassette that to me looked like an audio cassette, but I was never able to find out much more about it and always wondered what format it was. I had thought until recently it was maybe an early variant of Sony's 8mm but that was mid 80s and I had left school by then. Seeing that CVC tape and recorder and I am now sure that it was a CVC setup.
Could you make a more in-depth video about the MII format? There is not much information out there, certainly not here on UA-cam. I'm not expecting a Techmoan-grade video, but maybe a look inside your machine, and some more of your thoughts on the system. Could you use S-VHS cassettes in these machines?
Good point, I should cover MII. Some of my non-working machines are in my store room which would be best covered in spring time when it warms up a bit (but you can see them on my "shed" video). I have one working mains machine, two working portables, two non-working mains and a non-working camera backpack. There was one model, which I don't have, which supported S-VHS playback, utterly pointless feature which fixed the head drum size at the start. Then the format was hobbled by the tape size: Beta was the right size for professional camcorders, VHS was too big. So Panasonic decided that the VHS size would be the studio sized tape and they would make a smaller tape, bigger than VHS-C though, for camera use. This forced the tape to be super-thin. These two constraints made the tape path very complex and the format was staggeringly unreliable compared to Betacam. Panasonic compounded that with poor support and additionally the machines were much harder to work on than they should have been. Hence it was set to fail against the hugely successful Betacam. It's odd how Sony and Panasonic made some of each others mistakes in VHS vs Beta and MII vs Betacam.
Fascinating tour of your set-up there. Mine are racked very similarly, but are still in an upstairs room - so I have to be conscious of weight. I have a mixture of formats - the low band u-matic - yet to go to a high band more professional machine. There are a mixture of N1500/02, N1700/02, V2000, open reel, Betamax, etc.. Recently purchased another Shibaden VTR. A couple of AV3620CE open reels as well - circa late 60s. Think the Shibaden is around 1970/72. I find the N1500 internals a lot more intricate and awkward to maintain than say the N1502 - which is very similar to the N1700/02 models. These Philips are my favourites to work with. Every machine though has it's moments with technical problems though - always something to fix.. The joy of this old tech though is in it mechanical nature.. Something a lot of modern equipment lacks..
I don't use N1500 machines at all, not least because the servos are not very stable. The N1502 is a much better machine. I've added A/V outputs to all of my N1502, N1700 and SVR models. The electronics in these machines is fairly reliable, but I've had the occasional I.C. fail. V2000 machines on the other hand seem to be plagued with unreliable electronics. As for racking, I'm just about to properly rack all my audio gear to make it easier to access whatever machine it is near the bottom of the stack which always is the one which throws a wobbly! Just got in a lovely Aiwa XK-007 cassette deck. My studio is on the ground floor but even I worry a bit about weight, there must be almost a tonne in here.
Are the colour bars and tone generated by the Digibeta internally? I read in some of Sony's advertising material that these machines supposedly can do this, but even with the help of the manual, I was not able to get this set up.
Yes that option is in the menus, which will vary a bit from one model to another. It will generate a tone and bars when no tape is inserted. I have this option enabled on my J3, DVW-A510P, DVW-A5100P etc.
The problems I see with CVC are: Won't fully lace or unlace due to plastic expansion on the loading ring assembly. Capstan servo not working properly due to conductive glue or other faults. Belts etc. always need replacing and one is very fiddly to get to. Head tips can go open circuit on PAL machines, probably due to glue creep. On top of all that, the 212 portable machines are not easy to work on, and generally access to the deck is quite poor. On the plus side, tape path alignment is never a problem.
@@video99couk I had to give my CVC video head a push before it starts spinning. Any idea what could be the problem? I don't know how to completely disassemble the machine to get to the belts under the video head, hope you'll make a video servicing CVC machines and maybe even a S-video out mod.
@@rsuryaseI've not had that problem. I can't remember right now if the head is direct drive, I think it probably is, so it sounds like a bad head drum motor. I do plan on doing a CVC video (or two) later, but I have a few other things I need to work through first. I won't do an S-Video mod because my TBCs have such a good Digital Comb Filter design that they do a super job of removing any Composite Video effects.
Hmm, It's probably fairly easy to bypass the video to PCM converter by just grabbing the raw video while keeping the field structure intact (e.g. by using DV). If you can get me a snipped of video captured that way, I can give it a go.
Very nice collection of equipment. Yes MII was a horrendous format, a lot of design decisions that where not good, lousy product support form the start and on top of that lots of bad capacitors.... You need some big formats too, 1" C format and 2" quad.
Alas no space for the really big open reel formats so I just can't go there. I think there were two main design blunders on MII: The large tape is VHS sized so too small for a high speed format to hold enough tape of a sensible thickness. 2: A few machines were made playback compatible with S-VHS (why?!!) and this set the head drum size.
Sorry Colin - horrible noob question. I'm looking for definitive advice on cleaning VHS player heads (see - NOOB!!) but there seems to be a lot of debate over what to use - paper/lint free cloth/unicorn tears etc etc. I've tried searching your videos but I can't see anything obvious from you. I'm sure I'm being terminally stupid but could you point me in the right direction please? Really glad I found your channel - love it!!
I would start with a good head cleaner cassette. You can / could buy video head cleaner sticks but they are now hard to find. Great care with these, it's easy to smash the head tips, even I did it once.
Hi Colin, have you ever had any problems with your DSR-11 DV deck? I am getting no picture when playing tapes and I can't work out why. Heads seem clean but no signal is being output. I can't think of anyone better to ask for help!
I have four DSR-11 decks. It sounds like yours has clogged heads so I would run a tape cleaner first. Do you get the on-screen graphics OK (need the remote to select those on and off).
@@video99couk Thanks for the reply! I have tried using a cleaning cassette and also manually cleaning the heads but no luck. I do not have the remote unfortunately so can't see any on screen graphics, but I do get an preview output when I connect something to the inputs
@@videokassettejunge8409 OK, that proves then that you have a valid signal path from the DSR-11 to your monitor, that's a good start. Not having the remote makes debugging a bit harder. Do you have a PC with Firewire input? If so you could see if you get a valid clock running which would indicate that it is seeing something from at least one of the heads. Also, try forward picture search with a known good tape, sometimes that will clear a head clog at least enough that you can see something starting to happen (maybe a picture in striped bands, implying one head has cleared). If you have a fairly strong magnifier, you should be able to see the head tips, if clean you can get them to glisten in bright light and you will see they are shiny. If contaminated, they will have a dull look. Great care with the head tips of course. Be aware that these machines don't play Long Play DV recordings, or not very well at least, so make sure its a DVCAM or DV in Standard Play. They also won't play formats such as DVCPRO, or HDV.
@@video99couk Success! I tried over firewire and nothing again, not even a timecode - but the controls worked at least. I tried cleaning the heads one more time and the time code appeared, another clean, and I now have the video! It was a second hand 'untested' machine which was very grubby - even on the inside. I think the heads just needed a real good clean! Many thanks for your advice - I knew you would be the best person to ask!
My CVC Technicolor 212 can only output video for 1 hour, then I need to let it rest for 1-2 hours before it'll output video again. If I don't, it'll just output black screen with static lines. Sounds like an overheating issue, most likely electronics issue and not mechanical. The video playback is not perfect, I can see a few static lines here and there, most likely need a tape alignment or the heads are worn out. No one seems to know how to service this machine.
The trouble with D-VHS is that it wasn't a format. In the UK there were just two machines and they wouldn't even play each other's tapes. In USA there was another incompatible variant again. So anyone who used D-VHS knew they were doomed if their machine broke down.
Good collection.
Good to see that you're preserving these fantastic machines.
Wow... you have a working museum, absolutely incredible. And a fascinating career. Someone mentioned Techmoan... you're like a professional-grade version of him, an absolute expert, with professional-grade gear, using it professionally. Awesome.
I don't think I'll ever be famous like Techmoan.
Video technology Noah's Ark is here! Tremendous collection of machines and also TBC honey hole.
Keep on the good work.
Very interesting, what a joy to hear all your insights over this VCR galore.
Cheers 🇵🇹
That was genuinely fascinating!! I'm been doing a bit of video conversion recently for donations to the local animal sanctuary (nothing major, just basic camcorder and VHS stuff via Firewire/ADVC 300) and this is an amazing look into what's obviously a rather deep rabbit hole! 😃🤘👏👍👍👍👍Nicely done!!!! Thanks a million.
Im only 2 videos into this channel and you've already got my subscription. This is absolutely fascinating. I love vintage gear and this channel is like Techmoan but for the pro equipment. I hope you keep uploading I can see this channel getting huge.
Glad you like what I do. Not sure I'll ever be quite as popular as Techmoan though, I don't have any muppets.
