CVC video format from Technicolor / Funai. And TEAC? Another failed video format. 

I remember seeing this rack-mountable TEAC machine in a Facebook group a long time ago. That chroma problem reminds me of an off-tuned AFC or APC circuit in a VHS or Beta machine.

I still feel that you are one of the best. Thank you for giving this and many other videotape formats of our past the justice that they deserve.

couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the Muntz logo on that CVC LOL

You are fast becoming the Tech moan of the video world ( that is no bad thing). Another interesting video ( even though I only have VHS machines,,). By the way,I have a Nokia VHS machine with separate audio controls but have never seen another one on Ebay.

The videodrum will stop after a set amount of minutes of inactivity. All CVC videotapes run shorter when recorded in the PAL standard. I actually get a full minute more than the stated V30, V45 and V60 runtimes when I record in NTSC. I still own an NTSC standard version that I purchased from the Los Angeles area via ebay. It is still my favorite machine in my collection. I have learned so much about this machine thanks to your wonderful video. The German GUND label gives me a clue as to how it was used in the German aviation field. The TEAC machine's service manual states that it is designed to abort all functions if damaged videotape is detected. This is the reason why it stopped the playback with the videotape with wrinkled ribbon. The automatic abort feature is also activated if the load becomes to great to avoid snapping the ribbon. I have seen this happen a few times with some Siemens branded CVC videotapes that I purchased from Italy. I own two model 212 and two 335 which tend to create railroad creases and tiny pics on the magnetic ribbon. If it wasn't for the cute 5 inch screen on the 335 I would simply get rid of it. The TEAC machine is the gentlest on the ribbon with its improved spinning channeled videodrum and reliable M-type VHS style transport. I never use the picture enhancer or the built-in analog time base corrector because I use the AJA FS1 frame synchronizer/time base corrector.

Thank you for this very interesting video! I like the CVC format, I guess I would have wanted to buy it when it was new. Too bad the machines are so difficult. Grundig offered their portable CVC recorder with different cameras, the best one actually was a rebadged Sony Trinicon camera. The failed Quartercam (Lineplex) project is one of the mistakes that caused Bosch Fernseh to go into a slow decline. The TV stations were demanding a new studio camera, but Bosch was too busy with improving their 1" B format to compete with 1" C, and the Lineplex Quartercam project, and could only offer an odd rebadged studio camera made by the French Thomson, which the TV stations rejected as the picture quality was not good enough. When Bosch finally corrected their mistake and brought out the KCM studio camera in the mid 1980s, their almost-monopoly on the German TV equipment market was gone. The ZDF had equipped their new broadcasting centre that was completed in 1984 with RCA TK-47 cameras, and Japanese professional TV equipment had made its way into the market too. The German TV stations for a rather long time rejected Japanese made equipment because it contained too many ICs for their liking. Bosch Fernseh was never able to regain their position on the market and was sold in the late 80s to Philips, at which point it was renamed to BTS. The Teac machine is fascinating. Too bad it doesn't work quite right. The "BUND" sticker on the back might indicate that it was once property of the German Bundeswehr defence forces.

Well Quartercam was, AFAIK component, but it apparently used the same transport. It used time compression recording to squeeze luma and chroma into the same signal. This also had the usefull side effect, that those machines all had a buildt-in TBC. I guess the idea was, that if you had this, you didn't need to have a proper transport. However that transport also wasn't very reliable.

I have one of those, got it from the flea market. The camera looks slightly different, but the low light performance is equally abysmal. Unfortunately, the flyback for the viewfinder appears to have developed a short, it overloads the camera's power supply and most of the viewfinder circuitry is located on the main board, so you can't just remove the viewfinder. At least I got a few years of use before it died (translates to about 6 hours of recording time). And a sunset with incredibly awesome colors it managed to capture perfectly. I accidentally taped over the most impressive part of the video though... I used the camera with VHS portables exclusively since a) I don't have CVC tapes b) the belts turned to goo and I won't fix them as long as I don't have tapes c) the unit was stored in a moist place for a pretty long time

All the CVC VCR's look great, nice designs. But they look like a nightmare to fix. :) I love the load/eject mechanism on that military version. Bonkers. LOL.

When you were talking about the likelyhood of a later cvc machine, i was waiting for one to appear lol. And supprise supprise a package appeared like magic ha ha :-D Nothing to do with the odd shop keeper with a fez appearing when mr ben arrived. I'm not sure if you have a good enough tape to be able to judge the machines. You do buy some odd stuff lol :-D

I have a fabulous video camera you can have. I will send you a photo in email hopefully by Monday. You can decide if you want it, then we can figure out how to get it to you. I pulled it out of a trash can, 5 minutes after it was put in the trash, so it's in decent condition. Good to see another fine beast of a machine on your bench

I remember these portable machines being sold off very cheap in the early 80's, cheaper than the entry level Amstrad VHS-C camcorder at the time.

