Since my interest in video has developed, I've always wondered this: How do others say "PAL?" Pee-Ay-Ehl? Or just "pal" phonetically? It's a given that NTSC is spelled out letter-per-letter. Does the same apply for SECAM (See-Cahm) and MESECAM (Me-See-Cahm?)

What are everyones' thoughts on this matter?

-Jesse

Just kidding about watching SVHS thru my 9" Trinitron. Thanks for all your good replies, though. Remember it's only 100 days till April 1. That twirly-tuner has been running an hour a day for about 25 years and still has rock steady vertical hold and proper brightness and contrast right away. It has outlasted a Sanyo VCR-4000 and a 4030 so far but the latter probably just needs new rubber from iglou. As for the SVHS, after a steady diet of Veggie Tales tapes in the family room, the (center load) JVC will finally get to edit several hours of my Italian cousin-in-law's wedding footage at 30 mins per tiny $9 SVHS-C tape. Love changing tapes during the vows.

sean, both my 900 and the 750 feature 2x play with normal pitch audio.if normal tracking wheel doen't access it after you press 2x then your unit is malfunctioning.audio monitor switch MUST be set to beta hi-fi!

and sean,this feature only works at beta2 and beta3 speeds.

Well the funny thing is I usually make my tapes at BI speed. I have one here at BII so I have to try it out.

Little odd fact. The SL-HF-900, when "Turbocharged" to BIs, at BIs, you can't do a 2x play. When you do a 2x play it just keeps going at normal BIs speed. You do get audio, however, the funny thing is the way it just keeps playing with the 2x light on. I wonder if the Japanese 900 does he same thing or maybe it has a slightly different chipset that lets it know that at BIs it should be going faster.

I tried it w/ a BIs tape on my HF900, and you're right. Same for the Pioneer VX-90. Neither of those machines have the BIs mod, but plays tapes made on a 750/1000/GCS-50. I'm gussing it's because, for example, if you have a BII tape, it's running at 2cm/s, 2x play doubles that to 4cm/s, which is the X1/BIs speed. So, I assume the deck can't go faster than that; which would explain (IMO) why it won't do 2x @ BIs. To do it on a 750, you need the OEM remote (RMT-143?) for the shuttle dial, right? Which I don't have. :(

If you really want to have weird audio you can use an SL-HF 1000 when the thing is in set up for editing AND when the audio monitor is set to linear, you can hear the sound in wahtever speed the tape is moving-- even frame by frame. I suspect this was done for people who are editing something on a sound cue. Some folks may not know it but the clapperboard that they use for making movies was origianlly done to sync up the sound to the film since the sound is not recorded on the film in the camera. When you hear the clap on the sound track it should line up with the frame of film where you see the clapperboard come together.

madness,of course your guess is right on the money.no rmt-148 necessary.your 2x is located directly to the left of SCAN button on front of 750.sean's situation didn't dawn on me till i finished my post,hence my "post"post.

by the way,the 900 also has a stop motion animation feature.place unit in rec-pause.every time rec switch is moved to right, the unit will record 7 frames at a time.time to dust off the camera,sean.

does the 1000 do the 2x audio normal pitch trick?

A caution to anyone wanting to record animation, it's very hard on a VCR and I suggest that if you are serious you try to find a dew extra 900s or just by a commercial device for it.

Christmas Eve here in the Land of the Morning Calm. Hope all of you have a wonderful holiday.

Take care, all, and stay well. :)

Thanks Brenda, same to all of you out there in Betaland.

The 2X trick w/normal pitch will only work with a tape recorded in Hi-Fi.

2X playback will not work on tapes recorded in B1, as stated in the 1000 user manual.

I don't know what it would do on the 2710, but who's got a tape recorded in standard X-1 speed with Hi-Fi sound anyways !?

