@@video99couk Unreliable? Not really when you consider the age. Many of these units were used in video production setups in the 80s and found their way into community tv stations where they had thousands of hours run up. I have 2 one popped a regulator, and the other one had a bearing go bad but they were very heavily used in an edit suite for about 10 years. The biggest problem with all these beta machines was caused by high grade tape. It was so smooth that it polished the upper drum like a mirror and resulted in tape sticking on rewind. Solution use standard tape. The instructor from sony on a training seminar I filmed back in the 80s on my slhf900 training course even said that.
If the same failure occurs many times, I think it is unreliable. In addition to the power supply and electrolytic capacitors, it was also difficult to replace parts such as some sensors in the drum motor of the video head, but it's okay. 👍
Hey man. I've praised you before, you know this and you deserve it. There are 2 types of people I think that watch all your videos, myself included. The first kind are the vintage hifi buffs and the second are hifi buffs who have learned alot about different aspects of repair from you. I wonder if you have a video or would make a video for us who are the hifi fans and electronics hobbyists showing what minimum gear we should have if we wanted to fix an old av device that we picked up at valuvillage or the usual haunts. You are a master of your craft and as such can do more with far less gear with a lifetime of know how than us eager to learn. Your esr meter, dmm, dso while great pieces of kit are not available anymore. Especially your esr meter and fluke. I've searched for the same esr meter you have and cannot find one but I found and ordered one similar to yours, which at regular price here in Canada is about 150. I ordered mine from China to save 110 dollars. I guess what I'm trying to say is would you mind making a video with a basic outline of the gear you use and more importantly where should we start as beginners. I have a pretty good set of tools and such but we both know tools don't mean sheet without the skills to use them. I'm a little farther along than a complete beginner but by no means consider myself competent to fix another person's device. I've changed hdmi ports and fixed traces here and there on game consoles but I have a vintage Roland digital effects pedal board from 89 that I wouldn't dare mess with yet. If you've made this type of video I apologize. If I come across any old belts or motors I think you'd be interested in I would be more than happy to send them. I plan to join your patreon regardless if you make the video or not. The wife is on me for an 80 dollar a month patreon bill, I support or make a donation to anyone I learn from. Great video by the way and congrats on the silver button.
Great job Dave, people can't resist fiddling with things. They think there going to save themselves some money, but little do they know they're increasing the bill with the extra work the technician has to do.
This is what I hate most when servicing video machines: WD40 sprayed on the deck, missing screws, abused mechanical parts (due to tape jamming and forcing its recovery) just to name a few. Of course they always increase the bill.
@@gabrigpb the bill can only go so high before the customer walks away. Obsolete machines like betamax tend to get more for the repair because there are relatively few of them around and if someone has a library of old tapes to play they are stuck with paying the price to fix. 8mm will be there soon as will svhs.
I got this..., we'll turn this screw and this one and maybe this one....! Well I can't figure what I did wrong..., well let's give it Dave! Many hours later after being screwed driver to death... Dave got it running like new again!!!! As always another great video!
DAVE, Nice video. I agree these machines are built like tanks, well made and serviceable. I hope you charge accordingly knowing that not too many people can properly service vintage electronics.
@@12voltvids that's the thing it's a specialist profession, but profit is limited by the throw away society we are now living in, I have this problem myself repairing tv's while still trying to make a profit.
@@reacey I haven't made money in this for close to 20 years. It is all done at a loss or just break even. If it wasn't for the ongoing youtube revenue stream I wouldn't be touching any of this stuff. The little I make from youtube advertising makes the difference between continuing and walking away. Then I get the trolls and cheapskates that block ads, and brag about it like they are proud that they are taking $ out of my pocket. Great way to encourage me to continue. With attitudes like that no wonder so many have just said fux it and quit.
@@12voltvids well I certainly hope you do continue, personally I've learned a great deal from your channel and I watch every video. I even bought a faulty vcr with no power and fixed it. I sure wish you had more financial gain from your channel, it's certainly deserved.
And this time, the problem with no video is not because the black video switch is on. Nice work, man. Sucks that you had to also fix an unrelated problem because someone thought they could adjust the original problem away.
