If it is from 1987 then it is so satisfying I think I need a cigarette. I was 9 years old in 1987 and my aunt smoked, and let me try her cigarrete. It was a special year in my childhood indeed.
the tape duration (remaining tape) is effectively obtained by revolutions speed of spools. and it's even capable of getting remaining time of any kind of tape duration, was a unique feature of early 90's models. philips also used this technique with the V2000. i worked on one of the same era, the HR-D550MS (europe model) and it got the same exact issue with the PSU, same dead zener diode. but in my case, most of the capacitors were missing when i got it. so the psu was whining but as capacitors were missing... i thought it was that :D the black streaking in your case are effectively not bad heads, but a shifted adjustement for a recording setting (deviation, or rec FM level for exemple) can cause an overmodulation and... black streaking. maybe there's a common setting for each speed.
This VHS deck has one fundamental problem, you can put the tape in the wrong way round, and doing so will normally completely jam and break parts of the mechanism. I used to work as an engineer for the U.K. biggest electronics retailers and saw this problem fairly regularly. What was very funny quite a few people that had these machine often created their own ‘special’ home videos, you could always tell when the customer was extremely desperate to get the tape back.
What a wonderfully odd and awesome machine. The omission of HiFi sound is a mystery, it is clearly not a low-end machine in any other way. Four heads, complex mechanical drawer mechanism, large display, looks fairly expensive, big custom remote, overengineered etc. Who would want to pay all those features, but think "nah HiFi is too much"? Anyway, really cool machine. The manual is dated September 1990.
The drawer thing was a novelty copying the Betamax. In Japan, the engineers must have been under incredible pressure to get this done and keep it moderately priced. Hence they have a word 'Karoshi', which means 'death from overwork.' I interviewed at Garmin for an engineer role and they asked, how can you be a good servant to this company?
I think you are correct about the heads being worn. About 15 years ago I noticed when Bed, Bath and Beyond had TV/VCR combos repeating infomercials all day every day, their pictures were deteriorating with black streaks.
23:12 - My mother had a GoldStar VHS VCR (rebadged as "Sears") that had an onscreen menu whose color could be set to blue (the default), light green (hard on the eyes), or red or orange (which looked very similar). She bought it in 1993, and by 2002, its heads were starting to get worn out -- its recordings exhibited the same problems as yours. 21:01 - I have a mid-1990s Panasonic VHS VCR that keeps the tape fully loaded during rewind and fast-forward, like a Betamax. My mother now has a mid-2000s Panasonic that keeps the tape in a half-load during rewind and fast-forward so its linear tape counter will still work. 15:44 - Not only does this machine not record in LP mode, it will _blank the picture_ when you attempt to use picture search or freeze frame in LP. 😡 The manual does not say why; it just says, "Picture loss occurs when these types of playback are attempted with a tape recorded in LP mode. Pressing PLAY to return to normal playback will restore the picture." You can actually search for the phrase "picture loss occurs when" in Google and get all sorts of JVC VCR manuals as search results.
JVC only supported LP playback as a minimum but never went beyond that. They blanked the picture because of how much noise was in the picture during special effects. Other manufacturers did the same early on, but I guess decided a noisy picture was better than nothing.
I seen Data Bits cover one of these long ago I think. Awesome unit! I'd love to get one of these, let alone a JVC VCR period (no I've never owned a JVC unit)! I have three of those VHS-C to VHS adapters, one is battery-powered and the others aren't. They all work fine but I use my battery-powered one the most cuz it's built like a tank LOL!📼👌
I had a JVC HR-S4700 from around the same time (1993-ish) and I remember the remain time would flash until it worked out what length of cassette was being used, which might explain the odd duration shown at 37:16. Just before you switched it over to EP speed it had stopped flashing and jumps from 0.22 to 0.29 remaining. I guess the AUTO position is a bit slow. When I was at college I remember a larger professional JVC machine (BR-S822U?) that could take both VHS and VHS-C cassettes (and the SuperVHS equivalents) but it was a regular front loader rather than a tray loader. It didn't detect the cassette size automatically there was a button to manually change the mechanism over.
