The UnTombing of the Technicolor CVC VCR - NOT VHS-C or 8mm!! 

Hey there! I'm David, the guy who rescued this from a certain dumpster fate and passed it on to Tom-it was so obscure, weird, and "out there" that it had to be saved! I also managed to locate the original service documentation, and the ensemble stayed together. This unit was found while moving Alpha Tech Electronics to a new location, and while I don't recall where the box was when I found it back in March, the manual was in a location where items were placed in 2000, when the shop moved from the address on the box. I can't believe it works with just a belt replacement-I'll have to ask Zaw (he's the guy who is first talking and messing with the camera) if he remembers the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of the Technicolor. Fun fact: when I started working at Alpha, we still had Muntz CVC cartridges in our sales counter. That was 2019. Would it be possible for you to dropbox me any Alpha Tech related content you found? The guys who have been around a while would get a kick out of it.

Thanks for this, I think you've finally solved a question I've wondered about since 1979. In my first year of high school we had a drama class and our performances used to be recorded on to a tape that looked very much like an audio cassette. I've always wondered what format it was and had thought it was probably an early variant of 8mm, but seeing those tapes and that VCR I am now 100% convinced it was this CVC format as the tapes had a small window just like these, not the larger window of 8mm.

Muntz cashed in on the home video revolution early, and was selling Betamax and VHS machines as early as 1977. They were huge for a few years with their store on Densmore in Van Nuys, California. They also bought Technicolor's entire stock of CVC machines and tried to sell them at steep discounts, even resorting to saying they were "8mm VCRs" when they were not.

14:32 - Electric Eye by Judas Priest!!! This video had to have been recorded sometime during or after 1982!

Sheesh, never heard of this format. Crazy what lost formats are out there. Simply amazing!

This is a Hitachi unit, pretty sure. The most common rebrands were Funai and Technicolor. The Funai version of this is the Funai F612V. The camera that could've gone along with this is the Hitachi VK-C600 (rebrands include Funai F612C & Technicolor 412D), they're really cool tube (Vidicon if I remember correctly) cameras!

I love the fact that Muntz apparently reused the flywheels off of 8-track players !

The battery connector IS actually a Molex MLX-series :)

If the $219 COD was the full purchase price for this machine that's less than half of what a VHS or Beta deck would have cost.

I just found one of these decks new in box in a closet with four cartons of unused tapes. Great video.

The calendar hanging on the wall at Alpha Tech only had 28 days in the month and started on a Sunday, so that narrows this particular test video down to February of 1981 or 1987. Given the age of the recorder, I’d say it is the former. Great video BTW and thanks for representing the STL area with your interesting tech!

Really cool to see those old cars when they were recent.

I enjoyed watching this. I had a shop and did VCR repair in the 80s and early 90s.

“The oldest living name in video”. Muntz had a tv that sold for $99.99 back in 1949!

I read owner’s manuals ‼️

It’s cool that Muntz even had the cassette box custom made so it had the “madman” logo from his days as a used car salesman on it!

The way the tape wraps around the heads really reminds me of Philips Video 2000 machines of that era.

Muntz? On a completely unheard of failed format? Why am I surprised in the slightest?

MUNTZ?! They were still around in 1980?!

Interesting video format, the tape goes almost completely around the head. I've read a news article about certain historical police interrogation videos being on obscure reel formats, I wonder if anything of significance was ever stored on this format? I'd imagine that quality was not suitable for broadcast probably just sales videos and such...

Fascinating !

Thanks you Mr Ostertag!

Awesome video!

This was an awesome video! I love the vintage video, did you catch that dudes favorite catch phrase? coke smoke and poke.. LOL!! when he was at the Lake. Very cool!

I'm getting some serious "Napoleon Dynamite" Uncle Rico vibes from Chuck, our actor for today and tomorrow and I don't know however long Jack wants to do this. How much you wanna make a bet he can throw a football over them mountains?

Fantastic idea and cool content bro

Love that awesome 70s-80s video tape.

Whoa Shasta lake is my neck of the woods! Bridge Bay really has not changed since the early 80s wow.

Wow - had to comment again. I'm really surprised how good the video quality is from this 'home' recording.

Your videos are cool

Great video!

Earl “Madman” Muntz,invested a lot of money in this format and sold Muntz branded versions in his electronics store. He was also marketing his own form of projection tvs around the same time. Muntz was a very colorful guy and his life story is fascinating.

How would you compare the CVC quality vs. VHS of the era? Mr. 80's oil field man drives a yellow Vette, who would have thought haha.

Thank you for the shoutout 😄

Awesome to see the 80s again. And Big Bend Blvd!

Bellissimo video 👏🏼👏🏼Immagine definizione di video registrato da CVC è come VHS. Bellissima telecamera RCA 💪🏼💪🏼 tubo da ripresa è più colori brillanti ed un po’ meglio di CCD e MOS. Meccanica CVC interna con tamburo è simile Philips Video 2000 (videocassetta reversibile 1/2 pollice). Ho possesso 2 portatili di CVC sistema PAL: 1 Siemens clone da Funai e Technicolor ed 1 Grundig. Magari aggiunge una testina cancellazione nel tamburo rotante di CVC.

