The official "I still use VHS" thread
 

Does anyone here still use the VHS format? What kind of VHS VCRs do you all have or want to have? How many VHS tapes do you have in your library? Anyone still use VHS to record?

I still use VHS to record older shown on RTN that I may want to watch again. My Mother fails to see why I want to record those older shows; but, I know there will come a time when they will no longer be on regular TV. I will continue to use VHS as long as I have a working VCR and can get tapes.

My main VCR is nothing special - a late '90's BPC Sharp four head hi-fi stereo that I bought from a neighbor. It seems to do fine for what I need.

I do have an '86 entry level GE (Panasonic built) and an '83'ish Panasonic top loader. Both work; but, could stand a head cleaning and some new rubber parts. I also have an early '80's Hitachi top loader with the old style mechanical function keys. That one is non functional due to, I suspect, stretched/broken belts.

I'm always on the lookout for QUALITY VCR'S; but, all I've been finding here lately is modern Funai crap that weighs all of 1/2 lb.

Yes, I still use my good ol' VHS to watch my older VHS tapes from my collection of older TV broadcasts w/commercials and when transferring these tapes to DVD as well for trades. I'm really beginning to miss VHS a lot as I grew up with VHS. It's just finding those good qaulity blank VHS tapes I can use to record my programs when I do see something good which is not very often anymore. Also, that Funai stuff is "Made In China" thus explaining the such poor qaulity of Funai products.

I can remember when we got our first VCR, an '86 Magnavox rebadged Panasonic. It was a basic two head model with the thumbwheel varactor tuning presets. I was on cloud nine b/c I could finally record "MacGyver" and the Saturday morning cartoons that I liked at the time. Back then, VCR's were the cool thing to have. Now, my flea market friend is lucky to get $10 for a good used one.

Besides tapes of programs recorded off of regular TV, I have a ton of home videos that were made when we got a camcorder in '89. Also a Magnavox and I still have it. My Mother thought we couldn't go anywhere without taking the camcorder.

Many of those tapes are 20-25 years old and still play fine. I wonder if DVD's will hold up that long.

I love VHS!!

I prefer watching GOOD MOVIES in ANALOGUE on my VHS tapes :)

Just watched some VHS a few nights ago. My Sony monitor has 2 decks on it now: a Panasonic AG-1950 pro-fesh VHS machine and a 1995 JVC HR-S5200U Super VHS deck. I may swap the JVC for my Sony SuperBeta eventually, but no rush since good VHS is so much easier to find. 'Fact, I just got a Crash Test Dummies video today: Symptomology Of A Rock Band. Lots of good musical finds on VHS.

I still use a portable Sharp VC-363, as it moved with me to the dorm for watching educational/documentary videos from the school's library that aren't on DVD, and that's hooked up to a TV to VGA tuner/AV box connected to a 19-inch ViewSonic monitor (curb find). The machine's form factor does not take up much space and unlike my attention span of the videos, the 363 never gives up.

Sadly, a friend on campus has a 19-inch Funai VHS combo with well-known mecha problems, but surprisingly has not held his TV viewing hostage. I cringe when I see those, as I've worked on a few before. :yuck:

At home though, I have a few machines (NV-SJ200, VT-33, VT-3, SLV-M11HF, HR-783U) and 30+ tapes of mostly show recordings from the early-2000s.

I started recording tons of stuff on vhs. Get the used tapes off ebay for about 50 to 60 cents a tape. And I got a buncha used S-VHS machines and use them. Since now we got digital tv the picture on the fewer channels we now get are nice and clear. I tape Nature on pbs, and other stuff. S-VHS in great for editing too. I think now I got about 300 tapes. And original movie tapes from garage sales can be had for one of two dollars. I know people who have said they got rid of all their vhs and got all their movied in DVD. And the same people got rid of their records and tapes to get CD's. I can't see it. Why rebuy stuff like that? I have some vhs movies I watch 100 times or more and they still look like the first watching......

I regularly taped old movies off of AMC and Columbo from 1992-97 on a two-head Magnavox. Never did much recording after that - only historical programs of local interest. Sadly, many of my tapes have white powdery mold (I guess) and have degraded from two years of storage in a dry but non-climate controlled shed. I bought a DVD recorder to save what I couldn't replace off of the VHS tapes.