I've the S-VHS model, which I bought new in the early 90s. For a while, it was great, and then it started to eat tapes, shut down when using the jog shuttle for insert editing, and I spent a fair bit on repairs. The last repairman butchered the bottom circuit board and ruined any chance of opening the bottom area, but the real headache was the intensely complicated tray which, when misaligned, is a really chore to fix. Mine requires slamming the tape into the machine, after which it loads, the gears seize, and it shuts down. After a few tries, it'll thread the tape, but the heads can't play it steadily. The S-deck has a ton of bells & whistles - it's linked editing setup literally used infrared sensors taped to decks to control them, and it has the biggest damn remote for a VCR; you could program the timer recordings on the remote, and send it to the deck. I think I paid $800 CAD at cost - but it is the worst designed deck I've ever had, and I've been a faithful JVC user for years. I still have the demo tape that came with it, which has an amusing montage to show how the VHS-C adapter tray is useful for businesses.
I think they also made a S-vhs /S-vhs-c version. Maybe that was the only way to get Hi-Fi. Or maybe they have a model in between this and the S-Vhs unit.
Another comment here from @bigheadamusements mentioned the S-VHS version, which appears to be the HR-FC1000U. So I think you're right - there was just the 100 (mono) and the 1000 (HiFi/S-VHS).
@bigheadamusements did mention in another comment that they have the S-VHS version of this, which I googled and found model HR-SC1000U. But in general, I think it was too impractical and costly. It really only makes sense to accomodate the VHS-C format, which can be done much cheaper with an adapter cassette.
14:31 - It is not clear how the "AUTO" position on the tape-remaining switch works. The tape in T-120 and T-160 cassettes is of a different thickness, and there is no machine-readable indication of this on the outside of the shell. (I heard some European manufacturers put barcodes on the outside of blank VHS tapes for this, but I haven't heard of anything else.) It is possible VHS-C cassettes have an extra notch somewhere to indicate the tape thickness (TC-20 vs. TC-30), but so far, I haven't found anything. Do you see any switches that could detect something like that in the tape tray?
I swear I've seen the ability to select AUTO or T-120/T-160 on more modern JVC VCR (within the menu). But I can't seem to find any footage of it. I'll need to dig up one of my newer ones to see. As far as I know, neither VHS nor VHS-C had any identifying tabs for length.
@@probnotstech I was looking at some other JVC VCRs' manuals, and some of those with "tape remaining" features had _no_ place to specify the tape type (T-120, T-160, etc.). So how does it know the tape thickness? I found this so intriguing, I just had to figure it out. I think I know how it is done. In short, by comparing its readings on how much tape _should_ be left with how much _is_ left, the VCR can determine the thickness of the tape. It is checking to see how the amount of tape on each reel _changes_ over time. For example, when you put in a tape, the VCR may start by assuming it is a T-120 and calculate that it has 55 minutes of tape left. But after five minutes of playback or recording, if it calculates that the tape now has 52 minutes of tape left instead of 50, it can assume it must have a cassette with thinner tape -- probably a T-160. The thinner tape causes the reel diameter/speed to change more slowly. This requires very precise readings, but some VCRs can do this. My mother used to have a GoldStar/Sears VCR from 1993 with a very precise "tape remaining" feature. It showed that most name-brand T-120s actually had 2 hours and 2 minutes of tape. (Older tapes had 2:03; cheap, junky tapes had closer to 2:01.) Early machines had a physical switch to set the tape thickness, but on later machines, it was buried several layers deep in a menu. People may also forget what type of tape they are using or just be confused by it. So, overall, automatic detection of tape thickness is a really handy feature!
Hello, probnot's tech! I hope you can help me with something. I sent my Betamax SL-5000 to be fixed, but the guy working on it hasn't had luck locking in the servo. When he plays a tape, the sound works, but tracking is messed up and the picture is distorted. He insists that he'd need an oscilloscope to fix it. I know you had a SL-5000 at one point and was wondering if you had any advice on this issue. Thank you so much!
I had a heck of a time getting my SL-5000 calibrated after replacing the servo caps. An oscilloscope can definitely help, but I managed without one. Make sure the capstan belt is replaced first and there's no wow and flutter in the playback. I found that can hinder the servos locking in correctly.
I did a video on my setup recently: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ot-gYEIWNJs.html Also a playlist here for other videos showing parts of it: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7sBY6B5qMHU.html
A Panasonic aqui no Brasil também tinha o mesmo problema de placa espalhar eletrólitos na fonte principal, e o risco de explodir? Além dos mais perigosos e até bem "interessante" do próprio capacitor esquentar numa altura capaz de soltar fumaça.
A Toshiba também produzia vídeo cassetes de fonte encaixada que era uma bomba relógio, tinha que abrir e a Sony também fazia umas fontes bem perigosas, já levei choque mexendo pra nunca mais 😂.