Black video ONLY blanks out the display with the OSD. (Monitor out) not the line out. This is so the OSD works if there is no input signal to the machine, such as the playback deck with no antenna or video source on the input.
Isn't the 3KHz test tone used for checking wow & flutter, and the 5-6KHz tone used for adjusting the azimuth of the A/C head to bring the treble to its maximum possible level?
When I used Betamax equip. for several years. Some information sources claimed that any Beta unit will work with any other Beta unit was not quite correct. I had a Zenith 'portable' recorder and a Sony video camera (HVC 2200) a nice camera except that it needed a lot of light for a great picture. Anyhow, when in the recording mode, hitting the pause segment, the recorder went into pause. When releasing the pause, the recorder would go into fast forward ( in the recording mode). The local tech looked at several times and could never get it to do this crazy action. So, in order to start and pause in the middle of saving a video moment, I had to hit stop and then go back in record mode.
Or your local tech just didn't know what the problem was. The zenith recorder was made by Sony. He just used the excuse that he couldn't duplicate the problem as an excuse because he didn't know what was wrong. All those old tube cameras were blind. They all needed lots of light but so did movie film before video.
@@12voltvids The camera had the same 'speed' as ASA film of 35. VERY slow by today's standands but what a beautiful picture in full light. The whole system was called 'portable'. By the time you added all of the equipment together with back up lighting, extra batteries etc. the weight was ~ 50 lbs. Today's I phones give better images, go figure.
@@dalemettee1147 I had an hvc2400 and hvc2800. Still have them in storage. I also have 2 sl2000 portable recorders and an slo340 beta 1 recorder and vo4800 3/4" umatic portable and the dxc1800 camera that went with that package. Yes very heavy. I used to shoot weddings with that and light the church up with 4 to 6 650 watt lights. Had to take a crew in to shoot. Never made much money as I had to pay the crew to haul around all that heavy equipment.
@@dalemettee1147 I did hundreds. At 2500 a pop and was turning away work. Can only do so many. I never advertised it was all word of mouth. 40 a year on average for 20 years. I stopped in 2006 when my business partner passed away.
Have you worked on sony slv 575uc. I have one that has issue with video. The TV does not display anything on screen but typical blue screen. I am able to hear the vhs recording. I believe it has to do with the RCA video output port. How can I check that with any voltmeter?
Dave! I have one of these machines, and the head drum won't spin. I have the service manual and have repaired VTRs before, just not sure where to begin on this unit. Do you have any idea, why the head drum won't spin the rest of the unit, appears to function normally?
Does it turn freely or is it stuck. If turns freely then electronic problem. I have one coming back next week. Repaired a broken gear and about 20 hours or use later the drum shut down. Might be the unavailable str regulator. Hope not.
Ah, the good old golden screwdriver technique, customer turns all the pots because the screws must be loose. I always liked the Sony machines, no longer have mine but still have a Sanyo Beta machine
What's that lamp you use for your desk lamp please? Is it a halogen? Iv noticed that it's nice and small and easy to manipulate the position, is that something you set up yourself?
Long ago I came across a Japanese webpage detailing how to rebuild those STK modules. I didn't think to save or bookmark it though. Sony puts out good manuals and actually labels the bottom of their PCBs. Unlike the Marantz SR940 receiver I've been working on that has zero markings on the bottom side of the PCB and a black and white paper service manual with zero indication of signal and power routing (grounds have bolded lines, that's it). At least its easy to access the boards although way too many cables are soldered on as opposed to using plugs. Regarding service manual scans, its due to people either not knowing what they are doing or not giving a crap. I had to scan the Marantz manual because the print was too damned small (a lot easier to zoom and print segments of pages). Landed up using a borrowed large format scanner at 1200dpi for excellent results. The fold out schematic pages were scanned in pieces and auto stitched together in Photoshop creating one seamless large page. I also OCRed the whole thing, makes it easy to reference the parts pages with a simple text search.
Not giving a crap is more like it. The attitude is pay me for my time to scan, and stitch the pages and you'll get good results. Want it for free like so many what then here it is, knock yourself out, you are lucky you have what you have. I would be like that. If someone asked me for a scan of my paper manual that is exactly what they would get. Scans of each page. If someone said hey here is 50 bucks for a scanned stitched copy then i would put the effort in. Now i know all the trolls are going to jump all over this comment, but time is money. You do a service for someone you expect to be paid for it.
It is definitely bad when you have to correct an additional fault that someone introduced that otherwise didn't exist. About the resolution: if I recall, the specs for PAL are 260 lines in colour and 300 lines in b&w (on VHS 240 lines in colour and 260 lines in b&w).
I like it when E-E doesn't work, rather than just off-tape. Signal tracing is much easier when you can just stuff a known good signal in and see where it vanishes. But without schematics, it would have been almost impossible. Alas nothing like this machine was sold in the UK.
I have 2 EDV 9000 from japan i use them to convert my PAL tapes to ntsc using a converter here in Australia one of edv has low distorted sound in line 1ans power supply issues currently getting repaired ntsc beta seem to be cheaper than the PAL ones
Pal beta hifi was a completely different system than ntsc. Like vhs it used an additional pair of dedicated fm hifi heads. That required a different drum and completely different circuitry. Ntsc had enough bandwidth due to faster drum speed and the audio carriers would drop in between the chroma and luminance. Cost less to make, and maintain
Hi Dave, I just had a good deal from a client. "Archive my 12 tapes and you can keep my HDR-HC1E" Only problem it frequently pops up the C:31:22 error and battling to do a proper capture. How can I fix that? Looks like a rather professional machine.
Where does everyone get their schematics. Ive found some things for old arcades but not much on old players. Id even pay for them if i could find a spot.
I stole this one from the shop I worked at. I had a box of Sam's but they were dumped years ago after a racoon ripped a hole in the roof and caused a leak which soaked them.
Without that diagram, it would have been horrible. I agree with the crappy schematics on the net, if you can't read it, it's pointless. I was supprised it was a choke problem, i've not seen many go o.c.
@@12voltvids I had the same issue on mine and followed your video exactly, it was the L107 just as you showed but without any marks on it. Thanks so much! Are you sure this isn't a common failure?
Yes, I'm totally sure, but someone keeps deleting the proof!! Aside from anything else, SP added upgrades to the audio, too (Dolby C in the case of U-matic, and sendust heads).
I don't control the commercials. But from my standpoint i am paid from the commercials so without them i wouldn't be doing this. Remember that before you bitch about commercials. Without them you would be paying for every video or there wouldn't be any content.
Amazing to see those old machines come back from the dead. Just love it.
They are fun to work with.
I've worked on some of those on my channel. Pretty unreliable machines but usually quite well designed to work on.
@@video99couk
Unreliable? Not really when you consider the age. Many of these units were used in video production setups in the 80s and found their way into community tv stations where they had thousands of hours run up. I have 2 one popped a regulator, and the other one had a bearing go bad but they were very heavily used in an edit suite for about 10 years. The biggest problem with all these beta machines was caused by high grade tape. It was so smooth that it polished the upper drum like a mirror and resulted in tape sticking on rewind. Solution use standard tape. The instructor from sony on a training seminar I filmed back in the 80s on my slhf900 training course even said that.
What a kool Sony slhf 100 betamax
If the same failure occurs many times, I think it is unreliable. In addition to the power supply and electrolytic capacitors, it was also difficult to replace parts such as some sensors in the drum motor of the video head, but it's okay. 👍
Hey man. I've praised you before, you know this and you deserve it. There are 2 types of people I think that watch all your videos, myself included. The first kind are the vintage hifi buffs and the second are hifi buffs who have learned alot about different aspects of repair from you.
