3/4 inch U-Matic Video Tape Format - History & JVC S Type 

When I worked as a news producer at a local TV station, they were still using U-Matic, something I remembered in elementary school. I remember thinking "whoa, they still use this?" While the station finally upgraded their video systems (I haven't been with them since 2001 so I would hope they've made serious upgrades since then), they were still shooting and editing with cameras and decks in the editing booths. The station most likely has all of their archives somewhere, along with old airchecks, and anytime they would do reruns of COACH, it would be on the U-Matic's.

Worked with equipment like this back in college in the early 80s. I could even tell you want all the connections do. SYNC IN (synchronization in) and SC IN (subcarrier in) is for syncing the VCR to broadcast facility's sync. That way when you switch sources the frame does not roll. subcarrier refers to color. sync is black level horizontal and vertical sync. And as others have said, U-Matic is not that high res. Though the color can usually be more stable then VHS. S-VHS does have higher resolution. And you are right. The edit decks were heavy. I've moved them before. Sorry, showing off.

今まで見ていなかったものがよみがえります。それは世界でいっぱいあるので凄いと思います。❤❤❤

LIKE YOUR VIDEOTOUR...WELL EXPLAINED!!👍🏼

We used that exact same deck to shoot over 1000 20-minute U-Matic tapes. An extremely robust and reliable deck. We used ours in all kinds of weather conditions and environments. Now, I am in the process of capturing all those 20-minute tapes to digital. The 3/4" U-Matic format served us well and was indeed State of the Art at the time. I am currently using three Sony U-Matic machines to do our video capturing, but we used JVC portable and editing decks for our productions. The machine you showed appears to be in extremely good condition. We still have ours, but it has many "Battle Scars" from years of demanding service.

My brain just stopped for a while when I spotted hubs spinning in opposite directions :D greetings from Poland :)

I Subscribe To Both Channels. Each are Different in their own way. I'm A Big Fan of Both Channels. Each are Of Equal Value in my Opinion. Keep Up The Great Work!

You are doing a great job, I hope you don't loose your enthusiasm for vintage equipment, it is my era so your channel is champion.

Ohh just gotta love that odd and gigantic piece of metal & quality components put together to last

U-matic was originally intended as a consumer format, not just a commercial / industrial format, but the large tapes and heavy-duty decks they required meant Sony and its partners (JVC, Matsushita) were never able to reduce costs enough to make that practical. They were able to get costs down enough to make the decks perfectly viable for broadcasters, government and industry though, and U-matic quickly swept thru the marketplace, displacing some open reel videotape use and really facilitating electronic news gathering and other uses from the mid-'70s and beyond. By the '80s virtually every television station and broadcast production facility was littered with U-matic decks and editing equipment. U-matic got a big upgrade in '76, with a high-band BUV format that boosted the color recording system and lowered noise. It swept thru the market and became standard within a couple of years. They created an SP format in the mid-'80s that was meant to allow U-matic to keep up with Betacam, which got its own SP format in '86 that allowed for 340 lines of resolution on metal tape. U-matic SP used chrome tape to provide for 330 lines of resolution (3/4" metal tape would have been crazy expensive). A standard U-matic deck could play SP tapes, with degraded performance. It provided an upgrade path for shops that were unwilling to convert to Betacam SP (mostly fixed studios where portable use wasn't a major consideration). In spite of numerous attempts to replace U-matic in the '80s with 1/2" formats - in particular the VHS-derived MII format and Betacam, derived from Sony's beta - U-matic remained in fairly heavy use into the 1990s before Betacam and Digital Betacam (launched in '93) finally relegated U-matic to playback of older pre-recorded tapes.

Used these for many years in broadcast industry, a real stalwart! The 'H-CLOG' is head clog, so hopefully the heads just need a good cleaning after all the hours they have had and you maybe lucky and restored vision will appear, they're pretty robust! Love you channel BTW!

This video just reminded me that I have one of those JVC decks in my closet. I've been meaning to find a good home for it. I made a video about it a few years back, and I was pretty impressed by the picture quality at the time.

a fascinating insight into the format. long time subscriber to your channel. your videos are always very informative and enjoy the creative side what you do with all the formats. keep these great videos coming.

thank you for the effort you put in this channel.

Until the mid 90s.... The TV station I worked ran news video playback off 3/4 - UMATIC. The 'clack clack' of the decks being cued was loud!

What an amazing bit of kit - damn that load sequence - sounds a bit like the clicks at the end are it ensuring the hub pins (white spring loaded bits) are engaged with the supply/takeup reels inside the tape cartridge. Some amazing macro-videography there Mr Databits, especially of the head drum coming to a stop :) Your channel is fascinating - theres some stuff I never knew existed, and you present it in such a unique way. Its always good to see a new DataBits video hitting my subscription feed :)

Very nice machine. You don't see many videos on here of these.

