Oddity Archive: Episode 213.5 - Home Video Recording, 1972-Style (or, Ben’s Complete U-Matic Rig)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.พ. 2021
- Only about seven years in the making...
With the occasional small liberty, a recreation of the first, commercially-available home videotape recording setup in North America. Depending on your perspective, it’s either hardcore or half-baked.
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The video quality is great for a machine that is nearly 50 years old! I used to use U-Matic (or 3/4" as my school called it) for recording our daily radio show back in the early 2000s. The tapes we had were 60 minute ones and everything was done live to tape. It ran from 7am to 8am every morning. No one listened to it, of course.
Now for tcom classes we had SVHS camcorders that we would use to record our segments and b-roll. Of course we had to buy our tapes from the school (at an inflated price).
Cut to 2003 and I built the internet radio station that the school still has. No more live-to-tape needle drops or failed segments. All of it is digital and that creation is still live nearly 20 years later.
That "Ugly connector" is an 8 pine EIAJ video I/O cable and was an industry standard for Industrial/Educational video equipment as well as high-end consumer. It lasted into the mid-1980s on some equipment and was easier than connecting 2 video and 2 audio connectors for I/O
Most often used to connect VTRs to TVs. It was a two-way video feed, allowing you to see the playback as well as allowing you to feed the VTR from the TV. To make your collection complete, you need to get the Sony TV with the three buttons below the tuner.
I think the way the "timer adaptor" works is even simpler than your description at 19:17. I don't think there's a "low level charge" at all. It's switching power at the outlet, so too little voltage wouldn't power the deck up. The external timer was designed when mechanical piano keys were the norm, and those could stay engaged with the power off. Since the controls are held, the deck will start recording as soon as it powers up. The timer module only has to be a glorified lamp timer. (In fact it wouldn't surprise me to find out people used lamp timers to "program" their early VCRs.)
Your deck has logic controls, which of course can't remain latched or engaged when the deck is powered off. (We're interrupting power at the plug so there's no chance of a standby trickle keeping the brains awake.) The timer module didn't change, it's still just switching an outlet on and off. If that's the case, then all the adaptor has to do is hold the FWD and REC buttons to mimic the piano keys' latching action. Deck powers up, deck sees buttons pressed, deck starts recording. It probably just ignores if the buttons are held instead of pressed.
Sony _could_ have redesigned the timer to use a wired remote port, but reinvesting in an expensive niche add-on to an already expensive product probably didn't make financial sense. So instead, they injection-mold some plastic contraptions to bodge a solution around the problem. Good old Sony!
Yup, that's how it worked, simply switching the AC power and the adapter just held the play and record buttons down. You could have done the same with any cheap plug-in timer of the day. The 8 pin cable, which was very standard on industrial VTRs carried four signals, Video IN and OUT, Audio IN and OUT, 2 conductors per signal hence 8 pins. If anybody wants to know the exact pin out visit Labguysworld.com
I remember one thing about those machines- they weigh a ton.
Very interesting, and the quality of the tape recording is much better than I would've expected.
Same, seems to be about on par with standard VHS minus the record time.
@@CommodoreFan64 It's better than VHS, as this is the standard used by TV channels themselves
While the Avco Cartrivision system may have beat them to the punch for an all-in consumer functionality format, it was technologically inferior giving a poor picture quality.
I adore the sounds that thing makes. It's the most damn mechanical recorder I've ever heard!
The guy who owned one of these in 1972 also probably had a Corvette, a mustache, a 30th floor condo, and an extensive collection of porn. Also a lot of drugs.
I would say I wonder what this says about me, but I’ve never had any of those things.
....and a waterbed.
10 bucks says he was in the porno.
@@ptrgreeny Yep I was about the comment gotta have a big o' waterbed. 😂👍
... And a friend who could find a way to hookup the Akai 2 tube camera for color!
In addition to the educational and corporate/industrial market, U-Matics were a common sight at places like car dealerships. It was a very robust format.
U-Matic was the best format but also the most expensive !
Yay Ben fixed it!
Old time solution: broadcast media through the air - people receive signals on local equipment.
Modern solution: Run cables under ground and/or put up broadcast towers all over the place.
Maybe one day, we'll catch back up to the way it used to be done.
9:00 the connector is called (SMK) "EIAJ 8 Pin", later used for RGB-I on some rare IBM terminals.
