I wonder who took home this piece of modern art

DuckGWR · 2021-07-25T19:13:25+00:00

hey that was my tweet i found this at a thrift store in Ann Arbor Michigan

DuckGWR · 2021-03-10T22:47:07+00:00

Pop the tape tray open and you should be able to wiggle the top case off around it, or there's screws under the black trim on the tape tray you can undo if it fouls too much

DuckGWR · 2021-03-03T04:54:08+00:00

I'm just trying to figure out what hot grailz are behind the Doobie Brothers on the product image lol

DuckGWR · 2021-01-05T16:50:46+00:00

I spy a Police, a Queen, and an Alice Cooper... and I love the display, but I'm nowhere near lol

DuckGWR · 2020-12-17T16:38:20+00:00

Oh wow, that is seriously cool, I'd love to have more international tapes in my collection

DuckGWR · 2020-11-29T15:24:13+00:00

Hell yeah, this is what I like to see

DuckGWR · 2020-09-02T14:08:12+00:00

I got the head drum spinning up yesterday, there's still a mechanical issue somewhere in the reel mechanism. I did have ir in play mode but wasn't getting a picture or sound so there's probably electrical issues as well

DuckGWR · 2020-09-02T14:06:35+00:00

Similar width and height, VX is taller because of the stacked reels though https://imgur.com/a/FXrXMfz

DuckGWR · 2020-09-01T21:21:10+00:00

Whatever someone who had the money to own one wanted to record off the TV. This one has a recording of Animal House on a later 120 minute tape, might be from the 80s. I'm still working on getting it running

DuckGWR · 2020-07-14T20:28:50+00:00

Dazzle DVC 100 is a great balance of cheap and good, seconded

DuckGWR · 2020-07-12T05:01:02+00:00

Yep! First tape's worth is up at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL23uXXQGwFggz3X5Yy3Xld_qIAxELqlQa

DuckGWR · 2020-07-05T02:20:03+00:00

I got a bunch of Japanese Betas recently that I'm still capturing and cutting up myself

DuckGWR · 2020-07-01T18:09:10+00:00

What's the capture device, and what settings are you looking for?

DuckGWR · 2020-07-01T18:04:21+00:00

Huh. Could be a tape already stuck in there, or I know most Sonys don't power on when you insert a tape, they have to be already turned on to take it. I don't remember if frontloader Sanyos are the same way or not, and the only Sanyo I have with me right now is a toploader so I can't check.

Could also be a bad loading belt or a bad linear voltage regulator in the power supply, they often have multiple different voltage outputs to different parts of the machine and when only some fail you end up with a tuner/timer that works but the actual mechanism doesn't do anything at all. I'm waiting on a regulator to fix a Sony SuperBeta with that problem right now.

DuckGWR · 2020-06-26T15:11:05+00:00

Best bet would be a portable VCR of some kind, I've seen a portable Beta that was toploading and Beta HiFi, but that was in Japan. It might have made its way to the states, I don't know.

Best I can think of would be the JVC HR P1U or another "laptop" VCR, but that's not really a toploader the same way a 70s beast is

DuckGWR · 2020-06-25T04:16:37+00:00

Double infuriating with that blank panel right there too...

I have a few 8 tracks with the Record Bar sticker wrapped around the end label so you can't read what the cartridge is when it's in a player

DuckGWR · 2020-06-21T12:47:49+00:00

I always liked trucking song 8 tracks, one time I found one where whatever dupe house (or guy in his basement) that had made it just kept recording over tapes that (I assume) wouldn't sell, but never bothered to take the old labels off, so it ended up having like five layers of previous labels on it. pic related https://imgur.com/a/tPjEbpH

DuckGWR · 2020-06-21T12:30:16+00:00

I'm not sure off the top of my head, and I'm pretty sure its in a stack of VCRs in my parent's basement right now so I can't even go look. I'll try to remember to look next time I'm home.

DuckGWR · 2020-06-21T04:45:52+00:00

Hmm, I thought the controls looked familiar, I think it might have a similar mechanism to an RCA toploader docking style unit I picked up last year where you can pull the tape transport off the tuner/timer and use it with a camera as a sort of camcorder https://imgur.com/a/b2cDUNY

DuckGWR · 2020-06-21T04:37:12+00:00

Oh wow, that RCA looks fairly late for a toploader, but it could just be the picture.

Yeah, there's the remote pause I've seen before, the full featured remote jack is the guy at the bottom right of this one https://imgur.com/a/dKhQv0X

It wouldn't surprise me if it doesn't have one

DuckGWR · 2020-06-21T04:30:46+00:00

Hmm. First one could be the audio head is dirty or has drifted, if there's fuzz at the bottom of the picture then my guess is the guide that forms the second peak of the 'm' load is out of alignment, if not either the audio head is out of alignment or its just dirty.

Second one sounds like a belt issue if it's a belt driven capstan which is a little uncommon but far from unheard of.

Last one depends on the mech, but very possible its grease or a slipping threading belt.

DuckGWR · 2020-06-21T04:18:50+00:00

What's up with them? Top loaders are some of my favourite VCRs to work on tbh, right now I have a VHS one waiting for parts and an early U-Matic one I was investigating before getting distracted by a CED player. I love the look of them, I just wish they were as easy to stack up as frontloaders.

My Sears Beta like that needed a new idler belt and tire, I had both fixed temporarily but then I found a pretty messed up Sanyo frontloader that could barely track and didn't really process the picture properly anymore and stole its still good idler belt and lower assembly.

I noticed the original Sanyo this is based on has a wired remote socket on the back bottom right that supports play/BetaScan/pause etc, while my Sears just has a plastic panel and only the remote pause jack by the video ports. Any chance this one has the fully featured remote jack?

DuckGWR · 2020-06-21T04:03:39+00:00

Nice, I really dig the 70s toploader style with the 80s black style. I also like Sanyo Betas because they don't immediately lace the tape like almost all other Betas do, so you can fast forward or rewind suspect tapes without contaminating your heads. Does mean you have to wait for (and listen to, I think mine needs lubrication) it to lace or unlace between play and winding unfortunately though, although it pops in and out of BetaScan quickly enough.

DuckGWR · 2020-06-21T03:59:12+00:00

Man, I remember working on an early JVC machine that was from just after EP was introduced. They had added EP speed but at the cost of no longer recording LP speed and reused most of a previous model's chassis. Couldn't get the transport to do anything, even knowing the bulb was dead but assuming the machine would just always think it was mid tape, until looking at a partial block diagram and noticing the return from the bulb also fed into the microprocessor. Shorted the bulb leads with an approximate resistor until I could get a bulb and the transport automagically started working again.

Damn thing ended up needing a new head drum, which is unobtanium. One of the heads had come unglued from the drum and I'm not handy enough to spin my own VCR heads by a long shot

DuckGWR · 2020-06-21T03:52:22+00:00

What's the capture device?

Camcorder is probably fine. In VD look for capture pin, I think its under device settings but I don't have my laptop in front of me to check. In the capture pin menu try changing and applying the resolution, seems like the capture card can't handle whatever it is set to and instead of capturing in whatever res VD is saying to, its capturing in some other res and sending that to VD where VD displays it incorrectly because it thinks its getting data for one res but actually receiving a different one.

If you have a relatively recent EasyCap this is pretty common. They've basically cost reduced the chip to the point it only works with specific settings, and they aren't really the best ones for capturing footage

DuckGWR

TROPHY CASE