Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The best VHS machines, Joe's repair video (& Phil's little hard drive crash problem)

This is topic The best VHS machines, Joe's repair video (& Phil's little hard drive crash problem) in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 12-11-2004, 06:12 PM:

For the 3rd time since I bought it 2 years ago, the harddrive in my POFS laptop has lost the boot/partition information and is not recoginzed. The computer is a HP Pavillion 2.26 gHz laptop with all the bell and whistles and a 60G harddrive.

After I remove the drive (to see if I can recover the data), I'm going to throw the computer over the hillside and watch it smash into a 1000 pieces along with that POS Mitsubishi DVD player, Mistsubishi SVHS deck, HP PhotoSmart S20 film scanner, and Sony 20" TV, and... that already rest there! I'm not kidding. I got great pleasure in watching them all smash into pieces!

AND! Of course, I was just about to do a backup, but it failed before I could do it.

I run XP pro on all my machines and that is the ONLY one that ever crashes. I WILL NEVER buy another HP computer! They suck the big weenie... and not even to orgasm!

(Gee, does that give yous some clue as to how frustrated I am?) [Mad]

Anyhow, does anyone have a suggestion for a program that might be able to restore/recover the data? I really don't want to lose all those porno pics... err, oh and business files.

BTW: I ***DON'T*** need any stupid comments about getting a MAC or some other lame cynical comment like I shoulda/coulda/etc. Thanks in advance.

Also, any "constuctive" suggestions for a PC laptop under $3k?

>>> Phil

Posted by Kyle McEachern (Member # 2250) on 12-11-2004, 06:28 PM:

If you can't find a software solution to it, this is the list of Western Digital's supported data recovery centers:

ActionFront Data Recovery Labs
(800) 563-1167
(905) 474-2220
(800) 563-6979 FAX

Data Mechanix
(800) 886-2231
(949) 263-0994
(949) 263-1549 FAX

DriveSavers
(800) 440-1904
(415) 382-2000
(415) 883-0780 FAX

ESS Data Recovery
(800) 237-4200
(618) 529-2579
(800) 299-7815 FAX

Ontrack Data Recovery Services
(800) 752-7557
(714) 641-0530
(714) 641-1543 FAX

Reynolds Data Recovery
800-223-7483
303-776-7110
303-776-7277 FAX
email: reynolds@data-recovery.com

Vogon International
(800) 392-5373
(405) 321-2585
(405) 364-8242 FAX
email: data.recovery@vogon.us

They seem to have a general price range around $300-$400 for recovering data from a drive, so it comes down to how important the data is to you. Good luck!

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-11-2004, 06:51 PM:

After you have destroyed your HP unit, buy only a Dell or build your own. I agree, every HP product (except for their printers) has given me nothing but trouble.

If you build your own, buy only WD drives with the 8MB cache (not available in stores - online OEM drive).

Make sure you are running Norton antivirus as well as AdAware and Spybot.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 12-11-2004, 07:04 PM:

Thanks K-Y! I thought about using those services, but then they would recover and see all the naked pics I have of you... [Razz]

quote: Brad Miller
Make sure you are running Norton antivirus as well as AdAware and Spybot.

I agree, Brad! I have been using those for ages...plus one called "homepage hijacker" or something. They all are the best!

I am thinking of a Dell, based on our convo about those machines.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-11-2004, 07:27 PM:

What do you use your computer for? Is it to run specific programs that are Windows only? Brad tells me that Macs NEVER crash ever.

Also, do you videotape your banned machinery crashing and shattering? You should. After a few years you'd have enough to make a cool compilation video set to music!

What was wrong with the Mitsubishi SVHS deck? If you think that's bad, you should try JVC. I went through about 4 JVC SVHS decks and they all sucked ass, watched a girlfriend's JVC SVHS deck also suck ass for her as well as a few friends who had JVC SVHS decks. Yeah, I was pretty dense about the JVC not to see all of the warning signs, but their first deck that I had was good, so..... Finally settled on a Mitsubishi SVHS deck and it still runs great. You must have got the crappy low-end one, you cheapo!