But we still record a program on tape once in a while, usually something my wife wants to watch but won't be home for. We may buy 2-4 blanks a year. My wife also has an extensive collection of Disney movies and such on VHS.

Our "daily driver" is a Philips stereo 4-head from around '99. It makes some noise rewinding, so we picked up a couple of old rewinders from a thrift store. I have a Canon VCR that needs belts as a back-up, along with a mid-80's top-loading Quasar.

Interestingly, I never have recorded an on-air program to DVD, although I'm pretty sure there ought to be a timer on the thing (no tuner though!)

I got a box of older tapes off ebay with the white mold, no smell just powder looking stuff. I put the tape into the machine rewind it once at fast speed and the stuff is gone, no effect on the tape, and the mold was only on the tape edge. Here PBS channel 13 from NYC has a program on Sat evenings called Reel13 its on the internet too, they run classic movies a short, and then an indie. Makes for a great evening and I tape them all.

Aren't you worried the machine will now be contaminated, and will transfer
the mold to other tapes you might be playing? Just an idea.

I tape shows off my analog cable feed for later viewing, several hours
a week, using a JVC model HR-A591U.

Yes but doing that isnt any better nowadays! (Recording off ANALOGUE cable feed) because the stuff THEY ARE SENDING IS SENT IN DIGI (Just converted to ANALOGUE for the ANA tier so its not much better unfortunetly)

An in the 80s and before,IT WAS MUCH MORE "ANALOGUE" RECORDING OFF TV! (Cable,etc)

I have a rack full of 25-year-old VHS tapes as well; mostly old TV series, a few movies, and several commercially-recorded tapes. All still play as well as when they were new, with no white mold. :thmbsp: I never had that problem with any VHS tape I have ever owned or currently own, either here in my apartment or at my previous residence. Some of you who have had the problem must have stored your tapes in a high-humidity environment. However, it's a good thing that the mold does not affect the tapes. Most of my VHS tapes are irreplaceable, as they have old TV series that didn't last long enough to be released on DVD. If I can find or borrow a DVD recorder some day, I'd like to transfer those old tapes to DVD.

My current VCR is a Panasonic PV-4022 from 2002. It replaced another Panny that ate a tape; I had just taped a movie and was never able to watch it, as the tape jammed in the mechanism. :no: I literally had to wreck the VCR to get it out. Hated to lose that VCR, as it had VCR Plus+ and a beautiful picture; however, I saved the remote, which I found out will work with my PV-4022. I think my VCR has the thick toothed drive belt between the motor and the transport mechanism, which probably explains why this machine has lasted as long as it has without problems. I had a GE-branded Panasonic VCR, my first VCR, in 1984; it lasted six years and worked well, until the heads wore out. When I found out, at a local TV repair shop, that a new head drum would cost $250, I forgot about having the recorder repaired and bought an Emerson VCR shortly afterward. That machine lasted a few years (don't quite remember how many) and was eventually replaced, IIRC, by a Magnavox VCR. I got the latter in the early nineties, so I don't know if it was actually a rebadged Funai (!) VCR or if it was made by some other offshore entity. The Maggie VCR lasted quite a while (probably as long as my Panny has so far), but then, shortly after I moved here in the late 1990s (1999), the machine first stopped recording, then the playback got flaky and eventually stopped. At this point, knowing that the Maggie VCR wasn't worth repairing (I don't remember how much I paid for it when I bought it, but it couldn't have been more than $120), I threw in the towel and bought my first Panasonic. That machine lasted about two or three years (! ! ! -- see above for the story), then was replaced by my present Panny PV4022. That machine is now seven years old and still works as well as it worked the day I bought it.

I also have several DVDs and box sets, now at least three years old, that still play well in my Memorex DVD player. Unless one stores DVDs in an excessively humid or dusty environment, however, I cannot see how DVDs can wear out if they are not played often, since they are not magnetic media. After all, this is why many folks transfer VHS video tapes to DVDs--so as to preserve the programs on the tapes, since VHS videocassettes can and do jam and wear out over time, whereas DVDs have no moving parts whatsoever. Moreover, DVD players have error-detection systems that will compensate for slight scratches on the surfaces of DVDs, so these discs should last quite a while -- a lot longer than VHS tapes.