It's crazy that TEAC spun up a whole supply chain to revive a nearly decade old dead format, especially building such a complex mechanism with probably some custom parts, for such low volume production, instead of just using something like Video8. I guess that's what aerospace/defence/$10,000 toilet seat money gets you.

Hi Colin great video I don't know if you remember a few months ago I asked you if a head drum with four heads on it instead of two that fits in my philips n1502 vcr well yesterday I tried it out with great results the picture was perfect and the sound was great too

I had 27 of these with cameras on Mount Everest in the fall of 1982. Never seen it before or since. The camera quality was poor. The tape quality was worse. Once it was a over 26,000 feet the heads froze and wouldn’t spin. We told the cameraman to dump it in the ice if it stop working. That’s why we had 27. The one in my edit suite was fine tuned and worked well but it needed a special TBC to get the image to a professional recorder

If only I had confidence in shipping things abroad. I have a few Laserdisc players, which I am certain could benefit from your expertise. But prior experience with shipping electronics has so far not been kind to the electronics, both ingoing as well as outgoing.

Ah the CVC Technicolor "Showcase" format. Doomed to fail from the moment it came out. Do you happen to have the belt sizes for the 212, we have one in the back room at work that needs some new belts.

Re quarter inch tape... now I'm kinda curious what the results would be like if one were to transplant miniDV (or the like) metal formulation tape into a CVC cassette shell. better? worse (cause the formulation is so different)? or pretty much the same as the machine simply doesn't care 🤔

my cardinal rule, is no matter how good second hand stuff looks. is take the lid off first have a look around then plug it in after. :-)

Where to buy replacement belts for Funai 212? Can you post a video on how to change them? Hope you are able to fix the TEAC machine. Maybe it's not 100% CVC compatible.

Well it could actually be that those 2 recorders weren't meant to be compatible. After all if they re-designed the transport and everything, there is little reason to make it compatible to some obscure format nobody was using even in 1989.

Ohh the sticker "BUND" probably means that it was used by the German "Bundeswehr". However I have no idea why on earth they would set it to 120 Volts.

Maybe something changed in the CVC signal specs of the original early 80s machines, and this more recent professional machine? That's why the colour is messed up possibly?

Is it possible for a Europe model recorder to be modulation agnostic? So to be able to record and play both PAL and SECAM without knowing exactly which of these chroma modulations it is specifically? The chroma signal does occupy a very similar frequency range doesn't it... as opposed to NTSC which is way off.

Hi. I have a Siemens 500 CVC but the loading mechanism does not work. The rewind is sort of 10 % working and fast forward does work. I managed to change the rubber band you described as difficult to go under and up the deck. But the loading and play function seems dead

My threading mechanism is much much slower than yours. Is there anything I can do to improve the speed?

Mais um suporte de video que não ficou por muito tempo.

3:50 'also this battery....' Shows dynamite

I have several of these cassettes. I had a player and a camera many many years ago. Would you be able to copy these cassettes onto another medium? Or at least tell me where I could find someone that could do that? Thank you.

Are you able to play CVC tapes on the TEAC machine with good quality? I get snow and tracking problems even after adjustment. TBC makes picture looks softer so I turn it off. Tape plays fine on a Funai tho.

On a separate VCR question: I have a Philips 6443 from 1989. Visually its in great physical condition. I opened the cabinet and its looks VERY clean. But when I put a VHS in, the rewind is slow, the forward is slow and when i press play, the spools drag the tape half way, and cant go any further, and tries a bit, then the VCR goes to standby. (maybe a protect mode)? I was looking for grease and its looks empty...whatever is there is dry completely. Is that the reason? from 2 decades or so of no use? I dont hear any bad noise or anything...just seems like the VCR struggling to rewind, forward and play. The head spins effortlessly however.

it did not fail at all, I digitised 100s of these for customers all over the globe😁

I notice you've got a Techmoan mug next to the 📺.

die Geräte bekommt man einfach nicht mehr wo hast du denn deine alle her ??? ich finde nicht ein einziges 😞

Not to be confused with VCC or Video 2000?

Interesting system and very handy cassettes 10:00 - ("laced"?) that's I complain about more modern VHS recorders. The good old JVCs (HR-3300/3330/...) spool the tape direct, but more modern take the tape and wind it around all rollers and the drum. I still can not believe, that this is good for the tape. And the old JVCs had a much better recording and these recordings are still good today, while later recordings on later recordersa ar mostly unwatchable now Afair the heads in the old JVCs wrote wider lines