I wonder if you have a video or would make a video for us who are the hifi fans and electronics hobbyists showing what minimum gear we should have if we wanted to fix an old av device that we picked up at valuvillage or the usual haunts. You are a master of your craft and as such can do more with far less gear with a lifetime of know how than us eager to learn. Your esr meter, dmm, dso while great pieces of kit are not available anymore. Especially your esr meter and fluke. I've searched for the same esr meter you have and cannot find one but I found and ordered one similar to yours, which at regular price here in Canada is about 150. I ordered mine from China to save 110 dollars. I guess what I'm trying to say is would you mind making a video with a basic outline of the gear you use and more importantly where should we start as beginners. I have a pretty good set of tools and such but we both know tools don't mean sheet without the skills to use them. I'm a little farther along than a complete beginner but by no means consider myself competent to fix another person's device. I've changed hdmi ports and fixed traces here and there on game consoles but I have a vintage Roland digital effects pedal board from 89 that I wouldn't dare mess with yet. If you've made this type of video I apologize. If I come across any old belts or motors I think you'd be interested in I would be more than happy to send them. I plan to join your patreon regardless if you make the video or not. The wife is on me for an 80 dollar a month patreon bill, I support or make a donation to anyone I learn from. Great video by the way and congrats on the silver button.
I love this channel. It's to the point and shows everything.
Great job Dave, people can't resist fiddling with things. They think there going to save themselves some money, but little do they know they're increasing the bill with the extra work the technician has to do.
Then they deny touching anything. As I said to the owner, it was off by a mile and it didn't get there by itself.
This is what I hate most when servicing video machines: WD40 sprayed on the deck, missing screws, abused mechanical parts (due to tape jamming and forcing its recovery) just to name a few. Of course they always increase the bill.
@@gabrigpb the bill can only go so high before the customer walks away.
Obsolete machines like betamax tend to get more for the repair because there are relatively few of them around and if someone has a library of old tapes to play they are stuck with paying the price to fix. 8mm will be there soon as will svhs.
I got this..., we'll turn this screw and this one and maybe this one....!
Well I can't figure what I did wrong..., well let's give it Dave!
Many hours later after being screwed driver to death...
Dave got it running like new again!!!!
As always another great video!
Video loaded with a lot of new information that I could use in my shop. thanks for sharing.
Amazing video. I wish I had this level of knowledge. I may have yo watch more of your videos. I got a betamax sl-100 I'm going to try and tinker with.
Knowledge comes with 40+ years working on this stuff. Yes I am old.
I had also an open coil on my philips crt tv-set at the nec of the tube and no picture.
DAVE, Nice video. I agree these machines are built like tanks, well made and serviceable. I hope you charge accordingly knowing that not too many people can properly service vintage electronics.
Didn't make that much on it.
@@12voltvids that's the thing it's a specialist profession, but profit is limited by the throw away society we are now living in, I have this problem myself repairing tv's while still trying to make a profit.
@@reacey I haven't made money in this for close to 20 years. It is all done at a loss or just break even. If it wasn't for the ongoing youtube revenue stream I wouldn't be touching any of this stuff. The little I make from youtube advertising makes the difference between continuing and walking away. Then I get the trolls and cheapskates that block ads, and brag about it like they are proud that they are taking $ out of my pocket. Great way to encourage me to continue. With attitudes like that no wonder so many have just said fux it and quit.
@@12voltvids well I certainly hope you do continue, personally I've learned a great deal from your channel and I watch every video. I even bought a faulty vcr with no power and fixed it. I sure wish you had more financial gain from your channel, it's certainly deserved.
@@reacey it does ok.
I still own a Sony SLHF 1000 in near mint condition. I once thought about selling it at one time, but I think I'm going to hold on to it now.
I have 2 of them.
Wear getting Sony slhf 1000
And this time, the problem with no video is not because the black video switch is on. Nice work, man.
Sucks that you had to also fix an unrelated problem because someone thought they could adjust the original problem away.
Black video ONLY blanks out the display with the OSD. (Monitor out) not the line out. This is so the OSD works if there is no input signal to the machine, such as the playback deck with no antenna or video source on the input.
Amazing work Sir.... Love you from Pakistan
Isn't the 3KHz test tone used for checking wow & flutter, and the 5-6KHz tone used for adjusting the azimuth of the A/C head to bring the treble to its maximum possible level?
You can use either. The key is to use the slowest speed
When I used Betamax equip. for several years. Some information sources claimed that any Beta unit will work with any other Beta unit was not quite correct. I had a Zenith 'portable' recorder and a Sony video camera (HVC 2200) a nice camera except that it needed a lot of light for a great picture. Anyhow, when in the recording mode, hitting the pause segment, the recorder went into pause. When releasing the pause, the recorder would go into fast forward ( in the recording mode). The local tech looked at several times and could never get it to do this crazy action. So, in order to start and pause in the middle of saving a video moment, I had to hit stop and then go back in record mode.
Or your local tech just didn't know what the problem was. The zenith recorder was made by Sony.
He just used the excuse that he couldn't duplicate the problem as an excuse because he didn't know what was wrong.
All those old tube cameras were blind. They all needed lots of light but so did movie film before video.
@@12voltvids The camera had the same 'speed' as ASA film of 35. VERY slow by today's standands but what a beautiful picture in full light. The whole system was called 'portable'. By the time you added all of the equipment together with back up lighting, extra batteries etc. the weight was ~ 50 lbs. Today's I phones give better images, go figure.
@@dalemettee1147 I had an hvc2400 and hvc2800. Still have them in storage. I also have 2 sl2000 portable recorders and an slo340 beta 1 recorder and vo4800 3/4" umatic portable and the dxc1800 camera that went with that package. Yes very heavy. I used to shoot weddings with that and light the church up with 4 to 6 650 watt lights. Had to take a crew in to shoot. Never made much money as I had to pay the crew to haul around all that heavy equipment.
@@12voltvids I only did one wedding, it was terrible. I did get another camera viewpoint though.
@@dalemettee1147 I did hundreds. At 2500 a pop and was turning away work. Can only do so many. I never advertised it was all word of mouth. 40 a year on average for 20 years. I stopped in 2006 when my business partner passed away.
Have you worked on sony slv 575uc. I have one that has issue with video. The TV does not display anything on screen but typical blue screen. I am able to hear the vhs recording. I believe it has to do with the RCA video output port. How can I check that with any voltmeter?
Does it work on the rf output?
@@12voltvids not even that
Dave! I have one of these machines, and the head drum won't spin. I have the service manual and have repaired VTRs before, just not sure where to begin on this unit.
Do you have any idea, why the head drum won't spin the rest of the unit, appears to function normally?
Does it turn freely or is it stuck. If turns freely then electronic problem. I have one coming back next week. Repaired a broken gear and about 20 hours or use later the drum shut down. Might be the unavailable str regulator. Hope not.
Ah, the good old golden screwdriver technique, customer turns all the pots because the screws must be loose.
I always liked the Sony machines, no longer have mine but still have a Sanyo Beta machine
What's that lamp you use for your desk lamp please? Is it a halogen? Iv noticed that it's nice and small and easy to manipulate the position, is that something you set up yourself?
This is the sort of long video I like to go to bed and sleep to.
Me too!
Long ago I came across a Japanese webpage detailing how to rebuild those STK modules. I didn't think to save or bookmark it though.
Sony puts out good manuals and actually labels the bottom of their PCBs. Unlike the Marantz SR940 receiver I've been working on that has zero markings on the bottom side of the PCB and a black and white paper service manual with zero indication of signal and power routing (grounds have bolded lines, that's it). At least its easy to access the boards although way too many cables are soldered on as opposed to using plugs.
Regarding service manual scans, its due to people either not knowing what they are doing or not giving a crap. I had to scan the Marantz manual because the print was too damned small (a lot easier to zoom and print segments of pages). Landed up using a borrowed large format scanner at 1200dpi for excellent results. The fold out schematic pages were scanned in pieces and auto stitched together in Photoshop creating one seamless large page. I also OCRed the whole thing, makes it easy to reference the parts pages with a simple text search.
Not giving a crap is more like it. The attitude is pay me for my time to scan, and stitch the pages and you'll get good results. Want it for free like so many what then here it is, knock yourself out, you are lucky you have what you have.
I would be like that. If someone asked me for a scan of my paper manual that is exactly what they would get. Scans of each page. If someone said hey here is 50 bucks for a scanned stitched copy then i would put the effort in. Now i know all the trolls are going to jump all over this comment, but time is money. You do a service for someone you expect to be paid for it.
What causes that to burn out like that? Old age or a surge maybe!
Sir I need Sony Slv-x715sg modal chazis can you provide me.
It is definitely bad when you have to correct an additional fault that someone introduced that otherwise didn't exist.
About the resolution: if I recall, the specs for PAL are 260 lines in colour and 300 lines in b&w (on VHS 240 lines in colour and 260 lines in b&w).
