Trying to make a rig to record onto Sony SL-HF450 Betamax VCR

[KekkyLekky]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

I think my main betamax deck at home is the same model. Those beta decks absolutely could record composite audio video input, and that's the best thing to use unless you want to add noise to your picture.

If your sat box has Composite video and audio output just move the beta deck over to the sat box and connect it directly with RCA cables.
If the sat box is RF output only then your probably best off just connecting the composite A/V output of the VHS deck directly to the Betamax.

Things to be aware of: most VCRs and consumer RF modulators do not have stereo audio over the modulated RF even if they have Stereo input they usually Y them together internally and have a mono audio RF modulator.
Early stereo VCRs like that Betamax sometimes didn't have stereo tuners, but even when they did they often supported simulcast audio recording.

Decks with simulcast recording when switched to simulcast mode would record only the video from the tuner and instead of using the tuners audio they would record audio from the line input jacks. Many TV stations lacked stereo broadcast capability for a while but would often own an FM radio station and would use the FM station for audio simulcast during concerts and major events...a user would connect the line output of an FM radio tuner to the line in of the VCR to record the FM simulcast audio.
Most decks that support simulcast will have a record mode switch that will let you choose to record off the tuner, simulcast, or line input .

Your records line audio but won't record video unless it's from the tuner, but without audio issue, sounds like you are in simulcast mode.

The "input select" switch on the Betamax VCR has three options: "tuner," "line audio," and "line/PCM." Is "line/PCM" the correct input mode in order to record video and audio via composite?

Edit: Ah, it looks like that's what did the trick. I hooked up the VHS VCR directly to the Betamax VCR via composite and set the input switch to line/PCM, and it successfully recorded video. However, the picture that was recorded appears to have some problems with chroma noise and horizontal jittering. Though perhaps that could be because I viewed the playback without putting it through a TBC.