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Author Topic: The best VHS machines, Joe's repair video (& Phil's little hard drive crash problem) Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-12-2004 11:13 AM                     Mark, remember the Panasonic PV-1730 from 1984? THAT thing was a tank! I had three and those suckers ran under pretty solid use for 10 years up until I finally sold them. At least as of a year or so ago, the guy I sold them to is STILL running them. He uses them several hours a day. If you are famliar with it and ever took one apart you will remember that model was essentially an industrial duplicator machine with a consumer case.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-12-2004 11:53 AM                     Yea, I worked for Panasonic back from 1974 to 1979 and attended their first VHS seminar in Secacus when the PV-1000 came out. I also worked on the side for a few video stores repairing machines when I went over to Canaon USA and then into broadcast TV. I had a friend that owned a video duplication facility on Niles, IL. and had tons of the industrial Panbasonic machines that gave him pretty good service, non the less he still employed a full time tech and was a tech himself. They were built pretty well but still had certain plastic parts in them that occasionally broke. The best built VHS was still the PV-1000 which was all metal and had those piano key buttons. Matsushita didn't want any problems with those first machines and they didn't have many problems. The picture quality just sucked though. Geez, I haven't had a VCR at home now for a bit over 5 years. After the last one died I swore to never buy one again. Tape is a poor storage medium! I will also stay away from the HD VHS stuff till laser disk does its thing in that department. I am strictly DVD at home, have transfered all my VHS tapes to DVD for now. There isn't much on TV worth taping any more. Mark  |  IP: Logged Pete Naples Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1565 From: Dunfermline, Scotland Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-12-2004 11:59 AM                     Bring back U-Matic! There was a tape format, huge, cumbersome and clunky, but reliable bits of kit. I recently aquired a VO9600 and a BVU 950P, massive things, both of which must be pushing 20 years old, both still working perfectly. Here in the UK, the Dixons group, which is arguably the largest retailer of consumer electronics, recently nnounced that they would not be bringing any more VHS decks into stock. Once existing supplies are depleted, that as they say, is that. On the HDD front, I've had two of the things go belly up on me, one years ago, was a 40mb RLL drive, more recently a 40gb IDE drive.... Both of them were Western Digital. Been using Seagate for the last 6 years with zero problems.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-12-2004 12:21 PM                        UMatic is lovely until you start working in an archive which has 7,204 master status tapes and a rapidly dwindling technical support base to keep our VTRs going. Agreed that the build quality is terrific, but the obsolescence and continuous format migration issue is a big headache for those of us who are in the game of trying to preserve content originated on VT. Pete - we've got about half a ton of blank UMatics in our basement at Newcastle (recycled stock - used by broadcasters and then dumped). Contact me off list if you'd like them, as they'll only end up in a skip otherwise.  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 12-12-2004 12:36 PM                        You JVC bashers must have the shittiest luck. Or do I have incredibly good luck? (Not something I'm known for BTW.) I've had a pair of JVC SVHS machines since '99 or so and haven't had a lick of trouble with either of them. Both have flying erase and one has a TBC (HR-S4600U and HR-S7600U respectively). I bought the -7600 used from a Japanese video store that was using it to make dubs--it has lots of hours on it and it is still running just fine. As for flying erase heads and recording on used tapes... HUH?!? This is a topic for another thread altogether--I'd like to hear the explanation of that correlation.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-12-2004 12:59 PM                        Mine's an HR-S8700 which I guess must be the PAL version of one of yours. As I say, no complaints whatsoever apart from it occasionally refusing to play the hi-fi track on some normal (not S-) VHS tapes.