Working on V2000 format video recorders 

Many years since I worked on a V2000 deck, watching your video bought back memories of just how bad these were, mercifully, they were a flop, so did not see too many 🤣

My first was a 2022 which cost about £850. I had friends who had the 2020 and I was asked to fix faults. The build quality was really bad on them. My 2022 was good and lots of friends got them. As faults came I was asked to fix them and I really got into them. I had all the extension boards that could be bought and made my own for ones that were not available.. I also fixed many in the grundig range and had the 2 x 8 of my own. I was quite well set up for testing and the local tv repair shop would bring the 2000 machines that they got in for me to repair. I never did any 2324s and they look like they are much more difficult to work on than the 2022. I have not done any for about 20 years now. My workshop was broken into and trashed so I sort of gave up then. I almost bought a 2324 recently on ebay and really pleased that I didn't having seen your video. When I first got my 2022, the local video shop was hiring VHS tapes and also hired a VHS VCR. V2000 was not bothered in the least by the Macrovision copy protection. It did however record it so it was not possible to then copy back to VHS. Eventually VHS was quite good. I had a JVC editing machine that had a dynamic drum so it could follow the tape path whatever the play speed. Happy days. 🙂

My observation is that Philips V2000 VTRs give better picture than Grundig, I have 6 different Grundig V2000 (including 2x8 and 1600 without DTF), and all of them have very noticeable chroma noise and awful edges. Test patterns on Grundigs do not show anything above 2MHz, when Philips can show 3MHz without issues. Also 2x8 has about twice narrower heads which also makes worse SNR.... I prefer to use VR2021 for tape transfers as the most robust mechanism and clean image. VR2220 is also OK, but my personal VTR has bad pinch roller.

Man, what a joy, what a battle! The ressurection of a V2000 machine nowadays, is a skill of very few... The logic thinking and the patience. Locking horns with that sweat vintage beast... Never buy one. Good advice! Cheers 🇵🇹

Philips, Masters of plastic. Styling wise they looked fantastic. So good to have a system so sophisticated and designed from day one for PAL. Sadly all wrong in the execution. All I did learn from tinkering as a kid before the days of the internet, VHS tape stock in the V2000 shell did not work very well!

Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder when talking of video recorders !

Very much enjoyed that. Cheers

Fantastic MACHINE 👍 Bravo! 💪

Wow, this was a blast from the past. I was the proud owner of a Grundig 2 x 4 with added remote, and it was the most solidly built remote controller you could imagine. A beautiful solid metal jobby. And who couldn't love that beautiful brown and gold case? I had it for about 15 years, and it was still working fine when I sold it. Never had a problem with it. Was I lucky?

I've had a number of V2000 machines over the years but mainly Philips. My grandparents rented one around 1981, initially a Grundig model (early than the 2x4 Super, might be the 2x4 Plus or 2x4 GB), and it had lots of picture issues and was swapped for a Philips VR2021, which they kept until 1983 before switching to VHS. I managed to pick up a Pye 20VR22 ex-rental around 1987 which lasted for a few years before having drum servo issues. I've still have a few machines today, both the Philips and Pye versions of the portable with separate tuner/timer, a couple of VR2324s but one is just a pile of spare parts and finally a couple of VR2840s, one worked last time I checked and the other had gone totally dead. But one thing I've found with these 2nd generation Philips decks is that the pinch roller causes a lot of problems.

.good Colin

30:25 - Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy! Great choice!

The V2000 system was so much better than the VHS. 8 hours recording and indexing was some of the great features.

I have a Philips/Pye 20VR22 which was 95% working last time I plugged it in which was some time ago. I saved it from my own scrap pile of VCRs (when I closed down my repair shop) for someone who wanted it then they got one elsewhere. I always (back in the day) wanted the VR2324 and matching VHS machine but I've never seen one in person despite at the time working for a large chain repairing and selling Philips brand. For some reason I randomly have the remote receiver (no remote) add on for the Grundig V2000. I also saved Betamax (mostly SLC9) and some better Panasonic G decks and a few nice VHS machines and a betacam player

When seeing this it reminds me of fixing a Philips Reel to Reel Audio Recorder from the end of the 70's, very brittle PCBs that easily break, swirling plug-in cards and connectors that degrades when just looking at it. I know it is old stuff but it isn't quality that shines.

I remember being a kid and feeling like all my Christmases had come at once when my dad brought home our first video recorder and being totally flummoxed when the VHS copy of Weird Science id rented from the local video shop didn't seem to fit,,,,, yeah it was the exact same model of V2000 that you struggled to get working properly,,,,, I came to believe that the v2000 was a superior platform compared to VHS and beta ,,, better picture, sound, freeze frame and the rest,,,,, so to see you trying to get a picture and not getting anywhere ,,, I soon thought to myself that if you bothered to give the internals a clean rather than relying on the tape cleaning the delicate bits you may have got somewhere

Top 🙌

i still have an older version in silver casde with IR module in the front but before using it again, I have to change also the rubbers AND I have a version in this design for VHS. If this has been in stereo, would be the greatest VHS machine of this time

I have a Grundig 2x4 Stereo. But it seems to wind painfully slow. What could be the reason?

The 2x8s by GRUNDIG have also similar issues like the VR2324 on some models, albeit being from Grundig.

Our first video recorder was a V2000, It was awful. It did exactly what yours was doing with the tracking. We could never get a good picture, it was so frustrating. We were with Radio Rentals at the time and they replaced it for another one that did exactly the same after a while, and with the added difficulty of finding new films to rent on that format we went with a VHS recorder in the end. It felt lightyears ahead and much simpler to use.