I like it when E-E doesn't work, rather than just off-tape. Signal tracing is much easier when you can just stuff a known good signal in and see where it vanishes. But without schematics, it would have been almost impossible. Alas nothing like this machine was sold in the UK.
It's interesting to know why the inductor on this part of video chain,
are blow up. Amazing video however.
No reason. Parts fail for no reason.
Thx for making these video's
excellent video, thank you
Can those alignment tapes be copied? Super video as usual!
No they are recorded on highly modified recorders for specific signals to be recorded.
Brilliant repair ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wow, I have three of them. It really a work horse.
The Beta doctor at work 👍
I was a betamax specialist. Factory servicecenter trained.
I have 2 EDV 9000 from japan i use them to convert my PAL tapes to ntsc using a converter here in Australia one of edv has low distorted sound in line 1ans power supply issues currently getting repaired ntsc beta seem to be cheaper than the PAL ones
Pal beta hifi was a completely different system than ntsc. Like vhs it used an additional pair of dedicated fm hifi heads. That required a different drum and completely different circuitry. Ntsc had enough bandwidth due to faster drum speed and the audio carriers would drop in between the chroma and luminance. Cost less to make, and maintain
Hi Dave, I just had a good deal from a client.
"Archive my 12 tapes and you can keep my HDR-HC1E"
Only problem it frequently pops up the
C:31:22 error and battling to do a proper capture. How can I fix that? Looks like a rather professional machine.
That's reel rotation error. Have to investigate and see why.
@@12voltvids Thanks very much.
Have a nice day and stay safe.
That's how i got a dcrtrv720. Actually that's how I got both of them.
These are nice machines. What's your opinion on the ED beta machines?
They were better but I never got an ED beta. By this time I had moved up to pro hi8
Good repair ♥️
Hi am just thankful for your videos just good work,you magic idea tell me how you do it
Where does everyone get their schematics. Ive found some things for old arcades but not much on old players. Id even pay for them if i could find a spot.
I stole this one from the shop I worked at. I had a box of Sam's but they were dumped years ago after a racoon ripped a hole in the roof and caused a leak which soaked them.
Cool! Thanks for the upload! Do you have any skills at Video 2000 systems? It would be cool to se some repair video of that system!
Video2000 was only available in Europe.
@@KR1275 Ahh you are right! I have a couple of Grundig video 2000 2x4. Advanced system for its time. But they need to be serviced from time to time.
Nope. Never made it to this side of the pond.
29:00 servo vaporwave remix.
Epic. Keep it up...
On the KR5-1V you have only the color pattern with AFM audio in βII.
On the KR5-1M you have only the color pattern with AFM audio in βIII.
Well my tape is labeled kr5 1m and the AFM is in beta2 not 3. You can read it on the tape label so someone at Sony must have fucked up.
Without that diagram, it would have been horrible.
I agree with the crappy schematics on the net, if you can't read it, it's pointless.
I was supprised it was a choke problem, i've not seen many go o.c.
They don't go open that often.
@@12voltvids I had the same issue on mine and followed your video exactly, it was the L107 just as you showed but without any marks on it. Thanks so much! Are you sure this isn't a common failure?
Hello bro good video I like
You must have an arsenal. Right?
Hello bro Robinson
thats amazing
Super.
SP = Superior Performance, not Superior Picture, but I'll give you a pass on that. Close enough 😜
You sure about that.
Yes, I'm totally sure, but someone keeps deleting the proof!! Aside from anything else, SP added upgrades to the audio, too (Dolby C in the case of U-matic, and sendust heads).
@@njm1971nyc
The sp machines also used a metal tape.
Yeh but it's a beta try and get tapes for it still good video
They stopped making tapes only 5 years ago. Lots of tapes out there.
VCR repairs are 2 fold. Electrical and physical. 😑
To many commercials... sorry my friend...
I don't control the commercials. But from my standpoint i am paid from the commercials so without them i wouldn't be doing this. Remember that before you bitch about commercials. Without them you would be paying for every video or there wouldn't be any content.
There is a solution to this. Join youtube premium and pay your 10 bucks a month and you won't see any ads.