It will be interesting to find out, however, how many DVDs bought new this year are still playing well, say five or ten years from now. Of course, if anyone needs to replace DVDs these days or are in the market for new discs, most programs, movies and so on are now on Blu-ray discs -- which will not play in standard DVD players; however, ironically, the reverse is absolutely true -- standard DVDs will play in Blu-ray players. Is this a marketing ploy to get people to buy new Blu-ray players, even if their old standard DVD player is working well? :scratch2:

The tapes that remained in the house look as good as they did when new. There were a few tapes that, somehow or another, made their way to the basement and they developed that white mold. I didn't even try to save them as I was afraid they might gunk up my machine.

I still do, and joke that the show "Hoarders" will come when it comes to the point I'm buried under VHS tapes. I still have VCR's hooked to all my main TV's. A Sony SLV-690HF is in L/R. A Sony SLV-N71 is in B/R, and I have a Toshiba VHS/DVD Combo in my "office" room. The Sony's are fine. The Toshiba will play and record ANY tape, but if I take a tape over to a friends, the tapes recorded on it, does NOT play well in other machines. Also, if it's run over 3 hours, the motor starts getting weird.

I have machines horded in the basement in case my main ones go out. I'll still pick some up at thrift stores as long as they are Stereo and come with the original remote. I have some higer end Panasonics and I noticed that they do not play ANY tapes well recorded on other machines. Doesn't matter what model, they all do that, so I don't use them. I keep my eye out for Sony or RCA decks, as they seem to be the best. I still have the first VCR I bought. A 2 head mono RCA purchased in 92 for $249.00. It still works, but you always had to insert the tape "just right" from day 1.
I'll have to admit I tape less and less now. I just got DVR, and man.... MUCH easier.
Blank tapes are getting more expensive, and seem to be of an inferior quality.
I have hundreds of movies and series recorded, so will probably never be without a VCR.

Yup. I use VHS daily to tape shows for the family. I have my DTV converter connected to the line inputs, and I am presently putting the right cables and adapters together to try to play S-VHS video from my computer and have it recorded on the VCR.

Is that a Whirlpool Gold Series laptop in the foreground? I knew Westinghouse was getting into computer equipment, maybe Frigidaire and Kitchen-Aid will be next!

(j/k!!! I put a Sony badge on my Heath/Zenith DMM and occasionally get questions about it!)

Nice Sharp, I always liked that variety of portable deck with the vertical cassette layout.

I can be "on topic" too!
 

Oh yeah, VCRs.... I used to have a house full of them. For many years I amassed a full Simpsons collection, now the DVD sets are coming out so I don't need the VHS tapes except for the newer seasons. I'll keep the first/second season tapes with vintage ads.

There's a VCR hooked up to my living room, bedroom and basement systems. All hi-fi and late 90s vintage. The basement has a Sharp, Sonys in the other two rooms. The kids use the living room Sony a lot, the other two are rarely used. I recorded much of my VHS programming to DVDs using an awful Polaroid DVD/HDD recorder.

I also used to use hi-fi decks for live audio recording. Nowadays it's easier to use a laptop but 10+ years ago that was not practical, and you could get 6-8 hours of good quality sound on a tape.

I do have a soft spot for cheesy 80s digital video effects. There was a brief fad of including those effects in high-end VCRs. I have a broken Toshiba and Sears and a working Sharp that have picture-in-picture, mosaic, solarization, freeze-frame, etc. I'll hang onto those decks.

LOL, I had people ask me how old my computer was as it was so thick, even though it was made in 2005. One day, I put the old Whirlpool badge on the Panasonic CF-29 as a gag, as the badge was lying around when my parents had disposed of the refrigerator (after saving quite a few quality parts from it). :D Oddly, I do leave my computer on like an appliance, clocked at 12k hours according to the BIOS and no failures--yet. :banana:

Thanks, the Sharp has been my favorite despite the immensely dull videos I have played with it.

