Smithers XKR
Well-known member
Interesting. Got 2 ADATs.... they use SVHS tapes so does that qualify?
Are VCRs the World's Cheapest Hi-Fi Reel-to-Reel?
- Thread starter evilash1996
- Start date
Smithers XKR
Well-known member
Betamax was better quality but VHS won. The BBC used Beta format until digital came in
I agree but as I said, the early domestic machines were big, heavy and expensive but as is often the case some firms made them a little cheaper and a little worse and then there was not much in it. Then, if you wanted better VHS quality there was SVHS. My late best make found that if you drilled a 3mm hole in JEEUST the right place in a standard VHS cassette they would run as SVHS and there seemed to be no quality drop.
I thought the BBC etc used Umatics? A whole other world of size and expense.
Dave.
rob aylestone
Moderator
tut tut. The BBC and many other broadcasters used Sony Betacam when the old u-matics were outdated. However, Betamax's substantially different from Betacam. Tye cassettes and the tape width were very, very similar, but they were not interchangeable in any sense. Betacam was superseded by Beta-SP, as in superior performance. They BBC did not use betamax, not even as far as I ever saw, for dupes and sharing - there were a few VHS machines. Oddly, we had Panasonic MII at Anglia TV - virtually all the rest did use Beta-SP, but Anglian liked the MII - which was to my mind a bit easier to keep clean!
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"but Anglian liked the MII - which was to my mind a bit easier to keep clean!" A perennial problem with punters!
Many of our rental customers were tight arsed in the extreme and rarley bought more than two spare cassettes. These were left to gather dust and unspeakable **** from kids fingers. We were at the same homes twice a week sometimes cleaning heads.
Yes, you could buy cleaning tapes but, A) some mechs could NOT handle them and B) They had to keep the fekkers CLEAN!
I saw a small VCR for AV purposes, no bigger than a CD player and you cleaned the head by shoving in the corner of a clean piece of A4 paper!
I also recall changing the heads on a Betamax was a long winded PITA where as VHS was two screws, four wires, Bob's yer whatsit.
Dave.
Many of our rental customers were tight arsed in the extreme and rarley bought more than two spare cassettes. These were left to gather dust and unspeakable **** from kids fingers. We were at the same homes twice a week sometimes cleaning heads.
Yes, you could buy cleaning tapes but, A) some mechs could NOT handle them and B) They had to keep the fekkers CLEAN!
I saw a small VCR for AV purposes, no bigger than a CD player and you cleaned the head by shoving in the corner of a clean piece of A4 paper!
I also recall changing the heads on a Betamax was a long winded PITA where as VHS was two screws, four wires, Bob's yer whatsit.
Dave.
I mastered / transferred a bunch of stuff onto VHS HiFi in the late 80s and occasionally referred to it here and there up until probably 1992.
Tried to play the tape last year to digitize it and it was completely unplayable. Nothing but clicks and pops as I recall. Adjusting the tracking didn't help. The tape had been stored in a tote that went from closet to garage to who knows where. I did have other live band mixer recordings from the early 90s that were basically fine so it was just that one tape that didn't make it sadly.
Tried to play the tape last year to digitize it and it was completely unplayable. Nothing but clicks and pops as I recall. Adjusting the tracking didn't help. The tape had been stored in a tote that went from closet to garage to who knows where. I did have other live band mixer recordings from the early 90s that were basically fine so it was just that one tape that didn't make it sadly.
Back in the 80s, I was on the orchestra audition circuit. Orchestras were getting stingy and arbitrary about how many prospects they would hear, so in addition to a resume, (cassette) tapes of a prescribed repertoire list were required. We were exhorted to use 'the best equipment available to you'; one orchestra went so far as to recommend the recording be made in a 'space of not less than 6000 cubic feet'. Another(on the east coast of USA) required an A440 tone at the start of the tape, if their playback machine speed was at all different from the recording machine speed, the 440 would be something else; that tape then hit the trash. Then, there would be the disclaimer 'fidelity doesn't matter, what we look for is excellent rhythm and intonation'.
