Quasar VR-1000

[old_tv_nut]

I'd like to repeat that it would be good to fix the tracking problem. If it's a tape speed problem, it should not affect the color frequency, but if it's a head speed problem, it could. So, fixing the tracking may solve the difference between tape and monitor (or may not). Now that you know how to adjust 688 kHz color frequency to cater to either playback or monitor mode, you need to find out which is wrong. I would guess that the monitor mode, based on the crystal oscillators, is correct (but I wouldn't say for sure).

[starbond]

The tracking issue may be more of a tape issue than anything. Unfortuantely the only stock of tapes I have to work with were my fathers from the late 70s-mid 80s, which were stored in poor conditions AND in a basement flood. Most of the tapes have little patches of mold across the edges of the spools. I fear the tapes themselves are not much of a better quality. I keep cleaning the tape head every few hours but there isnt a a whole lot I can do.
I will run the adjustments on head speed tonight and go through all the points on the service manual, once I give the video head a good cleaning again.

[starbond]

Originally Posted by starbond

The tracking issue may be more of a tape issue than anything. Unfortuantely the only stock of tapes I have to work with were my fathers from the late 70s-mid 80s, which were stored in poor conditions AND in a basement flood. Most of the tapes have little patches of mold across the edges of the spools. I fear the tapes themselves are not much of a better quality. I keep cleaning the tape head every few hours but there isnt a a whole lot I can do.
I will run the adjustments on head speed tonight and go through all the points on the service manual, once I give the video head a good cleaning again.

So it seems I have at least one tape that plays well, and quite well. Which again leads me to think the tracking issues are the tape itself, worn and brittle from years of bad storage. However one very interesting observations: every single one of the BLUE (VC100) tapes seems to have degraded much much worse than any of the ORANGE (VC120) tapes. I dont know if it was a different formula or a bad batch or what, but of the 5 blue tapes I have left, they all play poorly.

[Eric H]

I wonder if you could bake the tape the way they do audiotape? Obviously it would have to be transferred off the plastic reels.

[WCV82]

Man those photos look great, better than VHS quality, almost similar to Beta even.

Are you going to post your transfers to Archive.org when you are done? I suggest doing that in case there is anything that is under copyright, though commercials seem to be put up on Youtube with no problems.

You probably would have the first Quasar transferred tape on Archive at any rate!

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by starbond

So it seems I have at least one tape that plays well, and quite well. Which again leads me to think the tracking issues are the tape itself, worn and brittle from years of bad storage. However one very interesting observations: every single one of the BLUE (VC100) tapes seems to have degraded much much worse than any of the ORANGE (VC120) tapes. I dont know if it was a different formula or a bad batch or what, but of the 5 blue tapes I have left, they all play poorly.

Beautiful!

Is the oscillator tuned to work in monitor mode when playing these good tapes, or did you still need to tune it differently from monitor mode?

[starbond]

Originally Posted by WCV82

Are you going to post your transfers to Archive.org when you are done? I suggest doing that in case there is anything that is under copyright, though commercials seem to be put up on Youtube with no problems.
You probably would have the first Quasar transferred tape on Archive at any rate!

Wouldn't that be something? I will probably digitize this tape at least (I have one of those USB video capture units). As for the other tapes, there isn't a whole lot worth preserving. My dad recorded a lot of BW movies off TV and some color ones, again the quality is lacking on most of them, and there's no rare or unseen content on these versions as far as I know. It seems these were taped from 1983-1986 range.

Anyone from the Chicago area in the early 80's might know of the ON Network, which is the source of most of these recordings my dad taped. He also has the first TV airing of Empire Strikes Back that ON showed in 1985.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ONTV_(pay_TV)
In 1982, ONTV executives convinced George Lucas to sell the rights for the very first television broadcast of the first Star Wars film to the service. The rights to broadcast Star Wars were obtained by ONTV for a one-time pay-per-view showing in September of that year, available for a one-time fee of $7 to $8[1] (Lucas would do the same favor for the Los Angeles-based Z Channel by granting that service the rights to air The Empire Strikes Back in January 1985).

TV_NUT, the discrepancy between Monitor color sync and playback color sync is still off, and I'm not quite sure why or how that's happening. But honestly, my main goal when setting off to fix this thing was to get the tapes to play back in full color which they do. I don't anticipate recording anything new on these tapes, and I question how good they will look anyways considering the current condition of the magnetic tape.

[old_tv_nut]

Quite an adventure in electronic archaeology!

[starbond]

Its been a fun journey, if my dad was still around I have tons of question to ask him haha. I think once I get all the affairs in order with this VTR, I'll make a new thread explaining how I fixed it so other people people wont have to dig through 6 pages of fragmented posts to figure it out

[WCV82]

Is that an early network airing of the film Halloween on one of those tapes?!?!

[starbond]

Originally Posted by WCV82

Is that an early network airing of the film Halloween on one of those tapes?!?!

I believe so yes, taped sometime in the early 80s, possibly from the ON tv channel in Chicago. I havent watched it yet but the first bit of the tape is a bit fuzzy so I really wish there was a good way to clean the tape wihtout having to build some sort of motor spool rig

[starbond]

Well now, here's something odd. I hooked up the Quasar to my usb capture device, one that I've used on dozens of VHS tapes with no issue...and the capture video comes out scrambled. Does anyone know anything if VX tapes had some sort of copy protection?
It plays fine on the TV so tonight I will try using the Monitor and Audio out on the back of my TV into the capture card to see if that bypasses the scrambling.
Discovering something new every step of the way!

[Electronic M]

Usually copy protection outright stops recording on boxes sensitive to it or messes with video level (which I don't see).

Here is what I think is happening: the tape and head speed is below needed to create sync timing at NTSC spec...the TV has flexible enough sync circuits to handle it but the capture device has less flexibility and after trying it's best for the beginning 1/3 of the frame it gives up and looses H sync....ways around this would be to keep fixing the quasar or see if something like an S-VHS deck can record it then play it back in a way the digital capture device can handle.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Usually copy protection outright stops recording on boxes sensitive to it or messes with video level (which I don't see).

Here is what I think is happening: the tape and head speed is below needed to create sync timing at NTSC spec...the TV has flexible enough sync circuits to handle it but the capture device has less flexibility and after trying it's best for the beginning 1/3 of the frame it gives up and looses H sync....ways around this would be to keep fixing the quasar or see if something like an S-VHS deck can record it then play it back in a way the digital capture device can handle.

+1 on the head speed - this would correspond with having to adjust the color oscillator differently for tapes than for monitor mode.

[starbond]

Ah thanks for that insight. Do you suppose this adjustment could be the one that I'll need? I took a look at it a few days ago and ultimately got it to be a pulse on the middle of the trapezoid slope but maybe its just slight out of speed spec. I can fiddle with this one tonight.