How does that work, playing at 2x but still hearing 1x sound? Erf... I guess it was because my twirly-tuner was stashed in a closet for about 10 years.. Poor thing. I agree with (Sean I think) that friend that can't watch anything above a 13" with NTSC because of counting scan lines.. My parents' Toshiba-tron has a horrid picture with VHS recordings (and higher up channels like 50, etC). Its convergence is off (blue, by a whole lot!) and I can't figure how to make the TV save the adjustments I make when I do them via its electronic menu.

sound is 2x but pitch is normal.the machine does this by reading audio from every other frame while playing video continuously at 2x. sounds a bit choppy but quite intelligible.not the expected "chipmonk" effect.baritones remain baritones.

i'm guess that the deck reads the hifi sound @ double-speed, then halves it internally so that it appears normal when heard? A shot-in-the-dark there. Weren't any Japanese-market decks that did X1 w/ hifi were there? Would be strange, I'm sure.

Madness, I'm not sure if any Japanese Decks did X-1 and HiFi, although they had more X-1 decks than we did. They had a lot of Linear stereo dekcs too. The SL-J9, I think was something to behold.

All right, stupid question, but how is convergence adjusted electronically on a projection TV? Are the tubes physically moved? Or is there a mirror that is moved electronically? Or, is the image itself shifted on the tube? I really believe that that evil brownout (more like momentary blackout) we had a few weeks ago is to blame for that poor TV's sudden misconvergence. Its piccy is horrid!!!!! It's not even sharp, with Sharpness at 100%! I am also tempted to believe that my SL-HF300s piccy is not sharp because of its heads, but I also blame Gastro-vision on it, too. Of course, it might be the tired Dynamicron tape. I notice that the 300 tapes a lot better when I give it used Betamie-cam oxides from.

No, better comparison; the Toshiba-tron is astigmatic. Ask Olive about her astigmatic Sony Vehos :

Whatever transport mode is involved in playback, the relative head-to-tape speed doesn't change, which explains why the sound pitch doesn't change. Instead, it skips frames.

I don't think there was any X-1 hi-fi. By the time BetaHi-FI was patented, X-1 was already gone for good.

i wonder why the dropped X-1 entirely? BIs and SHB machines can't even record it, I think. I wonder if since a machine can play at BI could it also record if you somehow tricked it, but would it not work propperly since it would need some kind of equalization.

Hmmm... Anyone got any old InfoNiacin (tired InfoLithium or any other Li-Ion) batteries for me? I want to try burning/boiling one. It says not to because electrolyte may be released.... Hee hee hee, I'm going to do some experiments with snails. J/K. I don't experiment on animals, I just want to see if the electrolyte will come out, and see if it's like acid. I also want to know, how long do you think a Li-Ion batty will last in a Betamie? Like, if we got the cells from a modern Sony InfoLithim batty, would the Betamie munch it faster?

Grrrr! Everyone talking about their BIs recordings off their SL-HF 900s 750s and 1000s is making me feel left out with my boogity old SL-HF 360....

It's a shame Sony never made that many 4 head VCRs because if you have a HiFi deck you really need 4 heads to get cleaner cuts between recording sessions.

Jesse if you play around with Info-Riboflavin power cells remember they can get pretty hot pretty fast if you cross terminals.

I wonder how many S-VHS decks were sold. I wonder if in the end they really did any better than Beta over it's lifetime? Whatever happened to Digital S? Or the VHS-W widescreen format? Speaking of which... now that the new plasma screen HD-TVs are formatted for 1.66/1.88-1 widescreen format, what's gonna happen to all those letterboxed movies that came out? Are they gonna be postage-stamp sizeded little nothings or even worse blown up so that you get a 120-line resolution piece of crap?

Call me a Philistine but I've never like letterboxing. With a 20" screen you don't get much detail in an image 1/2 or 1/3rd the size of the screen. Television is an intimate format and trying to go widescreen just doesn't work. Pan & scan gets a bad rap with the critics but really you're doing that watching a widescreen movie in the theater. No-one looks at the whole screen all the time - they focus on the center of action. Widescreen shots are only good if you're photographing a snake anyway.

