If you have seen the videos I uploaded recently where you see service manager David Cramm of apple repairing a Apple II and an Apple II disk drive well then this video will show you the process of how I digitised those tapes.
I used to service these machines, worked on hundreds of them. It's sad that the footage looks so rough, because Umatic is capable of being so much cleaner. I think the heads are worn out, as well as tape issues that the other comments talk about. I enjoyed your effort with preserving the Apple tapes!
After the video was uploaded I noticed that there is some damage to the heads. So indeed my machine is not representative of the quality it can deliver. Thanks for the kind comment!
Not only is your story and your tapes impressive, but your video production quality is also VERY impressive! I wish I could hire you to help me edit MY videos, too!
Nice video but I have a bit of info for you. I also have a few Umatic machines and I have been collecting for years. I provide transfer of old tapes for clients. You need to know that the Umatic format is split in three techinical video processing standards; Umatic Lowband (the machine you got), Umatic Highband and Umatic SP (Super Highband). The wedding video you saw was probably not in B/W but either in Highband or SP. The luminance information (B/W) you can still see, but the colors are missing because the color subcarrier was moved up in frequency to allow higher B/W bandwidth and also provided higher color bandwidth. Also get an TBC when transferring old tapes. They have many drop-outs and the TBC will correct and remove many of those. The older For-A TBC´s are perfect for Umatics.
Thanks for giving some info! Always nice to read. The television I used was black and white. Indeed the wedding video has color. I have some saved searches for TBC’s. I think it will be fun trying those out. If I manage to find one of course.
I recommend a Food dryer or similar to bake the tape. 50'C for 12-16 hours usually does the trick. Make sure you clean the heads and tape path of your player well with IPA cleaner before and after playing this tape.
Can you talk about the exact adapter you used to pull the footage to your laptop? You mentioned "AV to USB" adapter cable (?)... is there a specific brand you recommend? Great video, thanks for this information!
The adapter appears to not be sold anymore, if you google Composite to USB you find a lot of them mostly for around ten bucks, quality is very similar across the board. If you want a more premium version I would say retrotink or an old elgato
Hey, do you know VHS-Decode project? Thanks to it you can get maximum quality possible off the tape. Despite its name it can also support U-Matic format!
Very cool. I saw a U Matic player at a pawn shop in the 90s. I wish I would have known to buy it but I suspect they wanted at least 100 dollars for it, working or not. The way folks care for stuff in my city, most likely the latter. Anyway, the quality is really good.F@%k Gymnastics!!! Lol jk. Good work my friend. I see you might be an engineer or at least someone who knows their way around vintage electronics
Hello, I am planning to make a short film using a VHS tape to get an authentic 80s vibe. The process that you used to convert the Umatic tape to digital…what is the resolution that you get. Can we get a HD quality output using this method.
You can't get HD using Umatic or VHS, impossible, if you had film on a negative you could as film on a negative can be scanned and processed at a higher resolution. @@schefre35
Agreed, lovely technology, aside from the gamble if they work they are also gainormess pieces of (lovely) equipment... Hope a nice working one will cross your path!
There are a number of things you should know about preserving tapes. For example many tapes (especially Ampex) have the "sticky shed" problem: the magnetic layer gets detached from the tape and clogs up your video heads, unless you "bake" the tape in an oven at a low temperature (I think 50 Celsius) for a day or so. And even after that, the problem will return. Also many tapes develop mold which makes them unplayable and unrecoverable. Check out the @video99couk RU-vid channel.
