Odd portable VHS player from RCA - Videokarma.org TV - Video

***Eric H*** · #1 02-22-2009, 03:42 AM

On Goodwill, never seen one of these before, is that an LCD screen?
What vintage would this be? Shipping's $30 to me so I won't be bidding.

http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=4487389

Whirled One · #2 02-22-2009, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric H

On Goodwill, never seen one of these before, is that an LCD screen?
What vintage would this be? Shipping's $30 to me so I won't be bidding.

http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=4487389

Looks like one of those "luggable" VHS machines that you stick behind the center console of an automobile/minivan to keep the kids in the back set occupied on car trips. They were quite popular before portable DVD players were readily available.

Note that this VHS machine is only going to be "portable" in the sense that it is self-contained and has a carrying handle; it almost certainly does not have internal batteries and would be designed to be plugged into a 12V lighter jack.

It's not going to be very old; it looks like a pretty late-model example of the breed, so it's probably early 2000's. It does look a bit "sleeker" than most of this type though; most of the mobile VHS/monitor combos were pretty boxy looking.

Celt · #3 02-22-2009, 08:05 AM

Yep, saw those a few years back in the MCM catalog.

MunkeyQ · #4 02-22-2009, 09:39 AM

I had a Panasonic one from the 80's with a little 5" colour CRT in it. It actually worked very well indeed with a fast mechanism and good picture, and even had space for a massive lead-acid battery which was unfortunately missing.

I sold it to a collector in the end, for a surprising amount of money...

kx250rider · #5 02-22-2009, 01:43 PM

Never seen an LCD one... WEIRD! Looks basically the same as the cheapie pocket DVD players. I bet that's RARE! I'd get it. Goodness knows; those will all wind up in the wastebasket the first time they hiccup, and they'll be gone.

Charles

jhalphen · #6 02-23-2009, 05:20 AM

Hi to All,

Here is a quite rare LCD color TV VHS recorder/player combo unit sold in Europe in the late 1980s. The TV receives PAL B/G/I and SECAM-L (France). It was also one of the first relatively big size TFT screens and produces excellent pictures.

The VHS is quite unusual in being a recorder as well as a player. It will play back all 3 TV standards (NTSC tapes at the nominal speed, no slow or super-slow) I have never tried recording NTSC on it.

The unit was sold under the SABA German brand and Continental Edison in France. New, it cost a fortune, about US $3000.00. OEM manufacturer was Hitachi, sold rebadged under various names.

I got mine cheap from an A/V warehouse in liquidation. The unit was new and had never worked, being diagnosed with "wiring harness wiring mistakes" straight from the factory!

I found with great difficulty the service manual and had to trace every darn wire from the "motherboard" to the LCD, tuner, VCR, station memory, etc.

It then worked fine and still does now. That's the sort of crazy job i would tackle when young, but not today!

Just for fun, i did another crazy job in 1980, transforming a US Sony Trinitron model KV-8000 (8" screen) into a PAL/SECAM monitor, copying the Euro-Pro model PVM-9000. The monitor was fed with a self-built external A/V tuner unit with station presets (only 3 channels back then) + manual tuning.

Why this project which took me a whole 6 months to complete? well there were no small-screen Trinitrons (under 11") for the French market, and i wanted "Tiny Color" by my bedside.

All in all, was great fun and it still works today!

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France