This is one of my preferred youtube channels, by far. Keep up with the amazing content that you produce and i hope you become a millionaire making vids, you deserve it. Cheers from the other side of the globe.

Классные кассеты!

Great work. Keep making it.

The "flat part of the hub" is called flange. I think this is a really clever arrangement that, to my knowledge, have not been used in other cassettes. Audio compact cassette and micro cassette have hubs without flanges, but most video cassette formats I know of have two traditional reels with flanges enclosed in a case. I suppose that using the same approach as with compact cassette did not work for video, maybe because friction would be too high because the reels are much larger than on compact cassette. But Video8 and MiniDV have smaller reels... IDK.

I was working in a small market television station and we used the SP version of 3/4 inch tape into the early 2000's. The main thing about 3/4 inch wasn't so much the lines of resolution. You didn't need it for broadcast because everything that was broadcast was standard def and most tv's were also standard def. The reason this was better than VHS was the s/n ratio was much better.

Umatic was intended as a domestic format, but it failed due to being too expensive. It then turned into something universities and schools used, and later, as electronic news gathering for TV stations.

I saw this very same VCR on display in a restaurant in my home town in Italy. The owner must have been a former video enthusiast as there were other items such as old video cameras (big ones, not the VHS-C type). Most of them were tagged with "Enel" which is the Italian Electricity Company; maybe they were used for internal reporting or promotional videos . Being a JVC I thought it was some form of early VHS, but there was no VHS logo on it; now I know it's a U-Matic C ! thanks and good work.

U-matics r00l! Have a _tank_ of a JVC 8250, and a Sony VO-9600 (SP). Both functional, which is a lot more than you can say for some of the newer VHS junk I've had from the 90s. The resolution may not be much higher than VHS, but the picture is noticeably less noisy thanks to the larger head gap and enormous head drum. Also, the linear audio was hifi stereo from the outset, at least as good as any audio tape. VHS got the hifi retrofit quite late and via the complexity of additional heads on the drum.

Thanks. Just found your channel browsing for which tape deck to get to play my tapes from my college days, in film making classes. Enjoyed your video, subbed. Looking forward to viewing more.

I can confirm that the format was used until at least 2000. The university I went to was still using U-Matic SP decks at the time. Speaking of the SP format, don't be surprised if those later tapes are in that higher quality format. Also "broadcast quality" isn't all that high quality, mostly due to the fact that all broadcasts were limited in bandwidth due to the NTSC (and PAL) subcarrier embedded in the signal (aka composite video). S-Video removed that limit and allowed much higher quality video. Both SVHS and ED Beta (and naturally digital formats like DVD) have better then broadcast luminance channel resolution (they retained the awful low bandwidth color channel) and required S-Video to capture/transmit the higher resolution video.

Doing TV Production classes in the 80s we worked with UMatic .good to see it again after so long.. We edited with that.

Great content & video!

excelent video. congrats.

This is actually 240 lines because it is the low band variant of the umatic format. There are high band and SP versions.

❤nice tech vid, well explained good job bro

those clear see through tapes are notorious, especially the ones made by ampex for having the tape deteriorate causing them to jam up in the deck or shed tape material all over your deck

Many years with 3/4” AB roll edit suite and field decks. For the audio output there are XLR female to 1/4 inch male cables, pretty sure I have seen to RCA male. If you dig enough there is probably a xlr female to rca female adapter. 🙂 fun though to come up with all the different adapters to make it work.🙂

Its a honor to watch your videos. I have many tech videos too. A lot of Device you have are very interesting retro tech That i like watching late at night

A suggestion: When viewing Standard definition video on a widescreen TV set aspect ratio to '4:3' so the picture isn't STRETCHED!

Great channel. We went from Quad to Umatic and ended on MicroMV.

Where have you been...................all my life. Instant subscription...

Also if you choose the clean the heads only use foam tip cleaners. Cotton swabs will tear apart in the video heads and wreck them. You can use isopropyl alcohol (not rubbing or containing oils) of the 90% or so strength. Acetone works well on heads too but keep it away from plastics. It melts them!

Whole lotta clickin' goin' on!....I love the sound of solinoids in the morning!👍😀

The white stuff was silicone. it was on the tape from the factory as a lubricant for the tape its self. Real common to see it powder up on the heads and tape path because of the age of the tape. Reel to Reel tape is where its most common to see it. Most TDK and Maxell back coated reel to reel tape would shed it.