OK OlIve, you're a philistine. I like letterbox but I can understand your frustration. My eyes don't seem to mind large screens, even thought I watch a 27" from 5' away. and with LD you get plenty of resolution on Widescreen. A decent P&S job is OK but I won't put up with a rotten one. Tampering with a movie just isn't a 'go' for me, I REFUSE to watch censored movies! The TV networks editing is EVIL! Fine, tell us that this movie will make the eyes fall right out of the heads of children, but don't tamper with it!

hahhhhaha! eyes falling out of kids' heads. Nope, Olive. Tried shorting InfoRiboflavin batty a few mins ago, before reading your post. The Sony protection circuit or whatever cuts out the current and disables the battery for about 10 minutes before it will allow it to work again. Sorry... It didn't seem to work, but the paperclip just glowed for like a couple seconds.

Well, Olive, you're not alone. Hahah, I do feel kinda silly with my non-Super betas. My SL-2000 had to be moved to the Sony with the twirly-tuners because that's (besides the 13" 1980 trinitron) the only TV that its piccy looks spectacular (ok, ok, good, at least) on. The 32" and the 27" are just not good monitors for the 2000mie (unless looking at a live picture from the HVC-2200. I think the 2000mie's tracking adjustment went screwy, because Betamie-recorder videos don't track properly. I'm afraid to mess with it because that screw-on-a-spring has a stripped head. Your 360 is Super, right? I gotta put up with a non-Super 300 and old tapes. Isn't there a movie called Arsenic and Old Lace? Well, my version would be Arsenic and Old Tapes. :) Someone come to the Riverwalk and visit me, because I need someone to resolder the A/V in leads on the back of my 1997 Philips Sagnavox 32". The S-Video and Line in connections are all loose and I have to constantly (LOL, at least once a day) be stomping on the floor to get them to work right. And while you're at it, want to resolder the leadouts on my 1998 Spamsung VCR? They're looser than hell... Yes, Sean, I alos agree with you about the idiot networks replacing the cussing with stupid words or phrases. Like, USA replaces "GD" with "Goddangit" or something silly like that. It just looks and sounds so stupid (words dont match, and you can tell when they inserted a word because there's hissing). Whoever said about Dolby not being that good, why? I think Dolby is just perfect. :) I really would like to get ahold of a Dolby B/C or even S encoder with HX. Hee hee hee! I really really want an outboard decoder, so I can encode all of my video recordings with Dolby NR. Especially the VeHoS ones because they tend to get hissy. I guess that my VeHoS video library is going to be gone in a couple years because I always buy the RCA drugstore variety (because they're always on sale for like $0,99 a tape. I don't like to buy high grade tape because it's expensive, and I tape profusely; can't afford a lot of high grade tape. Will only buy it for a special event recording, or something. Damn it, I also went and looked up quotes for a 1995 Millenia.... For ME it would be like $400 a month as the primary driver, with dad it would be like $350. Whoop-de-doo. How much do you guys pya for car insurance?

Good grief, Jesse, I get $130 a month and change on the car insurance! and that's on the massive Buick I drive! Yes, there is a movie called "Arsenic and Old Lace" and it always screws up my searches for "Old video" on Ebay... in fact I use this search string :old video -game -games -VHS -lace -disney for some stuff. also substitute "Vintage" for old for more video stuff.

Heheheh a Buick Roadmaster, LOL! Well, have any of you seen this link *( http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/dialectp.cgi?dialect=jive&url=http://www.chat-page.com/betamax )* on the Betamax palsite links page? It's hilarious, its called the Dialectiser. I tried 'dialectising' the WOAI page and it was funny, LOL. Hmmm what would a Buick tour bus be like? [you mean it isn't a tour bus? :P] Or even better, a Millenia S tour bus! Hahahah it would probably look like a new Van Hool bus. :)

Geeze... All I wants is a Canon EOS Rebel G with telephoto lens. Some person on the apple website was talking about a Canon D-60... Anyone want to make a charitable donation to the Home?

Geez guys... I was only paying $350 a YEAR on my '94 Chrysler New Yorker.. and we're only paying $900 a year on our now '02 Chevy Tracker, and that's full coverage (comp and collision), which is a good thing, cuz someone wrecked our car early Thanksgiving morning.. we just got it back yesterday..

If you want hilarious substitutions in a movie here's one I remember from the early 80s. In the broadcast version of 'The Shining', they substitute "I love that son of a bitch" to "I love that son of a buck"...

Watched Scarface (the Al "say hello to my little friend!" Pacino one) on Beta the other day and man was it an ultraviolent cussfest. Just the way I like it.*sniff* *snoooort!* I've seen it run on one of Ted Turner's channels and it's amazing you can show anything of the movie at all. People must have Alzheimers in the censored one cuz they say "forget you" all the time...

This is one of those movies that really looks better NOT in widescreen, as most of this film consists of small groups of people which filmed wide looks distant and remote - as if you couldn't guess I don't like widescreen in general - the first 50 years or so of movies look just fine without it.

_@_v - erf! yet another case of a seller splitting up parts of a Beta to sell individually...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15099&item=1947345435

Gets you an SL-HFR 50 VCR $50 start $100 BIN

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15099&item=1947348917

Gets you the HFP -200 HiFi processor $50 start $100 BIN

Like those ripoff NYC electronics stores (that have been "going out of business" for the last 30 years) that try to charge you extra for the accessories that come with the item you're trying to buy.

And here's a Beta I've never seen...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1947365264

SL-S680D digital FX Beta built for the Latin American market. This one's a mono beta similar to the SL-810D released in North America

That dialectizer thing is funny as all hell. It's odd to see my own messages come through it since I'm usually so very wordy and use big words that are odd to see with that type of dialogue.

Re: Widescreen. Since I dupe mostly from DVDs these days, I get my share of letterbox and widescreen films. To me, I have no problems w/ traditional letterbox, but 16x9 widescreen (WS) is often annoying. The latter appears as a thin-width panoramic picture w/ very thick bars. Say you divide the TV screen into four horizonal quadrants. The picture occupies the height of the 2nd & 3rd combined, with the 1st & 4th being the bars. Sometimes it looks to me like part of the frame tops have been "sliced off" when compared to the P&S versions. A good example of this would be a comparison between the P&S and WS DVD versions of (the 1st!) Harry Potter; the Hogwarts train platform scene. In the former, you can see the whole "Platform 9¾" sign, whereas on the latter, the top third of it is cut off by the top bar (it was the P&S version that went to ßeta!). Just my 2¢: *clink* *clink*

BTW: Happy Holidaze ;)Madness

Madness, I'll let you in on a little secret we LaserDisc freaks are in on. Lots of movies are made nowadays with a "full-frame" film, showing a TV-ratio picture or very close to it. Then the top and bottom are cropped for the theatrical release, with nothing important being in there, and then those portions are shown on TV ratio systems, so, in some cases you DO get more with full frame, and in others they failed to protect those areas and S/FX don't go into them and you see wires and such in them.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Sean..

Know anyone that would like to have the first four seasons of Star Trek- Next Generation on LD?? I have the above mentioned set up on fleabay at the moment, but if I got a reasonable offer, I would consider ending the auction early. :)

Yeah Sean, I understand ya 100%. I've gotten both the FF & WS versions of some DVD's to compare (of those that have two separate editions). There's two video stores in my area. One, Blockbuster, often has only the WS's; whereas the other, West Coast Video, often has the FF/P&S (dunno why tho). Two I got both editions of, recently, are Spiderman & Minority Report. I found the FF's of both to more appealing (and therefore to ßeta!).

life in b1 land ain't perfect olive.the shop is demanding the pentagon's national budget to repair my 2100, a model that records no better than vhs.[all of the three units i've had produce the same disappointing rec quality,so it's not a malfuction].my much beloved 900 sits gathering dust because it snacks on tapes when i press anything other than play and one of my 750's has a picture that's more jittery than trent lott at a harlem block party.my remaining 750 is holding down the fort ok but must keep edit switch on to optimize picture quality.and i'm sure your 360 is better than my 600.will likely have to buy a 900 on ebay soon just to recapture the excitement of a properly functioning beta.and no,my dog hasn't died and my wife hasn't left me....yet.

Perhaps you would care to make a donation or two to the Olive E Thomas Home For Wayward Betamaxes. A jittery SL-HF 750 beats having no SL-HF 750 and that 'hungry' SL-HF 900 sound like it just needs a little loving 'discipline'. At least your SL-HF 600 is a full channel full stereo VCR, my SL-HF 360 gets only 14 presets, you can't switch off the HiFi and it doesn't have a stereo tuner.

And you might get good Karma for the Betas that remain...

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year everybody! Long live our Betas!To Jesse: I said that Dolby NR is not the best possible solution. My own impression is that you get a clearer sound w/out a hiss but somehow it sounds sweety. Each processing brings you more distortion. There may be a loss of information during compressing/expansion process. I agree that Dolby HX Pro is a good invention and it might be good to install it in VCRs into the path of linear audio signal. As for about separate Dolby B/C unit I have happened to see such device on my local flea market. Manufacturer: Nakamichi. Seller asked approx. $ 50.

External Dolby processing would only work if you can prove there is no Auto-Level Control inside your deck's audio recording circuits. If the audio gain varies due to a built-in ALC then forget about calibrating an external unit. The annoying hiss would just turn into hissy breathing noises. For both ßeta and Very Horrible Sound, linear audio design "hit the wall" but manufacturers didn't care. TV receiver audio design in the 70's was usually cheaper (worse) than it had been in the 50's. So most consumers scarcely noticed that their video decks, even many hifi decks, had audio ALC permanently on. The concensus was that dynamic compression was less annoying than hissy quiet scenes to the stupid masses.

Joel, there is a HF 750 on Fleabay. It's at $101.50 right now. Comes with 2 remotes. The original RMT 148 and a RMT-V676A. The original remote has some problem. I would link it but I've never linked Fleabay stuff; and besides it's 4:45 AM CDT, and I'm goin to bed.

Later. Ppese.

Merry Christmas (whoever she is) and a prosperous new year.

Further to Dolby, most audio cassette decks were shipped with accurate calibration but they only stayed that way as long as the heads were perfectly clean and aligned to the that tape shell. In the Philips-designed shell, alignment is too sloppy so high frequencies drop off quite a bit almost every time. This throws Dolby calibration off big-time so playback seems muddy but hiss-free. Also record bias vs. record volume vs. frequency is a compromise so musical passages peaking just below 0dB can actually saturate the tape at higher frequencies (more mud). Tapes recorded with Dolby HX-Pro and Automatic Tape Bias Calibration are much less affected. If your deck does not have these advancements, take back that new $99 DVD deck under the tree and hit the Boxing Day Sales. Full warehouses of top-line audio cassette decks might be the bargain of the year. Perhaps they have shelves oveflowing with dusty old unopened SL-HF1000 boxes too. Is that an Elcaset down there?

olive,the 750 also blanks video.it's a good candidate for professional repair or parts for my good one.got the job half way done when i replaced the voltage reg.unit was dead before that.my desparate struggle to ressurect the 900 was a 10 year journey into hell.don't have time to tell whole story right now.i'd be lucky to get away with just replacing ace assly and capstan motor.when i get another unit, it will save me a lot on parts.

btw, where's that unopened 1000?

Probably in the same warehouse full of unsold SL-HF 750s that Olive dreams about...

Maybe there's a small video shop somewhere in the middle of Kansas that still has one sitting on it's lonesome in some celler store room... "We'd send it back to Sony, but every time a tornado comes along the feller manages to hold the store in place!"