Seeing the Technicolor CVC format brought back some memories. Back in high school in the early 80s our drama class had a camera and recorder setup for recording and playing back our crap performances. I remember it used a small cassette that to me looked like an audio cassette, but I was never able to find out much more about it and always wondered what format it was. I had thought until recently it was maybe an early variant of Sony's 8mm but that was mid 80s and I had left school by then. Seeing that CVC tape and recorder and I am now sure that it was a CVC setup.
Yes it was almost certainly one of those. Alas they are not particularly reliable so few survive today.
Wow, that is an amazing array of vintage gear!
Glad you liked it. There's more being added all the time so have a look through some of my UA-cam videos to see some of that.
Man, what an impressive collection of machines!
Glad you like them! Do remember to subscribe so you can get to see me working on all this stuff.
@@video99couk Already did. :)
Could you make a more in-depth video about the MII format? There is not much information out there, certainly not here on UA-cam. I'm not expecting a Techmoan-grade video, but maybe a look inside your machine, and some more of your thoughts on the system. Could you use S-VHS cassettes in these machines?
Good point, I should cover MII. Some of my non-working machines are in my store room which would be best covered in spring time when it warms up a bit (but you can see them on my "shed" video). I have one working mains machine, two working portables, two non-working mains and a non-working camera backpack. There was one model, which I don't have, which supported S-VHS playback, utterly pointless feature which fixed the head drum size at the start. Then the format was hobbled by the tape size: Beta was the right size for professional camcorders, VHS was too big. So Panasonic decided that the VHS size would be the studio sized tape and they would make a smaller tape, bigger than VHS-C though, for camera use. This forced the tape to be super-thin. These two constraints made the tape path very complex and the format was staggeringly unreliable compared to Betacam. Panasonic compounded that with poor support and additionally the machines were much harder to work on than they should have been. Hence it was set to fail against the hugely successful Betacam. It's odd how Sony and Panasonic made some of each others mistakes in VHS vs Beta and MII vs Betacam.
Fascinating tour of your set-up there. Mine are racked very similarly, but are still in an upstairs room - so I have to be conscious of weight. I have a mixture of formats - the low band u-matic - yet to go to a high band more professional machine. There are a mixture of N1500/02, N1700/02, V2000, open reel, Betamax, etc.. Recently purchased another Shibaden VTR. A couple of AV3620CE open reels as well - circa late 60s. Think the Shibaden is around 1970/72. I find the N1500 internals a lot more intricate and awkward to maintain than say the N1502 - which is very similar to the N1700/02 models. These Philips are my favourites to work with. Every machine though has it's moments with technical problems though - always something to fix.. The joy of this old tech though is in it mechanical nature.. Something a lot of modern equipment lacks..
I don't use N1500 machines at all, not least because the servos are not very stable. The N1502 is a much better machine. I've added A/V outputs to all of my N1502, N1700 and SVR models. The electronics in these machines is fairly reliable, but I've had the occasional I.C. fail. V2000 machines on the other hand seem to be plagued with unreliable electronics. As for racking, I'm just about to properly rack all my audio gear to make it easier to access whatever machine it is near the bottom of the stack which always is the one which throws a wobbly! Just got in a lovely Aiwa XK-007 cassette deck. My studio is on the ground floor but even I worry a bit about weight, there must be almost a tonne in here.
Are the colour bars and tone generated by the Digibeta internally? I read in some of Sony's advertising material that these machines supposedly can do this, but even with the help of the manual, I was not able to get this set up.
Yes that option is in the menus, which will vary a bit from one model to another. It will generate a tone and bars when no tape is inserted. I have this option enabled on my J3, DVW-A510P, DVW-A5100P etc.
It has been a long time since I've seen an operational CVC VCR. I found that the capstans seize up.
The problems I see with CVC are: Won't fully lace or unlace due to plastic expansion on the loading ring assembly. Capstan servo not working properly due to conductive glue or other faults. Belts etc. always need replacing and one is very fiddly to get to. Head tips can go open circuit on PAL machines, probably due to glue creep. On top of all that, the 212 portable machines are not easy to work on, and generally access to the deck is quite poor. On the plus side, tape path alignment is never a problem.
I would love an in-depth coverage of the CVC machine(s) and the format itself.
As it happens I might be doing a collaboration with someone else on this very subject next year, but I don't yet know when.
@@video99couk I had to give my CVC video head a push before it starts spinning. Any idea what could be the problem? I don't know how to completely disassemble the machine to get to the belts under the video head, hope you'll make a video servicing CVC machines and maybe even a S-video out mod.
@@rsuryaseI've not had that problem. I can't remember right now if the head is direct drive, I think it probably is, so it sounds like a bad head drum motor. I do plan on doing a CVC video (or two) later, but I have a few other things I need to work through first. I won't do an S-Video mod because my TBCs have such a good Digital Comb Filter design that they do a super job of removing any Composite Video effects.
Hmm, It's probably fairly easy to bypass the video to PCM converter by just grabbing the raw video while keeping the field structure intact (e.g. by using DV). If you can get me a snipped of video captured that way, I can give it a go.
Software has been written to do that already. I've tried it and it works to a point, but my setup at least gave lots of errors.
Very nice collection of equipment. Yes MII was a horrendous format, a lot of design decisions that where not good, lousy product support form the start and on top of that lots of bad capacitors.... You need some big formats too, 1" C format and 2" quad.
Alas no space for the really big open reel formats so I just can't go there.
I think there were two main design blunders on MII: The large tape is VHS sized so too small for a high speed format to hold enough tape of a sensible thickness. 2: A few machines were made playback compatible with S-VHS (why?!!) and this set the head drum size.
As it happens there is now a 1" C format machine in my collection, to be worked on when I get some time...
Sorry Colin - horrible noob question. I'm looking for definitive advice on cleaning VHS player heads (see - NOOB!!) but there seems to be a lot of debate over what to use - paper/lint free cloth/unicorn tears etc etc. I've tried searching your videos but I can't see anything obvious from you. I'm sure I'm being terminally stupid but could you point me in the right direction please? Really glad I found your channel - love it!!
I would start with a good head cleaner cassette. You can / could buy video head cleaner sticks but they are now hard to find. Great care with these, it's easy to smash the head tips, even I did it once.
@@video99couk Phenomenal thanks a million Colin! :-)
Hi Colin, have you ever had any problems with your DSR-11 DV deck? I am getting no picture when playing tapes and I can't work out why. Heads seem clean but no signal is being output. I can't think of anyone better to ask for help!
I have four DSR-11 decks. It sounds like yours has clogged heads so I would run a tape cleaner first. Do you get the on-screen graphics OK (need the remote to select those on and off).
@@video99couk Thanks for the reply! I have tried using a cleaning cassette and also manually cleaning the heads but no luck. I do not have the remote unfortunately so can't see any on screen graphics, but I do get an preview output when I connect something to the inputs
@@videokassettejunge8409 OK, that proves then that you have a valid signal path from the DSR-11 to your monitor, that's a good start. Not having the remote makes debugging a bit harder. Do you have a PC with Firewire input? If so you could see if you get a valid clock running which would indicate that it is seeing something from at least one of the heads. Also, try forward picture search with a known good tape, sometimes that will clear a head clog at least enough that you can see something starting to happen (maybe a picture in striped bands, implying one head has cleared).
If you have a fairly strong magnifier, you should be able to see the head tips, if clean you can get them to glisten in bright light and you will see they are shiny. If contaminated, they will have a dull look. Great care with the head tips of course.
Be aware that these machines don't play Long Play DV recordings, or not very well at least, so make sure its a DVCAM or DV in Standard Play. They also won't play formats such as DVCPRO, or HDV.
@@video99couk Success! I tried over firewire and nothing again, not even a timecode - but the controls worked at least. I tried cleaning the heads one more time and the time code appeared, another clean, and I now have the video! It was a second hand 'untested' machine which was very grubby - even on the inside. I think the heads just needed a real good clean! Many thanks for your advice - I knew you would be the best person to ask!
@@videokassettejunge8409 Glad to have helped. Do please subscribe!
My CVC Technicolor 212 can only output video for 1 hour, then I need to let it rest for 1-2 hours before it'll output video again. If I don't, it'll just output black screen with static lines. Sounds like an overheating issue, most likely electronics issue and not mechanical. The video playback is not perfect, I can see a few static lines here and there, most likely need a tape alignment or the heads are worn out. No one seems to know how to service this machine.
A fault like that will require an oscilloscope and service manual to resolve. It's not trivial but can be done.
d- VHS????
The trouble with D-VHS is that it wasn't a format. In the UK there were just two machines and they wouldn't even play each other's tapes. In USA there was another incompatible variant again. So anyone who used D-VHS knew they were doomed if their machine broke down.
@@video99couk Why the D-Theater can play in other machine ua-cam.com/video/jiu0LPeLQPE/v-deo.html