$13 at a thrift store? That thing belongs in a museum.
Yep this was indeed, A Ben's Junk Episode. We can finally put the ol U-Matic Saga to rest after all these years.
21:39 I believe the 10-15 second "early" start is random, because the timer dial is just an approximation of the flip clock position. Nothing knows the moment when the tiles filp from 11:59 to 12:00, the timer only knows when the central flip clock rod is at "about" 1200. Techmoan explains this in one of his flipclock videos, ranting about the error in the movie Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray's clock radio always goes off *precisely* as the clock flips from 5:59 to 6:00.
According to the FCC database, there might still be one last analog TV station broadcasting in Sioux Falls, and that would be KCPO-LP on channel 26. Given that it's a low power TV channel, and reception at your apartment isn't that good to begin with, channel 26 may not come in very clearly even with an amplifier. And KCPO may have already converted to digital as well. As for what KCPO airs, it's your typical midwestern independent TV network filled with old reruns, B-movies, cheap reality shows and lots of religious programs during the overnight hours.
Whoa nice, its complete
I remember my elementary school back in the 70’s had these big players
So did mine. I was privileged to operate them.
Good video 📼👀💯✔🎬🎶📺
Hi, I'm new to your channel and I'm wondering where you've been all my life lol. Seriously, this opened my eyes to the fact that the home videotape concept was alive in 1970, far earlier than I had always thought. My dad had a Betamax machine in the late 70's, a real monster just a bit smaller than this machine, and I had always thought that that was the first of its kind out in the wild. As a bit of a technology historian myself I feel a tad embarrassed that I didn't know this, but also thankful for the new info.
Actually, if you were alive in the 1960s and didn't mind black and white (and later color), there were 1/2 inch open reel machines that were used in schools and offices, as well as a very few homes. Somewhere here on TH-cam is a video on that topic.
The Philips N1500 VCR was introduced at the "Firato" bi-annual audio/video event in Amsterdam in 1971.
19:45 that's an EIAJ connector which is standard (not proprietary) and was used on a lot of Japanese A/V equipment. However the wiring of that connector is unfortunately somewhat less of a standard.
You should leave the audio limiter off unless you're recording from microphones.
I used these machine in High School, 1979-1982, and College 1982-1985. I still have about 10 tapes that have not been played in 36 years now.
Up to 83 channels of UHF? The highest our UHF channels ever went up was 68. I think the TV only went up to the 70's. I swear I keep having recurring dreams that my television still uses VHF/UHF dials and there's all these freaky channels that air scary Eastern European things on the them.
And now the joke about Channel 84 from King of the Hill makes a lot more sense, as there's no such thing in real life!
The top 13 TV channels were given to cellular telephone. Still analog in those days. From the sublime to the ridiculous, the FCC mandated that receivers that could hear cellphone traffic were illegal.
Oops!
Come to think of it, my family hadn't had one of those kinds of televisions since I was really little. But I just don't remember the dials going beyond 70 or 70 something. I do remember it going around that high later one when I had a one knob tuner and definitely when televisions only had buttons. Even then, the highest channel we had over here was 68, and that was the dregs where they were odd indie stations. 62 was nonsense until it became a Spanish Channel and I can't even remember what 68 was until it became the religious channel before it became Ion. The low numbers were pretty sparse, but they were the brand name stations that were either network affiliates or soon would be, but had the A-list syndication stuff.
@@mr3urious Channel 84 is like the Everlasting Gob Stopper (or whatever it's called). It was introduced in the "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" book and movies, but then they started actually making them. Kids nowadays don't understand what it's like to have a tv that only goes up to channel 68 (or 12 if you're older than UHF).
USA UHF channels were originally 14-83. I think the highest ever licensed was channel 69. The reason is the higher you go, more power was needed to achieve the same coverage as the lower channels. BIG electrical bills. And yes at some time in the 1980s or perhaps then 90s those unused upper UHF channels were quietly re-allocated for other RF services.
Sony had four series of Umatic VCRs. Type 1, type 2, both top loading, and type 5, front loading. In addition there were the BVU series that were broadcast grade, the BVU 200 top loading, and the BVU 800 and BVU 950, both front loading. The VO 1xxx were mechanical dogs. The type 2 and 5 units were much better.
You have a lot of the associated accessories. Very nice. I used to work at a video store back in the late 70's. It was a Sony and JVC dealer (home and broadcast) so I saw a lot of the U-Matic stuff then. The model you show was common and I always liked the "feel" that one had. Mostly U-Matic was intended for industrial and low-end broadcast use. To broadcast a tape back then the source had to meet some minimum requirements. Not sure if that's "a thing" today or not. But you could broadcast U-Matic (might have needed a time base corrector (TBC) to meet specs as well).
I was a volunteer for the local cable TV public access channel. We used U-Matic (front load units with full editing capabilities) for all our recording, and yes, for broadcast/editing, it was played through a TBC unit.
@@dougbrowning82 Front loaders were newer machines. Nice units; we sold those too as well as full editing suites (including equipment bays and TBCs), "portable" systems, high end cameras and so on. Portable systems were technically portable, but all that gear weighed a ton! We sold stuff to the network affiliates and public (pbs) stations, private production companies, and individuals. It was quite a time for video and A/V back then.
@@65CJ5 Yes, they were 80s machines. We had four of them in the studio, and another two in the remote van, and three edit controllers, two in the studio and one in the van. All of our cameras, CCUs, and monitors were Sony, as was the CPM computer system in the studio we used for titling.
That extra "RF IN" cable on the TT-100 connects to the "RF OUT" of the VO-2600 (so the RF modulator output of the VO-2600 is switched through to the TV "VHF OUT" when the top panel switch is in the "VTR" position). Not useful if you have a monitor hooked up to the VO-2600 video output, though.
As I recall, you can slip the rubber bumper out of the "REC" position in the FA-20 to do a "timed playback".
What good is that? Why, to do a timed playback of a pre-recorded show on a public access channel from a school studio in the evening when there's nobody left in the building to push "play", of course. What's on the channel before the playback? "Let them eat static."
What do you do when someone has misplaced the FA-20? Two stacks of pennies and a stapler on top to hold down the buttons.
What's great is the picture from the U-Matic stands up really well even today, which is why it was used in the television industry until supplanted by Beta SP.
I was interested in video recorders back in the late ‘60s, I was born in 1957. In those days two inch machines were used in broadcast studios, but not somewhere that the public could see them. I had borrowed a book on them from the public library which I had read several times and had a fair idea how they worked. The book also had a section on the Ampex one inch helical machines, but these were rare, and I had never seen one of these either.
The first machine I actually saw was a Sony CV2100 at a Portsmouth Navy Day in about 1970; I found this machine more interesting than the ships that I was supposed o be looking at.
In 1972 the BBC held four exhibitions to celebrate their 59th anniversary, including a technical one at Mullard House in London. At that exhibition, which I visited several times, I saw my first Quad machine, a then new Ampex AVR-1, which was playing a tape of a Morecambe and Wise Christmas show. In another room at the same event there was a monitor showing something, I don’t remember what, and at the end of the programme a member of staff lifted up a section of rage platform it was standing on, to reveal what I recognised as being a Philips N1500 machine, having recently read a magazine article on the machine.
In 1974 I left school to train as An A/V technician with the Inner London Education Authority, where the standard machine was again the Sony CV2100; Inever saw the rare colour version, the CV5600P. When colour came in two machines were offered to schools, the Philips N1502 and a SonyU-Matic model. Most schools went for the Philips model, the Sony being used more in higher education. The 1500s were later replaced by early JVC VHS machines; I wasn’t impressed by the picture quality of these, but they did at least have audio and composite video connections, which the Philips machines lacked, and they seemed to be pretty reliable.
Ah 1972, the year before I was born. Or what I call pre-history.
Same.
Sony always with their proprietary plugs and adapters.
Like Sony like Apple
I have found that 8-pin connector on various brands of semi-pro/industrial video equipment back in the 1980s-1990s. It was not exclusive to SONY.
Oddly enough that one isn't a Sony propitery, just a mostly forgotten connector on vtr related stuff from the 60s through to the early 80s
This MAY be the answer to when the U-matic was made: "In March 1974, Sony announced that it had successfully produced the U-Matic video cassette system in portable form. The company commenced sales of this product in Japan in August 1974 in the United States and Canada in October 1974." (1974 annual report)
It looks like it was introduced to the Japanese market in October 1971 and the Canadian market in 1972.
I found it in the Sony annual reports but they don't mention product names. But between 1971 and 76 the mention the product in general and a lot of dates.
www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/ar/Archive.html
Hope this helps!
1:47 “VCR” was never a generic term in Europe like it was in North America, because of this. “Video” was, at least in the UK. Also, it explains why Trevor Horn sang “Put the blame on VCR” in “Video Killed The Radio Star” way back in 1979.
I think they just used VCR because it completed the rhyme:
In my mind and in my car
We can't rewind, we've gone too far
Pictures came and broke your heart
Put the blame on VCR
Some sources say the lyric is "VTR" (Video Tape Recorder)
This is so cool! Another great video dude. ☺️
24:03 if this had the ability to have a wired remote, then why have that “hunk of plastic” (FA20) to push record? You could have the timer send the wired remote command.
Exactly what I was thinking!
I believe that the timer is older than the VTR (or at least compatible with older VTRs that would have lacked the remote input). the ability to use the same timer design across various generations and models likely was a cost saving move by Sony.
I had an original Sony Betamax, but only with
the 1 Hour recording time with a L-500 tape,
then 11/2 hours with the L-750 tape, which was available a bit later, but at about $20.00
for a blank tape. But I only paid $500.00 for
that VCR, because the Beta II VCR's were
coming out.
My dad and my uncle had JVC U-Matic units. Probably in 1975? One of the first recordings my dad made was of Diamonds Are Forever off ABC, which was first shown in September 1975 (but I'm not sure if he recorded the first airing.).
They were both early adopters, but diverged after the U-Matic days. My uncle went heavily into the RCA SelectaVision discs, but my dad stuck with VHS.
The one you have there are the "white soft touch" series which came out around 1978. The previous series before that was the "black soft touch" series (VO-2850) that came out in 1974. That was after the first "piano key" series that was the original series (the VP series). I had 2 of the white button pro editors (BVU-200B's) with a BVE-500 controller. Definitely pricey and every bit of my credit to purchase. This went with a BVU-110 portable and a used Sharp 3-tube ENG camera. I eventually traded up (down) to a pair of JVC BR-S822DXU S-VHS editors with a JVC GY-X2BU S-VHS ENG camera.
You don't really need the "timer adaptor." Just tape the REC and FWD buttons down with masking tape or put some weights on them.
It's well been over 40 years since I was inside a TT-100 but I think the RF cable simply connected to the VHF OUT jack on the back. I may have been run through an antenna switch inside the TT-100 as well. The cable end connected to a RF unit on the VCR which was an option, either channel 3 or 4 depending on your locality. This would allow the system to be used with a standard TV that had no video or audio input jacks.
So much TV related experiments that happened in Chicago, a road trip to the Windy City to hit up the thrift stores would make for a great Archive Thrifting episode
I don't know I would want to even bother with all the crime happening there as of late, thanks to Mayor Beetlejuice not letting the police do their jobs!!!.
My high school had this exact model, it was primarily used to record PBS material for history and English classes. The material was then played back via a CATV modulator through to buildings master antenna system. I guess it was thought to be too valuable to put on a cart with a television. The media center staff would just hit play about 3 minutes after the start of class....ready or not
My high school had two of those ginormous decks (if not the exact same model, very similar). One was in the library, the other on a media cart. And they both had matchin' Trinitron TV/monitors. Pretty sure that I remember our science teacher showin' us, "The Miracle of Life" on the latter set. That was around 1990.
When you mention “ home recorder “.. how many homes in the 70’s had any type of video recorders? I can tell you .. very few.. only the wealthy or media journalists who worked in the tv field had them.
Here in the UK I can tell you we had many many people by 78,79 at any rate. Very few before that for sure though.
If I recall we got our 1st VCR in about 1979. It was a Fisher VHS unit and I remember my dad complaining about how much we spent on it.
And I can tell you, wedding videographers, like my grandfather had them
3:32 I think some low budget TV stations made use of that feature.
Honestly? I was surprised at how good the quality of the recording was.
is the power plug a moot point?
Amazingly, that unit records in stereo, and was back in the day way before stereo TV broadcasting. However, if you connected the audio directly from your in through the Ch 1 and Ch 2 inputs, you would probably have the first TV Stereo recording made by that unit. I think, unless all home 3/4 U-Matic decks came with 2 audio tracks, this may have been an industrial deck.
Daaaaym! They truly WANTED you to sit right in front of the TV back in the 70s! NO WONDER our 1990s & 2000s parents told us: "Don't sit so close to the TV!" Our parents back when they were kids were relegated to CORDED remotes!! Thank goodness for the tech we live in today. ^u^
I remember seeing the CEAVCO brand on AV equipment in school.
Umatic were not domestic consumer machines. It was marketed to industrial and educational users. The short tape lengths and prohibitive price were not suitable for consumer purchase though probably some Hollywood bigwigs had them.
i really appreciate the effort which Benny put into this!
Looks like a very rare stereo 2 channel vtr wow from 1972 ? Most vtr.s where mono
10:35 You can look on date codes of the internal components for clues as to the age of the unit. If you cant find a "74", then expect a reference for Showa year "49". The Japanese years correspond to the year of reign of the then-current Emperor.
I want a JVC UMATIC so bad. We had them when I was in elementary school.
It's a Sony
I love watching gadget nostalgia, it’s so choice !
You definitely should have recorded something that was on in 1974-6 for an authentic experience, instead of Coach. ;) The video gives it that reverse Back to the Future vibe, with an old technology being used on a modern device (the opposite of Marty using his camcorder on the 50s TV). But otherwise, this is cool!
19:12 - I thought they were called rubber "nubbies"!
I don't think Ben knows what "moot point" means.
Wow, they didn't make many of these did they. You have number 17095? Pretty low serial number.
My understanding is they made quite a few (somewhere in the six figures going into the early '80's)--I can't verify that though. Part of my logic in my deck dating to 1975 or '76 is the serial number.
But U-matic is for professional newsgathering and broadcast use!
That is where it became most popular, especially after RCA's introduction of the TK-76 3 tube self-contained portable color camera in 1976, pair that with the Sony BVU-110 portable U-Matic S recorder and you have the Standard US ENG rig from 1976 till 1982 when Sony introduced Betacam.
@@mspysu79 Ben had showed how home recording on U-matic works, 1972 style!
Oh yes, but it was also sold to customers, and people like my grandfather who used it to semi-pro record weddings
@@MaxW-er1hm I see.
I prefer my end of century 10,000$ Sony U-matic SP Vo-9850 Videocassette Recorder, (the last model) bouth in 2010 for 125$ tho... :-)
U box?🥊🥊👻❤❤❤
I have 2 to get rid of
They probably just need cleaning
Wolowitz is older than I thought.
As a kid of the 80's growing up in the shadows of Canada's Socialist Government in the 70's..... we watched a lot of U-matic stuff and even 16mm film in school coming up. Looking back, it just seems humourous NOW that the School Boards got a ton of money for gadgets in the 70's and then nothing for YEARS. We didn't start seeing VHS tapes and stuff well into the 90's. (Your mileage may vary but, I grew up in very rural Canada, so the big cities may have had other funding.) But what's sad is I remember during my high school years, seeing all that OLD A/V stuff collecting dust in storage rooms. There was an abandoned school in my neighborhood that they used for storage and it was crammed full of old U-Matic machines, film projectors and just all the old stuff at the time they'd have to pay to get rid of. I offered a few times back then to take some of the fancier U-matic machines off their hands but of course, I'd either get denied or just plain old not taken seriously.
It's like when I went to college, there was a whole room, usually LOCKED with TONS of vintage Sun Engine tuning machines, distributor tune up machines.... stuff that goes for big money today. Again, I tried to buy for myself before they all got thrown away but no..... hopefully they're still locked in that room but 20 years later, I doubt it.
Makes a person seriously want to adjust their morals and just abscond some of these devices.
Sony's Canadian distribution partner was General Distributors (Gendis), based in Winnipeg. They made a big push to get Sony products into schools. The A/V department of my school division in Winnipeg was loaded with Sony, Electrohome, Bell & Howell, Caliphone, and Singer/Graflex equipment.
They had one of these in my elementary school.
Im not much of a techie, but I will say the color scheme of the buttons is quite nice. Very patriotic.
aaa sydnie
You should be watching it on a 1970s CRT television.
ok lets set the timer... sits and waits for 21 days. its starting..
So viel Geschwätz in einer halben Stunde.
Wir wollen diese tolle Maschine in der Aktion sehen.
Kassette rein und Bild abfahren. Kein langes Gerede.
Zeig uns ein video....
Und wenn kein Bild kommt, dann ist der Apparat wohl defekt...👈⚠️
Things have changed with recording.