Motorola/CBS EVR

[Dave A]

I went out today to look at some tv's and radios a friend was clearing out. A Pilot tv was ok. On the shelf below was a Motorola EVS player. Or recorder as CBS/Motorola called them but they do not record. It is a 1969-1971 effort by CBS to get a player in to the educational market and maybe home. It is a unique player that uses a pre-recorded film cartridge that self-threads and plays past a photomultiplier tube(s) to reproduce BW or color depending on what was recorded just like a B&K tv analyst. It has no grippers and just rolls past the tubes with a tiny sync pulse visible between frames on the film telling the circuits that a new frame is ready. Early Betamax killed the project $20 million dollars later. Both came home. It is the same as one gifted to the ETF in 2017.

A BW film is side-by-side on the 8.75mm film so there are two separate programs projecting through two lenses to two photomultipliers. You can switch electronically between them. The color version is luminance on one side of the film strip and chroma on the other. Early Y/C. I will leave it to others to explain. As such, a color film is half the length of the BW as both sides are used. Color uses both tubes together through separate chroma circuits. The CRT is ultraviolet as I have read. Audio is a magnetic stripe on both sides so it can be a two channel audio (English/French). The film can be spliced like 8mm with tape if needed if the film breaks. If the rather ridged leader breaks you can buy one from Motorola.

After finding the power cord and after 15 years on the shelf, we just lit it up. The capstan ran. Good so far. Inserting a BW film it choked and needed several tries to get it to thread. I had to try to figure out the proper bit of film to stick out to get it to grab. The manual shows about 3" outside the reel. No good. I tucked it fully in to the reel and that grabbed and it went fine to the internal takeup reel. But the problem. It has an internal vertical lock problem. It rolls but I have all the manuals to start but if anyone has hints, let me know. All the boards are edge connectors so I may start by pulling them and cleaning. Start small.

The paper that came with it shows hundreds of films available but not one entertainment show in the bunch. Let me know if you have any on the shelf. I would like to get it working and xfer them to digital for viewing. Especially the color versions.

I have to create a space to work on it and find a monitor to view. Video or RF is available. Pix when I can get it set up. Google it and you will find more than will fit here.