Sony U-Matic VO 2630

[firenzeprima]

This VCR is a Sony U-matic mod. 2630 VO. Found in a warehouse with its original packaging and all documentation. It 'been little used and is seen by external and internal conditions, after a mechanical check and head cleaning work again perfectly. It 'a real gem of mechanical weighing 30 kg. It was so long that I was trying to watch the old videos.

[Spinning Head]

Sweet. That machine is like new, like a time warp.
I have a 2610 and a 2600. I bought the 2610 of Ebay a couple of years ago, I haven't done much with it. I found the 2600 at a sale this spring. It is in rough shape, but for $5 a figured I could use it for parts. I like the way these old machines are built.

[firenzeprima]

I 70s I worked with these VTR. are real mules indestructible. always work never forsake you even when used under extreme conditions. The Sony U-Matic are much more reliable than the Panasonic, JVC and Hitachi. In a few days should give me another Sony U-Matic. which undoubtedly will use for spare parts because much exploited.

[holmesuser01]

I worked at an independent station in the mid 1970's.

We had a pair of 2850's that were used to air syndicated shows and alot of commercials when the film chains would die... There was a third 2850 that was always ready if one of the two on-air machines would die. It didn't happen often.

Does your 2600 have a modulator on it? Someone gave me one of them back in the day and I bought a new modulator from Sony so I could play it on my 21" round screen RCA. I had copies of films we played at TV at home years before VHS.

I have a 1600 in my shed. It has a built-in tuner.
There's an unused JVC with a tuner under my bed... Honest!

I have a really nice later Umatic Sony model that I run now and then. Dont have it where I can see it, or I'd mention its model. It locks with video with one second after the pinch roller hits the tape. Occasionally, it doesent like to go into rewind, but when it does, it runs fine.

There's a 1200 in my basement.

At one time, I had about 700 tapes. Now I have around 40.

I used to have copies of mid 70's TV broadcast video. Only have a few now.

On the end of one tape, I found a partial copy of an air-check at the station I worked at a month or so after we went on the air. Sure brings back the memories...

My old Sony stuff has never let me down... The tapes, on the other hand... Thats why I gave alot of them away.

[firenzeprima]

Yes I confirm, my 2630 has the internal RF modulator. I have a few video tapes of when I worked in TV network. I put some clips on YouTube under the name "firenzeprima" are videos from 1977 to 1984

[droptop]

I had a similar experience working Master Control in a local UHF independent (channel 61). The place was held together with chewing gum and bailing wire. Their specialty was putting rural local preachers on TV charging $50 for a half hour. Otherwise mostly religious paid programming came in from other stations or old public domain cartoons and Modern Television filler films were aired. They had nothing but used equipment when I went to work there in 1980. There were two 1957 RCA quad machines that had been rigged to play color tapes. One day a tape made it to air that had been sent in from a Birmingham, AL station. Nothing was every screened before it was aired and this particular tape had been spliced with duct tape- you can’t make this stuff up. That hour long shout fest came to a grinding halt about 40 minutes in and destroyed the heads. It was a while before it was fixed. Back to back quad programs were separated by long station ID’s while the next program was loaded and set up. Our logs were not timed.

The film chain was either the first or second color model RCA built and was still being used on air for ID slides until about 1982 until the camera head went down for the last time. The illustrious chief engineer never got his hands any dirtier than it took to sign his pay check but there were two assistant engineers that saw the film chain as a challenge and kept it running mainly to dub 16 MM film to ¾ U-Matic for airing. The station purchased several hundred new (new to us that is) training tapes from Ford Motors and we used them for everything. There were 8 or 9 2860’s in constant use with typically one or two broken down at any given time. In Master Control there were 4 of them run through a router & then through a TBC for juggling commercial tapes. If I was lucky and the two machines in production were working I had another 2860 for program tapes that ran through a separate TBC and could almost look like a real television station with fade capabilities. Usually production had a bad machine and used the program machine so switching 7-8 tapes in a commercial break with three machines was a pain.

After spending two years at the station it was sold but I remained with them until 1987. I left in the early days of the FOX network formation of which 61 became an affiliate. By then the “fun” was gone and the “seat of your pants” operation challenges were over but no one who had weathered the sale could really tell much difference. Only the programming changed along with some newer equipment. It consisted of standard fair for independents of the time. There were sit-coms like I Love Lucy to good quality Hollywood classic feature films. I had the 4-midnight shift where most of the money was made for a typical day so the programming was decent but if I never see Star Trek again it will be too soon.

Although not broadcast quality I collect the old half inch reel to reel helical scan machines that Sony, Panasonic, Shibaden and others put out. My Sony AV 8650 color machine is pictured below. It’s near mint condition and works beautifully. I believe it was the best you could buy in the EIAJ format with full editing capability. I currently have about 16 different models and brands that are mostly restored including a GE branded Sony skip field recorder that works quite well considering it only records one of the two vertical fields. I recently finished a Panasonic NV-8100 B&W machine that runs at 12 IPS. It was an odd format that Panasonic abandoned quickly in favor of the EIAJ standard but Concord (who bought them from Panasonic and re-branded them with their name) continued selling these odd speed machines for several more years. I have several models of the Concord brand including one capable of remote control. I’m always looking for machines I don’t have or others for spare parts.

[radiotvnut]

That Sony U-matic machine brings back memories. When I was in elementary school, from '83-'88, they had those Sony U-matic machines connected to early '70's RCA 23" CTC39 tube type color TV's. These were commercial grade TV's that had a jack panel on the rear for connecting various pieces of equipment to them. All of this equipment was housed on a roll around metal cart and if a teacher needed the "ETV", he/she had to reserve it a day or two in advance. Most of the programming was stuff from PBS. Stuff like cold war era safety films, tornado safety films, films on how to read and write, etc. Sometimes, if we were real good, they'd show a recording of "Sesame Street" or some animated cartoon. I think they only had two or three of these TV/U-matic set-up's for classroom use. Then, there were 2 or 3 in the library. One was an older RCA tube TV / Sony U-Matic pair. The other two were Zenith System 3 sets connected to Panasonic U-Matic machines (I think these were bought around '84 or so). Then, around '87, the Coca-Cola bottling plant donated a VHS machine to the school and we thought we were on cloud nine. Around '89, some company furnished 19" Magnavox TV's that were wall mounted in each classroom and connected to a master station in the library. In exchange for the TV's, the school system was to show a daily 12 minute "news" broadcast called "channel one". Now, our school district has come into the 21st century and all that cool old equipment has been dumped. If I found one of those old Sony U-matic machines or one of those old CTC39 commercial TV's, I'd probably grab them for sentimental reasons.

[holmesuser01]

My job also was at a small independent station (ch. 17) we did the same things you describe..

I left the station in 1982 when it got sold to a big group that produced a big syndicated talk show. The fun had left. I know just how you feel about that.