I have NEVER given up on VHS taping! I just don't trust recordable DVD-Rs to still function after 27 years, as my 3 oldest VHS tapes still do(Maxell). Of course I have a pair of Pioneer DVD recorders for transfers, & I always tell friends who want me to do transfers to hold onto your original tapes, "just in case". I became a tape-a-holic in 1984, using an RCA VJP-900(convertible), which I still have. Then came a VKP-925 in 1985, still got it. Got a stereo hi-fi RCA VLP-950HF in 1986. This one could PLAY hi-fi tapes, or record in stereo thru the aux in jacks but had a MONO tuner in it. Great machine, did double duty taping off cable & for family home videos using my 1984 RCA Small Wonder-yep, still got it.

I have 3 Mitsubishi hi-fi VCRS here, 2001-2004 models. In between these "eras" I had a 1994 Panasonic, which at 4 years old wouldn't load tapes & would just quit & turn off. Then in 1995 I got a pair of RCA 603HFs, really good hi-fi VCRs. Gave one to a friend, kept the other. Also got a nice JVC that year, still tapes off of TCM for me every week:) I liked them better than the competition as just by looking inside them you can see a much larger loading motor to pull the VHS tape into it-that's gotta be a good sign.

I am a vintage movie buff, & will BUY DVDs(pressed) without hesitation, but for my own archive(1,000 tapes plus) I will use VHS tape til good ones are no longer made. And stay away from TDK VHS tapes, now made in China. ALL 4 of the ones I tried to use for the Obama inauguration clogged heads on 3 machines! Sony, Fuji, & Maxell still seem good-made in either Mexico or Korea. And if you run out of new, buy old stock from the Goodwill, still wrapped! I found 35 unwrapped Scotch-3M Pro VHS blanks at a buck a piece last year. You bet I bought 'em all up at once!

The question is: How long will we be able to buy good quality VHS tapes at retail stores? Around here, wal-mart and rat shack are the only two places that I've found that still stock VHS tapes. IIRC, RS has TDK and WM has Sony. WM used to carry Durabrand, as well; but, I think they are down to Sony now.

And, none of the newer tapes feel as heavy as the old ones did.

Back in the '80's and '90's, I could pick up tapes at just about any store in town. Back then, I mainly used Scotch, Maxell, TDK, BASF, Fuji, and Memorex. I remember the Memorex tapes coming in hard plastic storage cases.

It probably won't be too much longer before we are forced to either buy NOS tapes from wherever we can find them or buy used tapes and record over them.

Like has already been said, I don't put a lot of trust in DVD's lasting for 20+ years like my VHS tapes.

While I quit buying new tapes, I tend to judge quality by the picture stability on my worse machine at the slower speed. For that I found that Fujifilm HQ tapes still available believe it or not at Hanaford supermarket for $7.99 t-160 3 pack. Target has Sont HQ T-160 8 pack for $18.00 and Sont T-120 4 pack for $6.99 I also found that lots of people who sell lots (Lots as in 10, 20, 30 tapes) of tapes on ebay have for the most part only used them once or twice, are pretty good quality and even the old off brand tapes work very well. I guess Sony and Fuji either had good quality, or were manufacturers for other branded tapes, and these two actually "make" the stuff.??? Anyway those two brands seem to be in most stores. Sears has some off brand I don't remember the name. Iff you look around near the bottom of the shelf between the moth balls and esso motor oil you can still find VHS tapes in yer town. Funny thing also seems the really old stuff came in so many different lengths. I got 100 minute, 130 minute, 145 minute, 170, 180, I even got a buncha MGM Studio Grade T-120's Neato package, nothing special but they do weigh a bunch more than the FUji's and Sony's. And if you type in blank VHS tapes into Google there are lots of mail order places to get them at less than walmart prices for new ones. Buy.com and others.

Personally I would avoid T160-T180 etc tapes unless you really need the extended time. The tape is thinner and that includes a thinner oxide coating, which yields less of the FM-RF signal (b&w or luminance part at 3.4-4.4mHz on standard VHS) from the tape picked up by the heads and on to the head amp circuit. Can be several dB lower, which makes for a noisier picture. Also can reveal minor tape path or skewing problems that a T120 tape works fine with. More dropouts in the video and hi-fi audio too. Did a lot of testing on various brands of tapes when I was in the VCR repair biz for 25+ years. My favorite brand of tape is/was Fuji. Fuji supplied OEM tapes for JVC the "Inventor of VHS".

Fuji ROCKS! and the JVC s-VHS ET machines have about 1/4" wider video bandwidth for recording than standard VHS and the "ET" means you can use non S-VHS tapes in the unit and get almost all of the advantages of the "S", but on a regular tape. We have only one plane jane Magnavox Hi-Fi plastic VCR that comes close to the picture quality of our JVC S-VHS ET machines. And a plus to those JVC S-VHS machines is that they seem to have a super ultra supreme tracking system that we can play tapes recorded on any of our VCR's on, and they are stable and free of lines etc. Until the S-Vhs we had a Magnavox, Bon-Sonic, and another Philips/Magnavox. Each had really good pictures at slow speed, but the tape had to be played only on the machine it was recorded on. I think the Bon-Sonic, which has a really good picture, when you open the hood to do a tune up you can see its only got 2 heads but the front cover says 4 head. But to make up for it, the machine has a built in tape head cleaner and the front cover, and instruction manual don't say anything about it. Anyway all these plastic vcr's all come from the same automated factory just a different assembly line. Good for $7.00 at garage sales. I'm always a sucker for a $7.00 garage sale vcr. The squirrel finds 'em for me early in the morning so I don't have to drive around all day following signs.

I still use VHS. We have a Toshiba combo from 2003, the DVD does not work but the VHS tape does, I had to fix it once though. It is on the main set, the 1982 Zenith. For DVD's, my friend gave me a Blu-Ray player, I hook it into the Line 2 inputs of the Toshiba combo. I have a Maggie VHS/DVD combo in my room and I have an old Samsung VCR, an old RCA VCR and a Hatachi from 1986.

I have had so many DVD recorders die on me, I may go back to my JVC SR-V10U decks. They are the best I have ever seen for playback with it's TBC/DNR playback.

And I still have one of the digital decks RPM1200 describes and still working. It is a RCA with freeze/posterization, etc. It cost me a bundle in the late 80's.

2 Sony decks here. One is circa 1994, recall it being very high end for it's time 4 head hi-fi stereo 'flying erase-head' for editing and APC button.

Other is a 1999-ish Malaysian 4 head hi-fi stereo... both work well.

Has anyone out here noticed that the VCR is alive and well. I see most mass-retail stores these days still offer new VCRs from several brands. Sure, they are bundled with DVD players, and they no longer have tuners (a cheap way of dealing with the mandate that devices with tuners be digital-ready), but the VCR lives!

What stores offer these combo machines? In my area, the only place that still offers any VHS/DVD units is Costco, and most are VHS-playback only, no recording. Even Wal-Mart offers only DVD players in my area.

I was thinking about Robert's comment above and VCRs being alive and well but stand alons that record not for sale anymore. But I remember seeing them on ebay, I guess as reconditioned factory returns.... Don't remember. But I did find one like the Magnavox, Philips that I have.
http://cgi.ebay.com/MAGNAVOX-4-head-...item35a86890db
This is the one unit I have that comes very close to matching the picture performance
of my S-VHS machines with ET. Same cabinet, and remote. I guess the 19Micron head
gap makes for a pretty nice performance improvement.

Yesterday i saw an episode of "ALL MY CHILDREN" that my mom used to watch in the 80s (Part of it is still @ the end of one of my VHS tapes that i now have)

I tell you,THE CLEAR 0db ANALOGUE SIGNAL IS BEAUTIFUL!!

I rekcon buying a VHS tape with prerecorded content from the store IS THE CLOSEST TO FULL ANALOGUE you could get these days!

I find that the biggest issue with anything mechanical is the belts and idler tires that are becoming unobtanium. My Panasonic NV-G50 has a great picture, if I could only get an idler tire for it.

Don't forget that laserdisc still offers an analog picture as well ;)

These formats may still produce excellent pictures, comparable to analog TV. However, it is next to impossible to find prerecorded VHS videos (except on the used market; look on eBay or CL) these days -- the same goes for laser discs. LD was popular 25+ years ago, with several major US manufacturers, RCA among them, marketing players that hooked up to standard TVs the same as a VCR. These were the late '70s-'80s forerunners of today's DVDs, but the picture quality was almost certainly nowhere near that of today's digital media; it didn't have to be, as digital and high-definition TV hadn't been thought of yet in this country. Consider as well the fact that laser discs were about the size of an LP phonograph record and could only hold one movie at a time, whereas today it is possible to fit an entire season of a TV series on one DVD.