Yeah, right.
My then-cassette machine was good pro-sumer gear, but I had a long string of rejections, until a buddy loaned me his VHS Hi-Fi machine. I'd record to the VHS, then dub my best takes to cassette. That ended my rejections. The sound was great, probably due in part to the insane tape-to-head speeds yielded by the rotary head/helical scan setup, and the headroom was immense. That is a very good thing for brass players.
It was a good solution while it lasted.
d
PS: I have heard 'greatest fails' compilations from these tapes, including one audition recorded on a phone answering machine...
Yeah, right.
My then-cassette machine was good pro-sumer gear, but I had a long string of rejections, until a buddy loaned me his VHS Hi-Fi machine. I'd record to the VHS, then dub my best takes to cassette. That ended my rejections. The sound was great, probably due in part to the insane tape-to-head speeds yielded by the rotary head/helical scan setup, and the headroom was immense. That is a very good thing for brass players.
It was a good solution while it lasted.
d
PS: I have heard 'greatest fails' compilations from these tapes, including one audition recorded on a phone answering machine...
rob aylestone
Moderator
In fairness, so much of the 'quality' was the fact recording was FM rather than analogue AM - the same thing happened with FM radio - it instantly sounded better. Most videos had forms of AGC and we'd consider that a bad thing in the analogue AM world, but good in the FM one?
You might be getting mixed up Rob between the AGC that radios, both AM and FM used and the AGC used in later hi fi VCRs? In an AM radio the AGC also affected the sound level but for FM it just helped the RF envelope to limit, not a problem because FM audio was proportional to the change of carrier frequency not amplitude. So, FM had a much wider dynamic range. The very best tuners with a good signal could achieve 70dB and that is better than just about any tape machine sans NR. FM was also of course VHF 'Band ll' and, like digital, the 'carrier' had to be a higher frequency than the highest audio. FM radio also used pre-emphasis (50uS EU, 75uS USA) which improved noise levels as of course it does for tape and black disc.
There were (maybe still are?) 'FM' linear tape machines used for data logging as they could record down to DC.
The later generation VCRs used a rather crude AVL system which intruded somewhat for serious audio work. The JVC I mentioned just had a limiter and that could be switched off.
Dave.
rob aylestone
Moderator
I wasnt talking RF gain but just auto recording level that meant the vcrs were always hot and clean. I really wish I’d kept the Sony Betamax f1 system I had. The 16bit digital audio adaptor was brilliant for the time
TimOD
Active member
Yeah, I thought at one point many, many years ago that I could use a hi-fi VCR to record some, you know, hi-fi music, but I discovered that you had to run some video into the machine along with your audio. And now? It's outmoded technology that isn't worth messing around with. I type this and look up on a closet shelf and see my old Tascam 424 M2 collecting dust. I also have 2 Nakamichi cassette decks that don't work, which I fully intend to send in for repair . . . someday.
Oh! Sorry Rob. I believe those early digital adapters had complex anti-aliasing filters in them? Be very costly to implement today.
Some years ago, Radio 3 devoted several days to transmit just Beethoven's total recorded output and I captured 95% of it on VHS tape as R3 was broadcast by then over Freeview. I fully intended to copy the tapes to a computer but 'loif' got in the way!
I now do not own a working VHS machine and have binned the tapes. You can of course now get virtually any composer's work on'tnet.
Dave.
jamesperrett
Active member
I think that there were a few Hifi recorders that would only record if a video signal was present. I have a Philips machine which has a specific audio only setting which you had to use if you weren't recording video. The problem with Hifi video is the head switching noise which appears whenever the tape is less than perfect. The PCM adaptors like the PCM-F1 seem slightly more robust - they just mute when they can't retrieve any audio.
TimOD
Active member
I used the RCA outs, and it would send nothing but static and noise until I taped some video with it simultaneously. I can't remember the brand of the machine, but the fact is there is little point in using any of those machines today. It's outmoded technology, and it's far easier to use a computer.