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-11-2004, 10:18 PM:

Yup, I went through 3 of the top-of-the-line JVC S-VHS decks. Not only did they end up being wholly unreliable, but the sound was out of sync by about 2 frames with every other machine on the planet!

JVC definitely sucks ass. I don't care if they own the format or not, they still suck. My Mitsubishi deck just keeps running and running. [Smile]

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 12-11-2004, 10:26 PM:

I ran a mitsubishi svhs deck for about 11 years before it tanked out on me. The picture was perfect every single time.

On the flip side, jvc and sony seem to build nothing but plastic crap for machines.

On the dell issue... not a bad machine, for standard everyday average stuff. If you want a seriously high powered laptop guaranteed to never break down on you, try this place. They are pricey, but they make a great machine.

PC LAPTOPS

ciao baby

dave

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-11-2004, 10:32 PM:

Brad, which model is your Mitsubishi SVHS deck? I am too lazy to check mine right now but I will before the night is over (hopefully). Does yours have the flying erase head? Flying erase heads rock. I hate that rainbow (of course I insist on only USED tapes, thus the flying erase head becomes important). I bet my Mitsubishi SVHS deck is better than yours. We should have them fight in a stop-motion-animation pay-per-view action-fest!

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-11-2004, 10:39 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
After you have destroyed your HP unit, buy only a Dell or build your own

Well said Brad. I thought Phil was a cooler guy than to buy an HP product! The only decent HP printer I have owned so far is a Laser Printer. Brad... wait till your plastic gears crack! Another hint Phil,
Don't buy a laptop with just one huge drive in it... thats a deadly mistake. Its basically a guarantee that it WILL fail. If you have two smaller drives then neither will ever fail. Large HD's seem to be more unreliable today than ever. I have two smaller 20 gig drives in my Dell laptop. I use one to back up important files to just in case.

At home my SCSI conversion has worked out really well. My computer even benchmarkes quite a bit faster than it used to and I can still double my present HD through put when I get a more up to date SCSI card.

The conclusion is that IDE HD's suck and todays IDE drives are getting larger in size and worse in reliability.

Mark

Posted by Ben Holley (Member # 2247) on 12-11-2004, 10:55 PM:

you could always try the hard drive in the freezer trick as a last resort before you chuck it. Put the harddrive in an antistatic bag and put it in a reallllly cold freezer for a couple hours, then take it out and pop it into another computer as a slave and if it works just copy as much over as you can. If you try be sure to post results. little better directions here

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 12-11-2004, 11:12 PM:

I have had nothing but trouble from HP Laptops and servers. However, since they bought Compaq, I have to say that all the Compaq stuff is still pretty good. That is, the HP Compaq laptops and servers run great... at least for me. But the HP Pavillion stuff... forget it.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-12-2004, 04:25 AM:

Joe, I have the Mitsubishi HS-U69 deck. (No Phil, the model number was not the reason I chose to buy this particular machine.) It does have flying erase heads to eliminate the moire effect on used tapes, which definitely kicked much ass back in the pre-nonlinear editing days.

So I got off of my ass and looked at my model number, which one do you have? You too Phil! Which Mitsubishi model did you have? (Phil probably used Sony tapes in his Mitsubishi. Those would always clog my heads. I used 3M tapes exclusively and never had problems.)

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-12-2004, 04:50 AM:

I guess I must have been lucky, but I have an HP laptop and a JVC S-VHS deck and neither has given more than minor problems. The battery on the laptop is a bit shite - after a year of very light use and practically no charging from half-full its running time is down to around an hour. But other than that no problems, and I do appreciate it having a floppy drive built into the unit rather than having to faff about with an external USB one. The VCR sometimes refuses to play the hi-fi track on standard VHS tapes, but that niggle is more than offset by the excellent timebase correction feature which can do wonders for older tapes.

I do agree with Brad on Dell laptops, though - well built and with excellent support (you only need to type the serial number into Dell's website and it automatically gives you any driver updates tailored to your hardware)... but the two I've used have no internal floppy drive.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-12-2004, 04:52 AM:

I have the HS-U795. Notice that my number is larger than yours. Much larger. For every unit of increase in the number, my VCR is that much better than yours. So therefore my VCR must be 726 times better than yours. It is undeniable. Look at the reviews it gets online. It ruleXorZ.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-12-2004, 09:16 AM:

Having come from a Video background and factory service of VHS equipment I can honestly say that ALL of it is built like crap [thumbsup]

. If yours doesn't give trouble you're just lucky........

Mark

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 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.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 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

Posted by Pete Naples (Member # 761) on 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.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 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.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 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. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 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.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 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.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 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.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 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.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 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.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 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

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-12-2004, 08:18 PM:

I have had relatively good luck with IBM laptop drives
as for VCR get a 2" quadraplex [Big Grin]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 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

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 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.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 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!

Posted by Jim Spohn (Member # 1547) on 12-13-2004, 11:02 AM:

Phil..If they had a circle jerk how would they decide on a pivot-man. I'm in charge of a electronics R&D lab for GE, all the BEST test gear in the world is HP and from that I bought a HP computer.....what a piece of shit...... HP should stick to making the good test stuff and forget consumer crap. ...Jim

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-13-2004, 05:42 PM:

Circle jerk? Pivot man? What the hell?

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 12-13-2004, 06:02 PM:

Back in the day when broadcast stations first started using 3/4" tape for ENG, JVC came out with the 4700. It was a poorly designed piece of crap that was rushed to market without proper testing (and redesign). It got JVC a bad reputation, and they STILL have not learned their lession.

I just looked at a problem for a client. They were having trouble playing VHS tapes back on their video projectors. The picture would jitter up and down. Looking at the picture on a pulse cross monitor, I could see a bad hook in the sync after the head switch. Opening the machine up (yes, it is a JVC), I noticed what looked like the machine was out of alignment, the tape going into the entrance guide was tight on the bottom, and floping around near the top. I looked for a way to fix this, but could not figure out how. I then looked at another machine of the same model, it had the same problem. These were new machines; I told them to return the machines, and buy something other than JVC.

Over time I would think that this problem would cause edge damage to a tape that had been run on this machine a number of times. Good luck playing the tape back after this happens.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-13-2004, 06:44 PM:

I remember the 4700. I think the HRS-6700 came out around the same time, and that was actually a good VCR. Brad had a couple of clones of this model, but I forget what they were called. Anyway the 6700 lasted me a few years. Maybe even several years!

Posted by Daniel Wright (Member # 1983) on 12-13-2004, 06:52 PM:

I have had two gateway laptops and a Hewlett Packard. The second Gateway was a #$#%#$%@$#%$#@%%#$@ piece of [bs]

. It was sent in for service six times. It had the wrong voltage battery in it when I bought it. Constantly overheated and the screen had a bad habit of going blank. I thank the idiot who stole it out of my college dorm room. They deserve what they got. The HP has been rock steady and reliable.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-13-2004, 10:51 PM:

The 6700s had the audio sync problem.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-14-2004, 01:27 AM:

Not mine. You didn't have the 6700. You had an inferior clone with a lower number. Lower numbers = inferior.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-14-2004, 01:52 AM:

I believe mine was the 5800, but it was identical to yours...same drive, guts and all. Your machine did too have this problem. You don't see it unless you take the tape and play it on a different player (and are picky about the sync). I think that's why JVC got away with it.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-14-2004, 02:22 AM:

Wrong again! I have both your machine and my machine (5800 and 6700 respectively) right here and opened them both up. Inside yours there is a sticker from JVC of Japan on the audio sync that says "teh suk!", and on mine there is a sticker on the audio sync that says "teh awsum!"

This proves beyond a doubt that mine was better in every way.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-14-2004, 03:47 AM:

Sweet, I didn't know you took road trips to Texas to rummage through my trash. Next time knock on the door and say hi.