Its hard to work out if the passive parts or chips are the problem. Ill pick on the capacitors in the servo's, maybe a hand full of low esr capacitors could fix the sloppy operation. Circuits on the edge of working?. I had a vhs vcr made by philips , it worked well but if the heads were worn out the head drum had a nasty clamp to hold it in place, screws not good enough for philips lol. Special jig required, never simple. I could swear that philips and bmw were the same company, over complex and special tools required lol :-D

I'd guess the main issue with these is that they're past their expected lifespan by 25 years or so. I've yet had to see a VHS recorder of that era that wasn't broken by the early 2000s so I'm not sure the format is to blame here. In fact, all my and my family's VHS recorders require some level of attention to make them work again, including early-2000s machines. In some cases it's simple like cleaning contacts and replacing capacitors and batteries but it's still one fault after another. I recently tried to get a Grundig VS680VPT working again by replacing the clock battery (and while I was at it, the filter caps in the power supply, Grundig used the same evil metallised paper caps well into the 90s and these are now old enough to release the magic smoke too). Got that done, plugged it in, F1 (tape lacing fault). Most likely a dirty mode switch from the way it behaves. Fix one issue and another pops up. Some say it's best to replace every single electrolytic capacitor in these before proceeding with any repairs, especially in Grundig ones. Grundig used plenty of Roederstein (Labelled ERO or ROE) and Frako electrolytics that have a fairly poor reputation, some simply drying out, others shorting. I remember one chap telling me he replaced power supply caps in V2000s on a daily basis as early as the mid-80s when these machines were only one or two years old.

Can't wait for you to look at your 2x8, as have 2 with power problems.

Hope it's ok im asking you here. I have that philips vr 2324 working fine. I have digitilized all the material that I wanted, so I will sell this machine to another persen, he had some of his tape with him, but his tapes were running faster on the one side and normal on the other side. any idea what that could be. did Video 2000 have long play ? Best regards

The 2x4 super is an older machine than the VR2324 but are they more reliable ? I remember back in the 1980's when i had a 2x4 super the TV repair guy was able to repair it due to the modular design.

I'm about halfway in the video and not really familiar with the format but could it be a tape tension problem?

Sorry spoke a bit too soon,,,, I commented about a third of the way through your video,,,, rather than watching the whole thing first and finding that you eventually did clean the internals

Quick question. Do you fast forward and rewind each tapes before you play them? It's probably a case of 'teaching my grandmother to suck eggs' but sometimes the simplest things get missed.

Can you loan Matt of techmoan a decent running machine to revieuw the V2000 format.

Daft question, out of the VCR loop for years, but is there any way a VCR can be used these days? 🤔

Hi. Great video, but are you sure the Video 2000 was never reliable? My German service colleagues, however, confirmed that the high failure rate of these machines strongly improved after 1983. And there were already quite a few durable copies. But still not enough compared to VHS machines. Maybe it was different in the UK. Greetings.

That's why I prefer as dumb a TV as possible - no "I don't like that signal so I'm giving you a blue screen" nonsense. And yes, all Grundig 800s I ever had had the problem with the back tension in the last 7-3 minutes of the tape. And I had like 5 or 6 machines... I still have 3 complete ones, but only one that's working.

You say the V2000 recorders are unreliable, but my father used 2 of them daily for over 30 years without any problems. In my own V2000 I did replace the slipring contacts many years ago (when parts were still available), but eventually they failed again. Must try fixing it again with some contact spray now many years later. I loved the quality of my own V2000 video recorder and the quality was definitely far superior to VHS at the time.

It's the digital tuner. You might be able to disable the blue screen with the TV settings.

There are two things I've thought about. When you test the tape in the machine..what's the reverse side of the tape like? I.E....if side A has the tracking issue at the bottom, what is side B like? And.... Hitchhikers guide on tape number 42?!!! Lol

Colin i Found the demo version for the philips vr 2020 .

My two Philips 2340 VCR's are still working

You have to put a remote on the Philips. :) The V2000 format proves you could have 1/4 inch video tapes.

The tape in these is NEVER sitting down properly. The drives are nightmare to work on thanks to the attached boards all around. I had several of these and none of them played properly. The white grease in the mechanism gets hard over time and needs to be replaced.

You didn't mention anything about cleaning heads, capstan or changing belts

Why will the VCR caps explode, when in my 1984 Sony SL-F1 Betamax they're just fine? Did Philips used shit capacitors? I also have several Philips CD104 CD Players from 1984, and again, no exploding caps.

Forget Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, if ever there was a beautiful example of human aspiration, ingenuity and technology, the VCR is it 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Mine still works… 40years+

4:53 It's shocking to see a device with a chassis made out of processed cheese sporting a c-core transformer...

42

Sorry for rambling on again but I totally disagree about the machine,,, they were great,,,, they had 8 hour tapes 4x2 !!! Well before any other company had long play video

I work on these machines quite a lot myself, I find them quite easy to work on, but maybe that's just me. The Grundigs are the worst machines out there by the way, I wouldn't bother to use or fix them. On the machines you have shown you can get to the RIFA cap a lot easier, just 2 screws to remove the black heat sink, remove it and you can access the RIFA. You don't need to replace it, just get it out is enough. Later models don't have a RIFA at all anymore. Also you can easily change the power supply input voltage from 220V to 240V, then the machine runs a lot cooler (as we now don't have 220V anymore but 230V).

Do you think you could repair an old Russian FM tuner ? Power supply has gone I guess. No life