Great video. I was sent this very same model of u-Matic some weeks ago and have powered it up and been testing it this morning. Yet to connect to a monitor, but all mechanical functions work well. Enjoyed watching your mechanical tests and playback. I have three larger u-Matics as well. I too have come across image bleed and in some cases, loss of colour. The answer to that was that the particular recordings were high band. My large machines are all low band. Not yet sure if this machine is high or low band, but I will test the playback again soon to check. I have many different format VCRs in my collection, hoping to find a u-Matic with high band playback soon - but without the colossal price tag! 😊

I absolutely love this channel!!!

I found a pile of the the media tapes at a Goodwill by the pound. So heavy cost me $3 each. Only was able save a few. Was a new reporter's resume for pieces they did on air back in the 70's/80s

i edit movies on computers and transfer movies from vhs to 2 k hd now days great video thanks

Your channel is amazing! Keep the good work!

Rotary Transformers are used between the stationary top part and the bottom rotating part of the head-drum, BETAMAX is a direct copy of the UMATIC tape system but uses smaller head-drum.

Congratulation for your channel and your objective.

At least one manufacturer, Panasonic, apparently tried to sell U-matic machines to the home market. In the late 70's, the college I attended had a Panasonic machine with a built-in VHF/UHF tuner much like the early beta and vhs machines had.. I never heard of any others like it.

Burbank CA 91505 is Magnolia Park. That has been the professional photo, film and video processing place in the US - mostly getting their work from the Hollywood studios. Some remaining signs are still there - a Super 8-, 16- and 35mm film processor called "Pro8mm" still is at one of the original places.

That was a crappy transfer. Umatic decks were used to play movies on PayT V before HBO, this was around 74-75, in the LA and San Francisco Bay Area. The Service was ran on TCI cable, and called THe Cable Theatre Club. Movies we ran included Blazing Saddles. The charge was 6.95 for 10 new movies a month. The quality of our shows was very good, but a Time Base Corrector (TBC) was always required to ensure signal stability. The TBC cleaned up sync and chroma and severe dropouts, it was an enormous unit, with limited memory required for frame storage to correct tape timing errors. The Movies were dubbed in Hollywood, by the same companies on your video tapes.

Digitized a bunch of 3/4” tapes today. From 1975!

based on the rack gears on the front of the top loader im pretty sure that it used to have a soft eject. over the years the stuff they used for drag on the gear goes south and the soft open becomes a little more......snappy.

My first ever video recorder was a Sony umatic with profeel display was fantastic

Like your channel ! also because your more technical and extra information ! btw. this recorder looks also like the JVC VHS-C recorder released later (?)

The tracking problems are not caused by worn video heads. But it might be due to a worn or misaligned audio/control head.

good for you

when i study movie editing in the 90s i used Super vhs tapes

You'd be surprised how long 16mm was used in news gathering, I remember a photographer for a local (Pittsburgh,PA, I forget wether it was Ch 2,4 or 11) TV station filming the scene of a fatal bicycle VS car accident using a (Bolex?, Who knows...) 16mm film camera in 1979!

Cool machine🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂

i have actually come across a few old sony units a few years ago in a computer recycle store and being sold as is. the reason some electronics get sold like that is that they dont have a way to test the equipment either cause they dont have the cables or the media that the device uses to test with so they can only go as far as powering on. sadly right now they dont have any u matic decks to sell but man would those be a pain for me to have to drag home on a bus no less.

Could you imagine if U-Matic actually was used as a home format... or a data or digital format, how much storage could you fit in a U-Matic tape? And what kind of resolution had U-Matic gone digital like D-VHS... could we have had 4K in the 1990s? Also I'd have thought the JVC S-Type would have been a broadcast version of VHS rather than U-Matic in a smaller cartridge.

I have a friend that was involved in TV production and saw my first U-Matic tape back in 2007...ever since then I have been wanting to find a reasonable price on a machine and tapes (but sadly, due to the weight as well as age of these machines, that hasn't happened yet!)

nice

that was interesting

The tracking Issue looks to be a pinch roller issue. That said i don't have much experience with basic U-matic I have used the SP version a good bit and defiantly plenty of experience with Beta SP and I have seen those kinda of tape path issues be caused by a bad roller. As to the blurring of the video I doubt the head is Bad these portable decks never get that many hours I have seen decks with over 20,000 hours on the heads working just fine. My guess is you need a to recap the deck I have trashed a few U-matic SP deck because it just not worth the money to replace the caps.

it's like AVGN vs IG all over again lol

I love u matic electromagnet slams down when u press play love ths sounds of a vp 9000 hi band

i like your goal and maybe you should go across the pond

Dried up or high ESR capacitor in servos

Resolution: 3/4" Umatic 280 3/4" SP Umatic 330

I can't believe I used to work with 3/4"Umatic and Umatic SP. At the time was far better than VHS. The Super VHS shooked Umatic so the response was 3/4"SP. Then Sony lowered the price with BetcamSP a bit and the format wars started all the way...

Thanks for this! I have no hear and see, that JVC has make U-Matic Recorders for Commercials....I mean that comes from Sony the U-Matic Format and that was the First Band Recorders for TV-Stations and other professionals Studios? Many Years later it gives the Format War between Sony (Betamax) and RCA/JVC (later Panasonic) with VHS. Here we can see, that U-Matic is the Pre-Version before Betamax for Home comes and what can we do with this. VHS can not do this later, especially the Band comes in the Cassette, before the Band go Forward or Rewind! Betamax and others later (Betacam SP, Digital Betacam, DV) can do this!

Thanks mate. Well done Appreciated.

I like your channel, databits :)

Cool machine. I have a Sony VO4800 Umatic-S portapak, a VP1000 player, a VP2000 player, and a Panasonic NV9800 recorder. I have played pany tapes that are over 35 years old, and most play fine, but you should be aware that tapes made by Ampex and 3m have many problems, mostly becoming sticky and that leads to tracking problems, 3/4 was not designed as a broadcast format, it was originally designed as an industrial format, because it did not have the resolution, and signal to noise ratio required for broadcast. Also because the color is a hetrodyne, or color under system it was deemed not suitable for broadcast. The format however did quickly become an acceptable format for news gathering, and typically what was done was the tapes were dubbed to 1" for editing and broadcast. Later after the format started being used widely for ENG use, machines were modified for editing, and digital TBCs were introduced that made the color and stability passable,but they still had the resolution limit of only about 280 lines. Broadcast gear had around 340 lines of horizontal resolution on NTSC broadcast, and on closed circuit closer to 500 lines. The big limiting factor was the 4.5MHz audio carrier for NTSC TV sound. Even with the 340 limit, a tape format with only 280 looked soft by comparison. Hi-Band Umatic solved this problem, bringing the format on par with Betacam as far as luminescence resolution went, but Betacam still did better in the color dept, as they used component color signals as opposed to color under composite.

Microsoft excel on VHS

Foto-Tronics was at one time a division of FotoKem www.fotokem.com/ They did the transfers from film to video. FotoKem I believe is the last major film processor in the Los Angeles area. FYI H. CLOG means you have a clogged video, audio, or control track head.

U-Matic format have only 250 lines of resolution. After that, came U-Matic SP with 330 lines, and Betacam SP with 360 line of resolution.

first! notification squad who needs sleep?!

I never ever saw this format

You know what this channel needs? Puppets. Nah, j/k, keep being you.

So, when we were kids the tv stations just played videotapes on us :-( I read in the comments that the umatic could only achieve 240 to 330 lines horizontal resolution. Where does the 625 or 525 lines transmission come in? They could've at least tried to switch to Super VHS when it came out in 1987

Do you have a video showing the inside of the S-Type you medicate? I'm trying to repair one and I think it came off the normal path but I don't know as I don't have a reference and I have been searching the internet.

who remember the c vhs tapes

Please do the Philips VCR format. N1500,N1700

See where the audio head is? There is a synchro head as well on the very top or very bottom not sure, if it's dirty or miss aligned it creates tracking problems, If all that fails use an external time base corrector between the output and the TV input and it should play fine.

As an X TV/Video serviceman's pers[ective, watching this U Matic machine FF & Rewind is messing with my head ! LOL!, compared to VHS of coarse it just looks wierd !!! :)

I would love one. I have old u matics from the seventies I want to get rid of

I prefer your much simpler video format than the fella across your pond, it's more real and friendly. Also, I really like your voice, articulation and knowledge of these things. I am happy to be your subscriber! Also that "reel estate" pun, haha ~

Who cares I love your videos.

Japan Victor Company an offshoot of RCA Victor!!!!

Besides the tracking problem, looks like the video is showing quite a bit of horizontal smearing, most likely it's low video bandwidth from the suspect worn out video head.

i really like your channel because not only you are more professional, but you also don't stick to using iMovie. your videos look professional all the way through, from start to finish, not like that other channel in which only some shots look professional.

if you want it to work properly you might want to talk to the guy from 12voltvids channel, he has experience with professional video equipment from that era. the heads might be ok but in need of alignment either mechanical or electrical.

I laik your hobby

What kind of player would I need to play just a naked reel of film?

Hi how come i didnt know this until now?

Just review a bunch of products with Nixie tubes in them...that will show him, lol!

original umatic boasted a total of 280 lines...the later sp jumed up to 330.