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  #46  
Old 03-18-2013, 08:09 PM
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Harvestman Harvestman is offline
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I have one non-operative (Super)Beta deck: a Sony SL-HF450. I put a tape in, and after about 5 seconds or so, it spits the tape right back out. Doesn't even load it into the transport.

Is it worth fixing?
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  #47  
Old 03-18-2013, 10:47 PM
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SaraAB87 SaraAB87 is offline
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I have a Sony super Betamax SL-HFR70 and about 20 tapes mostly Disney. I paid $5 plus $1 for a bag of tapes so $6 for the lot. The last time I turned it on it was working perfectly.
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  #48  
Old 03-19-2013, 01:29 AM
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ChrisW6ATV ChrisW6ATV is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Harvestman View Post
I have one non-operative (Super)Beta deck: a Sony SL-HF450. I put a tape in, and after about 5 seconds or so, it spits the tape right back out. Doesn't even load it into the transport.

Is it worth fixing?
Yes. Those are excellent machines in SuperBeta mode.
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  #49  
Old 04-04-2013, 11:58 PM
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Everyone has beta but no one will admit it...lol. I personally have two betas i bought new, a SL-5600 Sony and a Superbeta SLHF-900. I also have a sears beta with a dial tuner and two zenith versions of the sony for spare parts.

Last edited by Firebird; 04-05-2013 at 12:33 AM.
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  #50  
Old 04-05-2013, 12:07 AM
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Beta was better in picture quality than VHS. But the VHS manufactures were better at marketing. A lot of them were sold as american brands like RCA, Zenith, GE, Magnavox...etc. Many thought they were american made and so chose them even though beta was better definition.
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  #51  
Old 04-05-2013, 10:47 AM
NJRoadfan NJRoadfan is offline
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The specs show Betamax has slightly better chrominance resolution over VHS. Any quality difference was made moot when Betamax switched to the BII speed as the system default. B-Is recording (Superbeta on the original "X-1" speed) was quite impressive however, particularly the Super Hi-Band 6.0Mhz mode found on the SL-HF1000 and SL-HF2100.
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  #52  
Old 04-05-2013, 10:35 PM
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I have several Betamax VCRs. A Sony SLO-323 (industrial VTR with linear stereo), a Zenith Video Director VR-9000W (rebadged Sony SL-5400), a Sony SL-5400 (ßII/III top-loader), a Toshiba VM-32 (mono front-loader), a NEC VC-N70EU (Beta Hi-Fi front-loader), and a Sony SL-HF2100 (15th Anniversary Betamax).

The 2100 is a very fascinating machine; the second-to-last consumer Beta machine released, it has all sorts of fancy features, such as SuperBeta (and ßI-S "Super Hi-Band" mode, as mentioned in the post above), auto-tracking (a first for a Beta deck), and S-Video jacks (only consumer Beta deck to have them). The entire front panel is comprised of touch-sensitive panels, making it perhaps the only VCR ever made to not sport any physical buttons (even the RMT-2100 remote control, which I do not have, was a big LCD touch-panel). It worked when I got it, but playback fuzzed out to static 15 minutes into the tape I used to test it. Hoping that cleaning the heads will fix it, as I expect it to be the best Betamax deck I'll ever own. Not bad for a $19.99 surplus sale buy, anyway...

Fun tidbit: my Zenith VR-9000W was supposedly once owned by late fashion designer Bill Blass. I found it in the back room of a local antique store, and the store owners claimed that it had been found in his summer cottage, along with a stack of Betamax tapes of his fashion shows. The owners made a deal with me: if I could confirm what was on the tapes, I could have the Zenith. I took the tapes home with me, stuck them in my Sony SLO-323 (the only Betamax deck I had at the time), futzed with the tracking to make them halfway-watchable (being ßII tapes, and the Sony being ßI-only, I had to use the X2 playback speed mode), and what should appear on the screen but several runway models outfitted in the finest '80s pastels (the tapes comprised several collections, spanning 1984-88). I took the tapes back to the antique store, gave them my report, and the Zenith was mine. Of course, I have no documentation to back up my claim, and the antique store is long-defunct. All I have are my memories of those pastels...
-Adam
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Last edited by AdamAnt316; 04-05-2013 at 11:10 PM.
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  #53  
Old 04-06-2013, 01:44 AM
Dude111 Dude111 is offline
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I found a VHS-C to VHS adapter the other day @ a thrift store..... (You place the compact cartridge into this bigger holder and it will play in a reg VHS machene)

Does anyone know if a BETA to VHS adapter exists??
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  #54  
Old 04-06-2013, 07:12 PM
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ChrisW6ATV ChrisW6ATV is offline
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No, there were never any Beta-to-VHS adapters, or any dual-format VCRs. There are too many physical differences in the signals on the tapes for a machine of one format to read tapes of the other format.
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  #55  
Old 04-07-2013, 02:48 AM
Dude111 Dude111 is offline
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Thats sad...... You would think they could easily accomplish this with one of those converter things..
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  #56  
Old 04-07-2013, 10:19 AM
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Different head drum diameters, etc etc - cannot be compensated by an adapter that holds the tape cassette.
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  #57  
Old 04-07-2013, 01:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dude111 View Post
Thats sad...... You would think they could easily accomplish this with one of those converter things..
I'd equate it to trying to put an Atari 2600 cartridge into a Nintendo NES. Too many dissimilarities to allow it to work (about the only thing VHS and Beta have in common is the width of the tape). In the case of VHS-C to VHS converters, VHS-C uses the exact same recording method as its bigger brother, and converters were available from the very beginning of the format.
-Adam
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  #58  
Old 04-09-2013, 09:44 PM
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The Atari-to-NES converter would actually be easier than Beta-to-VHS. Do you know about the Atari-to-Colecovision adapter that WAS manufactured?
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  #59  
Old 04-10-2013, 12:06 AM
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AdamAnt316 AdamAnt316 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV View Post
The Atari-to-NES converter would actually be easier than Beta-to-VHS. Do you know about the Atari-to-Colecovision adapter that WAS manufactured?
Yes, I own a nice example of "Colecovision Expansion Module #1", as they referred to it, and it works fairly well. Essentially an entire Atari VCS clone system which makes use of the Colecovision's power and video take-off points; Coleco also sold a stand-alone system using the same guts as the "Gemini". A Beta adaptor would similarly need to have an entire VCR transport in it, like those cassette adaptors used with 8-track players.
-Adam
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  #60  
Old 07-23-2014, 12:14 PM
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MX70 MX70 is offline
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Beta inventory

My Betas:
Sony SL2710B (daily driver),SL-2000 portable, SLO-260 industrial (works perfect!), SL-100 superbeta (I'm the original owner), Sanyo VCR-7300 beta hifi portable, Sanyo VTC-9100A (still working) and a parts unit SL2710 for my working 2710B. And that's just the betas!
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