The yellow C3 corvette is an added bonus

My father didn't read owner's manuals. I learned to *always* read owner's manuals because he ruined everything he bought because he never read.

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.

I wondered what kind of video quality this obscure format had. It looks similar to U-Matic in a smaller package.

Groovy!

7:46 " -A GRAND- An excellent pinout"

Your video is interesting

The recorded picture was pretty good for a 40 year old recorded tape.

I used to own this model and the TV tuner. It was a pain to use as the heads needing cleaning every few hours. It was very temperamental and I gave up on it.

Will you pleas help me to find one cvc vcr like thus I have a bunch of tapes and Iwould like to see them again, but i havent found a vcr like this in mexico

Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner is the best stuff for removing British Petroleum - Gulf Coast Division belt residue...

i wish this was more popular

That was cool electron..icks!

I have a question, please. I recently bought a canon VC-100. It's impossible to find information about the camera/recorder system. It came with everything including the camera and recorder but without a power supply. It comes with a wire that connects to the recorder but it has a car charging head. Do you think that's how it actually comes or am I missing stuff? Are car charging cables a thing for these portable recorders?

It hurts to see that burn spot on the tube. I've been there more than once.

😲 wow🤗

I assume the 5hr specification on the battery is how long it took to charge. Wonder what the battery life was but doubt it was much longer than to be able to record a full tape on continuous shot (but if anybody knows I'll be glad to be corrected).

Wow I never even heard of this one, and I thought I knew about all of the formats. Strange that they would release this when VHS and Betamax were dominating the market. VHS and Betamax movies were already in rental stores in 1980. I guess this was so people had a smaller field video recorder that they would dub the footage to a conventional VCR. Like a precursor to the Video 8 format

Years ago my late friend had the model with the built in TV on his workbench in his electronics repair shop.His techs were using the TV section for a TV monitor. Dont know why they were using it since the size was small or they were using it to check video cameras that come into the shop for repair..He would not part with it when I try to get it from him.He sold the shop to one of his techs and went out of business .Who knows where the set is now.

yes!

You lied! This video should have been recorded to and captured from a Technicolor tape! I had a chance to get one of these a few years ago but I think they were charging too much. Only 1/4" VTR I have is the b/w Akai, I wish normal audio tape didn't act like sandpaper on the poor thing. Maybe I could split some VHS tapes as others have done but the machine also isn't working vary well.

OMG, the aging, wealthy "frat boy-with-Vette-in-mid-life-crisis in the video was a hoot! Lets open our shirts down to our navels to show how manly we are still lol!

It takes weeks to make Muntz!

concerning the burnt dot in the middle of the screen at the end... how could that happen? Well someone pointed the camera at the sun for more than a fraction of a second.

It still has some tracking issues, I believe the capstan belt is too elastic, try a firm belt and see if it fixes the problem.

I know that this is not in the subject of this video, but I want to buy an answering machine. Can you review it please? It would not be helpful just for me, but for others to. I will send a link to where I found it in the next comment.

Well I was not gonna say Oil Well Dude looked like he did a lot of cocaine but he pretty much confirmed it with that one comment.

Weird that AV/RF out is in the same DIN as power.

Man, I really wanted to know what was on those tapes. Too bad you recorded over some of it.

You have same TV as me

I have the same machine along with the camera, but I don't have any cassettes (and the belts have turned to goo too). Also the camera died about two years ago due to bad flyback in the viewfinder, sadly that is part of the power supply board so you can't just take it out and operate the camera with an external monitor... I did do some recordings on VHS with that camera though. Once captured a brilliant (Technicolor) sunset with it (probably around 2015). The camera was crap though. Quelle sold these in Germany in 1981.

The cassette looks like mini V2000

I suspect it was actually made by Funai in Japan.

Was this used for professional production or was it just a fancy consumer machine?

Is that guy in the video lol is he Burt Reynolds 😊

I wonder if the folks in the outro ever figured out that the dot was just plain dirt on the actual tube surface, behind the lens.

How are good at fixing this stuff

so now nelson muntz from the simpsons makes vcr's? lol

A pin out diagram on the power unit isn't much good if you don't have the power unit :)

So many belts. Why did manufacturers do such a thing.

OK , so that's what Mustie1 was doing 40 years ago ! (I am not being serious)

Did this man just really say “ Im getting burned out, too much sun, too much smoke,coke and poke 🥴

Watch out Crazy Frog, here comes Mr. Cleavage, annoying beyond belief :P Anyways, nice to see this vcr come back to life; I especially liked the external pwr unit, looks pretty well built (would have been interesting to see it's innards, too) :)

I have 2 of these units with power supplies if you are interested

CVC was only NTSC, and was never sold in Europe?

Nice video. You use vintage camera to capture image. What the image quality if you use modern camera?

oml 13:50

Might as well recap it while you are in there, Covid home-bound and all that....

Don’t need to read the manual; doesn’t even need to read the button labels. Just press random buttons and 𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙤!