I ordered one almost 2 yrs ago on eBay and was busted on arrival. I think I got my money back, but kept the unit. I just opened it up earlier today and found the pinch roller had fallen off. Going to be using it to record audio, thanks for posting this. EDIT: Firstly, “oof” is right. Secondly, there is so much useful information here, thank you! This unit will be so useful for mixing down analog audio 🙏 📼 🔊
I have this particular model (Sony 998) It's been excellent for 20+ years. Don't use it that often (obviously as we did from say '99 to '06) but it's always been cared for with TLC, cleaned and pampered. Still looks like new BUT, just the other day, I noticed that the time wasn't correct on the display. And that the remote was intermittently not working. I manually reset the time, but soon it went back to an inaccurate time (about an hour or so ahead of the actual) Then, things got worse when, later, I looked over at it and saw the display all whacked out...and flickering in with the proper led display, and back again to all freaked out A tape was still in, so I checked the functionality. It seemed fine at first, but then randomly, the now haunted VCR took over, intermittently pausing, then playing, then pausing again. Obviously, this is some kind of electrical screw up. Either that or someone fed my long beloved Sony 998 some of the "brown acid" Wondering if you might've ever seen an issue such as this and/it might have any good suggestions about (hopefully) resolving this problem. *Just the other day, my wife and I watched a concert film I'd taped in SP. It was playing as wonderfully as always and everything looked and sounded great ** One other quick thing: over the past few years (and we don't use this VCR very often, what with Blu-ray and DVD, you know) there's been this other issue of the tracking, specifically the AUDIO tracking not adjusting into "Stereo". Keeps dropping into one channel and the stereo light goes out. But this problem only occurs during the "first 5 minutes" of the tape. After that, it gets in line perfectly and the stereo is great.
FE head was quite common on mid to high grade VCRs since the mid 80's, but the head was expensive and was subsequently omitted in standard HiFi decks later and only reserved for higher-tier decks such as the 998. Insert edit and audio dub were two main features advertised for "editing decks" back then, if I remember correctly......
@@vampyrelycan99 Flying erase head was a worthless feature. The Hi Fi track was erased and the preceding and following frames were distorted. VHS wasn't made for proffesional editing. Hi 8 was. I'm surprised Sony would offer this feature on a crummy VHS deck!
Cool vid! I have an SLV-676UC that was pretty much broadcast quality when it was new. My wife tried to get me to throw it out last week because I made the mistake of telling her that it eats tapes. No chance in Hell. It has dual peak level adjustments and a thick flip down front panel. This vid brings back some good memories!
@@Chodfather1107 In today's dire times when legacy standards and hardware are constantly being deprecated and challenged, it is important to cherish and salvage every tape deck you may have encountered, because as long as there's the need for analog video digitization, retention of a good working tape deck is simply no escape. Those "newness" freaks who only know how to embrace everything new, have become a huge societal problem because they fail to understand and cherish the old, and to bridge old with the new. As a result, everything that have served them be great, which has since aged, has become "outdated" and needs to be trashed, by their twitched human standards. Very sad indeed!
Yeah I remembered this one. Was the deck I've really wanted back in the college days during the late 90s, but to no avail. FE head was nothing special and is expected on the higher-tier 99x-series model range. Even has VCR+Gold which helped facilitating timer recording even more effectively. The only regret however is lack of SQPB amongst a few other minor imperfections, such as lack of VU meter on frontal FL display.
so fancy looking...and in great cosmetic condition. Thank god someone cares for their stuff. btw Do you know what the Panasonic Superdrive exactly means? Its all over their VCRs
Superdrive series were meant for very fast rewind or forward functions and it really worked. My cousin had one of the Panasonic superdrive that would rewind the tapes very fast
Hi, I got Philips vr 768 with flying erase head. I have my vcr connected to to an amp and speakers. I can't use insert dubbing option. Though When I plug another audio source into connectors at the front and try to record audion onto an existing video like you. It does not record on the tape.
If I am replacing the belt at the bottom of this unit’s mechanism, will I need to recalibrate the timing or anything else when I replace the mechanism? Anything to watch out for?
I don't know why flying erase heads weren't standard on all VCRs from the start. Why would they think anyone wanted all that hideous noise between recordings? Just another example of the cheap and dirty, lazy corner cutting of the electronics manufacturers. And flying erase heads never became common on regular VHS units as far as I know.
I think it came down to cost. Funny enough, this was addressed in the mid 80s when Video8 (8mm videotape) was released. It doesn't have any linear heads - video, audio, tracking/servo control, and erase are all accomplished from the spinning head drum. This simplified things a lot, and the quality was better too, because it used metal tape. If you look at literature from the late 80s, it sounds like Sony was trying to position it as a VHS (and Beta) successor, but it never really took off outside the camcorder market.
I ordered one almost 2 yrs ago on eBay and was busted on arrival. I think I got my money back, but kept the unit. I just opened it up earlier today and found the pinch roller had fallen off. Going to be using it to record audio, thanks for posting this.
EDIT: Firstly, “oof” is right. Secondly, there is so much useful information here, thank you! This unit will be so useful for mixing down analog audio 🙏 📼 🔊
I want my money back for that vcr!! LOL
I have this particular model (Sony 998) It's been excellent for 20+ years. Don't use it that often (obviously as we did from say '99 to '06) but it's always been cared for with TLC, cleaned and pampered. Still looks like new
BUT, just the other day, I noticed that the time wasn't correct on the display. And that the remote was intermittently not working. I manually reset the time, but soon it went back to an inaccurate time (about an hour or so ahead of the actual)
Then, things got worse when, later, I looked over at it and saw the display all whacked out...and flickering in with the proper led display, and back again to all freaked out
A tape was still in, so I checked the functionality. It seemed fine at first, but then randomly, the now haunted VCR took over, intermittently pausing, then playing, then pausing again.
Obviously, this is some kind of electrical screw up. Either that or someone fed my long beloved Sony 998 some of the "brown acid"
Wondering if you might've ever seen an issue such as this and/it might have any good suggestions about (hopefully) resolving this problem.
*Just the other day, my wife and I watched a concert film I'd taped in SP. It was playing as wonderfully as always and everything looked and sounded great
** One other quick thing: over the past few years (and we don't use this VCR very often, what with Blu-ray and DVD, you know) there's been this other issue of the tracking, specifically the AUDIO tracking not adjusting into "Stereo". Keeps dropping into one channel and the stereo light goes out. But this problem only occurs during the "first 5 minutes" of the tape. After that, it gets in line perfectly and the stereo is great.
Awesome VCR! I didn’t know Sony put a Flying Erase Head in a consumer grade unit. Awesome video
FE head was quite common on mid to high grade VCRs since the mid 80's, but the head was expensive and was subsequently omitted in standard HiFi decks later and only reserved for higher-tier decks such as the 998. Insert edit and audio dub were two main features advertised for "editing decks" back then, if I remember correctly......
@@vampyrelycan99
Flying erase head was a worthless feature. The Hi Fi track was erased and the preceding and following frames were distorted.
VHS wasn't made for proffesional editing. Hi 8 was.
I'm surprised Sony would offer this feature on a crummy VHS deck!
Cool vid! I have an SLV-676UC that was pretty much broadcast quality when it was new. My wife tried to get me to throw it out last week because I made the mistake of telling her that it eats tapes. No chance in Hell. It has dual peak level adjustments and a thick flip down front panel. This vid brings back some good memories!
That's a cool machine, definitely worth keeping/fixing!
@@probnotstech I successfully repaired it earlier this afternoon. What a great feeling it is to have saved it from the trash heap.
@@Chodfather1107 In today's dire times when legacy standards and hardware are constantly being deprecated and challenged, it is important to cherish and salvage every tape deck you may have encountered, because as long as there's the need for analog video digitization, retention of a good working tape deck is simply no escape.
Those "newness" freaks who only know how to embrace everything new, have become a huge societal problem because they fail to understand and cherish the old, and to bridge old with the new. As a result, everything that have served them be great, which has since aged, has become "outdated" and needs to be trashed, by their twitched human standards. Very sad indeed!
Yeah I remembered this one. Was the deck I've really wanted back in the college days during the late 90s, but to no avail. FE head was nothing special and is expected on the higher-tier 99x-series model range. Even has VCR+Gold which helped facilitating timer recording even more effectively. The only regret however is lack of SQPB amongst a few other minor imperfections, such as lack of VU meter on frontal FL display.
so fancy looking...and in great cosmetic condition. Thank god someone cares for their stuff. btw Do you know what the Panasonic Superdrive exactly means? Its all over their VCRs
Superdrive series were meant for very fast rewind or forward functions and it really worked. My cousin had one of the Panasonic superdrive that would rewind the tapes very fast
I think APC (adaptive picture control) replaced the older OPC (optimum picture control).
Hi, I got Philips vr 768 with flying erase head.
I have my vcr connected to to an amp and speakers. I can't use insert dubbing option. Though When I plug another audio source into connectors at the front and try to record audion onto an existing video like you. It does not record on the tape.
in case you haven't figured it out yet, i believe insert audio is only for the linear audio track, try switching it on playback
If I am replacing the belt at the bottom of this unit’s mechanism, will I need to recalibrate the timing or anything else when I replace the mechanism? Anything to watch out for?
I'm trying to figure out why it keep eating tapes??
Can i use flying erase without the remote control
I had a JVC one for editing purposes.
ot almost same one but 790hf
I don't know why flying erase heads weren't standard on all VCRs from the start. Why would they think anyone wanted all that hideous noise between recordings? Just another example of the cheap and dirty, lazy corner cutting of the electronics manufacturers. And flying erase heads never became common on regular VHS units as far as I know.
I think it came down to cost. Funny enough, this was addressed in the mid 80s when Video8 (8mm videotape) was released. It doesn't have any linear heads - video, audio, tracking/servo control, and erase are all accomplished from the spinning head drum. This simplified things a lot, and the quality was better too, because it used metal tape. If you look at literature from the late 80s, it sounds like Sony was trying to position it as a VHS (and Beta) successor, but it never really took off outside the camcorder market.
Jaan