The cost of laser discs was a factor as well. Whereas today DVDs can be obtained in department stores for dirt-cheap prices in many cases (I have a DVD with 1970s police programs like Charlie's Angels, et al. that I purchased for $3 at Big Lots a couple years ago) and are even available for rent from Netflix, Blockbuster Video and even machines in some stores, new laser discs often went for $10 or more apiece in their heyday.

If laser discs are available used, however, I would think they would sell for a fraction of that, as hardly anyone uses them anymore. If anyone here has (or knows someone who has) a laser disc player or VCR and is looking for prerecorded discs or VHS tapes, the only place, again, to find such is probably on eBay or perhaps at garage/yard/moving sales.

The "unobtanium" nature of parts for older VCRs is why so many of them show up on eBay or CL, or even in the trash (!), these days. As for the current crop of DVD/VHS players, I'd say forget trying to repair them after the warranty expires, the reason being that they are built cheaply to sell cheaply -- to have one of these looked at in a repair station is likely to cost more than the owner originally paid for it or than the machine is worth, and this is before any work is ever done on the unit.

I got a Sony SLV-900HF VHS machine today at the thrift store for $3. It has a flying erase head. The only thing wrong was the arm that pulls the tape out of the cassette and guides it behind the pinch roller was sticking and caused the tape to jam up when you eject the tape. One drop of oil, and about an hour of sitting there cured it.

This is the 7th Sony from around 1990 or so that had this exact problem that has come across my workbench.

The machine records and plays fine as found. I'm going to use it as a recording dubber. I'm going to be transferring a load of 3/4" UMatic cassettes, and this machine has a flying erase head, so, I can make clean edits between tape reels.

I was explaining to a friend yesterday that I couldn't dub an old home video of his until I found a decent machine to use. I usually skip the VHS machines at the stores, but today I saw this one. Cleaned up good, too!!

I've attached a pic I found on the net. Mine looks as good as this, but has no remote, yet.

I have picked up 4 vcrs in the last month. The first is a Zenith from around 1990 for 2.00 at an auction. I havent tried it yet. It has the book and remote. I got 2 from a woman who was putting them out for the trash. One is a Hitachi and the other is a Daiwoo AC/DC player only. She said they didnt work but I tried them and both work. No remotes though. The last one is a Goldstar AC/DC player only from a thrift. They had 15.00 on it but it was half price day so I got it for 7.50. It has the remote and looks and works like new. I get lots of tapes at thrifts and yards sales. I just got a box of 26 mainly older movies for 10.00. I still record daily on VHS.
John

Its sad seeing people throw out these wonderful units!!

I prefer the picture/sound quality of ANALOGUE over anything digital!!


Good luck on all your new VCRs buddy :)

Yes yes yes to VHS!
 

I repair professional studio VHS VCR's as a hobby, and have the following JVC machines: (3) BR-S822U, (2) BR-S500U, (2) BR-S800U and (3) of the BR-7000 series. All fantastic, stable machines with great features and performance once they are serviced.

Of course, I also have a full-blown VCR repair bench including (4) Sencore VC93 All Format VCR Analyzers, (2) Sencore VA62 Video Analyzers, (1) Sencore VA48 Video Analyzer, (1) Sigma Electronics TSG375 NTSC Video Generator, (1) Sony 13" Video Monitor, (1) Commodore Video Monitor (don't laugh, it still looks and works great!), (2) Tektronix Oscilloscopes, (1) HP Scope, (1) Tektronix 1760 Vectorscope, (10) Tentel gauges, plus signal generators, (2) Editing Controllers, many frequency counters, multimeters, alignment and torque meter tapes, blah blah blah. All stuff I could never afford when I repaired VCR's back in the 80's.

I love JVC machines, and also have a Sony SLO-1800 Professional Beta machine I just finished tuning up. I may have more Beta tapes than VHS, around 300 - haven't finished counting the VHS movies. I also have (2) Alesis ADAT (digital audio) 8 track recording decks which use Sharp VCR mechanisms for the tape transport. Most professional VCR's are all direct drive, with no belts, tires or idlers to wear out (except a loading belt here and there). I use rewinders to save wear on the motors.