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-12-2004 01:42 PM                     Re: flying erase heads and used tapes. Joe is talking about editing, not general recording. On a VCR without flying erase heads, if you record to (for example) 1 minute 20 seconds, then back the tape up and cue it to where the next "shot" is supposed to be at (for example) 1 minute 17 seconds, at the edit there will be a pretty little dancing "candy cane" of moire left over from the old recording for the 3 seconds it takes to get to the blank section. It's similar to analog sound on film where if you splice the film, it will take a second for the sound to catch up. What happens without flying erase heads is the erase head fully erases the tape, but that bit of the tape won't actually be recorded on for several seconds (depending on the speed you are recording at). So when you do an edit, you are recording over un-erased tape. Flying erase heads eliminate that problem, because they are mounted on the scanning drum with the normal recording/playback heads and erase the tape one "frame" at a time, immediately before it is recorded on.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-12-2004 02:57 PM                     quote: Phil Hill Also, any "constuctive" suggestions for a PC laptop under $3k? If I absolutely had to order a notebook computer today, I'd get a Dell Inspiron 9200. This is Dell's first 17" widescreen notebook. The standard screen has WXGA+ resolution (1440 X 900). For $110 more, you can get it with WUXGA 1920 X 1200 resolution. The Inspiron 9200 is clearly a "desktop replacement" style model for its large size. But it is not nearly as thick and heavy as some other 17" models in the market. It weighs in at just under 8 pounds. Reviews at PC Magazine and other sites have shown it to have pretty good battery life, over 3 hours on the standard 6-cell 53WHr battery. A 9 cell 80WHr battery is an available option. The base price on the Inspiron 9200 is around $1500. Some of the better options available can quickly add another grand or more to the price. You can configure it with a dual layer DVD+/-RW drive, a 7200rpm 8MB Cache 60GB hard disc, low voltage Pentium M CPUs up to 2.1GHz and up to 2GB of 333MHz DDR RAM. The only things that I don't like about the Inspiron 9200 is the keyboard size and the kinda old graphics card. Some 17" notebooks, like Alienware's new MJ-12m 7700 have nearly fullsize keyboards. The Dell 9200's keyboard looks kind of like a 15" sized notebook keyboard placed on a 17" chassis. The Inspiron 9200 ships only with the 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 card, an AGP-based card over a year old. Some newer notebook computers, such as the Alienware model mentioned are now shipping with PCI Express-based graphics chipsets, such as the 256MB GeForce-go 6800 card. So, with some of those things in mind and some major product introductions in January '05 pending I'm going to wait at least another couple months before I purchase a new notebook computer.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 12-12-2004 05:57 PM                        I have a JVC HR-S9500 that I have hooked up to my editing equipment that has a TBC and all that crap. It plays tapes fine but when you try to record with it, the tape comes out like crap.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-12-2004 06:00 PM                     Is that the one Dave repaired for you in that instructional video? That was a good informative video. You should put that up for everyone to learn from.  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 12-12-2004 06:34 PM                  Thanks Bobby and the others for your "constuctive" suggestions for a replacement laptop. As for you other jokers yapping about who has the biggest and bestest VHS/DVD players... go get a room and have a circle jerk and start your own thread. Yours in Christ, >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-12-2004 08:18 PM                     I have had relatively good luck with IBM laptop drives as for VCR get a 2" quadraplex  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-12-2004 08:22 PM                     That last IDE drive I lost was an IBM. That part of IBM has been bought by a foreign company....... SO I can't say if they are any good or not any longer..... Mark  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 12-12-2004 09:37 PM                        quote: Brad Miller Is that the one Dave repaired for you in that instructional video? That was a good informative video. You should put that up for everyone to learn from. Yeah. Dave used to repair VCRs out of his basement. I imagine that he was similar to Mark G. in his method of repair and also his overall VCR skill. Download it here and check it out. It's only 28.52 MB. It's an MP4 video file, so it'll play fine with Quicktime 6. You might also want to try some other lousy Windows app that'll play MP4 as it may work. This is not Divx.  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 12-12-2004 09:46 PM                  Hahahahahha! Joe! You ASS! Changing ***MY*** thread title was too funny! I NEED to write down why I hate you, Bub!  |  IP: Logged

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