For viewing, I have a Toshiba 50" Projection TV, a Panasonic 47" Projection TV and a Sony Bravia 40" LCD TV. Each room has a big screen TV, VHS, Beta and DVD players, with my main playroom also having a Pioneer VP-1000 Laser Disc Player. I guess you could say I'm a heavy video enthusiast!

After seeing "disc error" one time too many, I decided to go back to VHS, Beta and Laser Disc and stay there. I will only purchase a DVD if the content is not available in any other format, and I immediately make a VHS copy. As mentioned before in this thread, you can get VHS movies extremely cheap, and even free if you hit up the right DVD enthusiast or yard sale. You can find belts, tires and other scattered VCR parts at www.studiosoundelectronics.com

All these morons get rid of their VHS in order to spend big bucks on crap that will only work for a few years, and marginally at that. Fine with me!

Welcome! Repairing "as a hobby" is right. I repaired VCRs for a living including warranty for JVC consumer and pro lines for about 25 years. The '80s and '90s were very good indeed. Then they stopped coming in, and I retired. Good timing. Before that I worked for Pioneer, toward the end of my stint there worked on many of those VP-1000s. Do you have the CX noise reduction box for yours? The VP-1000s aren't the greatest for CLV playback as they typically exhibited some adjacent track crosstalk in the video. You probably have one of the last remaining functioning VP-1000s! I have a friend that has one that works too but he hasn't used it in years.

Hi Ed,

I don't have the CX box for the VP-1000. I found the unit at the Goodwill for $9.99 and was always a little curious about them, so I brought it home. To my surprise and pleasure, it worked great for the most part. A few days later, there was a box of about 50 discs at that same Goodwill, so I nabbed them up as well. After some obsessing on eBay, I'm now up to around 100 discs and will probably stop there.

It falters on a few discs towards the end, and not just the Discovisions which I hear had this problem. But it plays most discs flawlessly from start to finish. I know a guy who has the service manual and some of the jigs and gauges for it, but I'm not enough of a LD enthusiast to make the investment.

I was a little surprised that the programming on any given side ends without notice or warning, and simply starts again if you don't flip the disc over. And I never mess with the numeric keypad or explore any of the features, so I can't be sure the unit is fully functional - but it's a pretty cool thing to play around with. I do notice some snow and video noise on some discs, but not enough to really bother me.

If you don't mind, I might be picking your brain from time to time about these great JVC pro machines. My immediate question is whether they have some sort of circuit to ignore the anti-copy signal, as I don't seem to have any trouble at all copying movies from - well, anything! My uneducated guess is that they had to duplicate movies that were manufactured with the anti-copy signals, and thus needed to somehow bypass the protection.

Most of my other questions deal with using SMPTE time code, as there doesn't seem to be an introductory tutorial on its basic use. I'd like to sync 2 or more recording VCR's with Alesis ADAT machines so I can record local bands and myself playing, and have 16 tracks of audio - or 20+ tracks if you count the normal and Hi-Fi audio functions in the VCR's. I understand you need an Alesis BRC to translate the time code between the ADAT's and VCR's, but haven't gotten quite that far yet.

I do have 2 JVC editing controllers - the GR-800U and 860U, but I don't think they are of any use as far as the ADAT machines go. I'll do as much studying as possible before I bug you about the technical end of it. Nothing to bug you about on the VCR's, as I was able to get them all working with fairly simple mechanical fixes, and was able to confirm a bad video head (or something on the flying head preamp board) using a substitution signal from a VC93. Funny that I have pretty good head protrusion on the drum and no visible broken ferrite chunks, so possibly the preamp - but that's as far as I felt like going that day.

Very thankfully, generic pinch rollers are still available for the BR-S822U's and my S500's and S800's which appear to all use the same roller assembly. I'm curious about your warranty work on these - were there any certain common failures you had to fix on many machines? I work in Avionics these days, and most of our "warranty work" is the pilot not knowing how to use the equipment, or something else in the aircraft malfunctioning and making it look like the culprit. Or more likely, the designers trying to pack more and more performance into smaller boxes, and the fact that it's a harsher electronic environment behind the yoke than in the circuit simulation software!