Yes, Joel I agree with Olive. Send half of the Betas to the Wards Home for Wayward Mazda Millenia S-es, Canon EOS SLRs, And Other Wayward Professional Broadcast and Photographic Equipment and half to the Olive E Thomas Home. I'm sure that the Betas will like it so much better here, and plus its a tax-write off! :) :)

Besides..,.,., even if its busted it will look impressive in my stack. Kinda like having a Millenia with half its engine in its trunk (saw one on ebay few months ago) sitting in the driveway; it doesn't go anywhere but it looks good just the same!

I know what you mean, Since before I had my 900 fixed I had it under the Superbeta Dustcover which has now found a home with Ray Glasser of the infoguide. Since my Betas are all under a shelf it doesn't matter anyway. it looked SOOOO good on the 900, even though the 900 wouldn't even keep time!

Are the 2100 and the 2000 built on a similar chassis or is there a difference in quality ?

Now there is an SL-HF 900 on Ebay for $535.00 BIN, has 2 remotes and owners book. Ebay No.: 1947416227 . someko has it. Is he one of the schnails??

Later. Pepse.

Someko is the selling identity of The Snail himself.

Our man Andy was able to ferret that nugget of info out when Someko tried selling an SL-HF 1000 with one of Andy's repair warranties attached to it.

Happy Xmas Eve? ;) Anyhow, I actually have an Elcaset deck, 3-head Sony EL-7 (incidently, the Elcaset logo is also variant of the Umatic and original Betamax; like: [E_lcaset]). They made two grades of tapes for it, oxide & chrome, which have red & blue cases, respectively. Problem is that most of the oxide tapes haven't stood up to the ravages of time and are worn & shedding (chromes seem to faired better). My thought here is to get some ¼" reel tape of the same grade and respool the 2 dozen or so I have. Like reel, the EL-7 gives excellent sound quality, especially from CD's (has only Dolby NR). I also have a Sony ES 3-head cassette w/ Dolby S & a minidisc deck.

Regarding the HF2100, I've read that it has separate heads for recording and playback. Therefore, is it possible to actually monitor the videotape as it's being recorded (to compare to source)? Like you can on a 3-head audio deck. Just curious there. ;)

I've seen those Elcaset tapes. One is called "FeCR" which is really funny if you try to pronounce it like a word. Speaking of which, the game "Pac-man" was going to be "Puckman" because the guy was round ike a hockey puck but it was changed when it was discovered that is was easy enough to alter the marquee to something that may have been offensive to some and simply missleading to others.

First, I'm glad to know I'm not the only young person into Beta. My parents bought our SL-HF600 in 1985...it predates me by about 6 months! I'm also glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks those new minisystems suck...I start to see spots after standing around that section of Best Buy, Circut City or American for awhile! And none of them have Dolby NR, tape counters or a Norm/CrO2 switch. That's why for cassette recording I stick to my old Marantz SD-321 (of unknown vintage, I got it used, but it's probably from sometime in the 80's) or Sony MHC-2750 minisystem from about 1992 which has Dolby NR and a 5-CD changer which has no problem at all playing CD-Rs. Also I too have noticed that bigger, higher-resolution monitors are less forgiving about the source quality. That's why on our year-old Sony KV-27FV17 27" flatscreen TV, EP VHS recordings and distant over-the-air channels reveal snow and noise that we never saw on our old TVs. Beta, however, has no problem at all!

A quick postscript. I am currently in the process of designing my own ßetamax web page, and I would like to include photos of as many Beta units as I can. I have quite a few photos on my computer that I obtained from Ebay auctions by right-clicking and selecting "Save picture as", and I would like to know if it's OK for me to use them or does the seller in the auction have some sort of copyright on them?

ugh unless you have parents like mine who really don't care about TV quality... They dint even notice their misconverged Toshiba-tron until I saw thick blue edges all along the edges of my DVD player's text..... :( :(

About copyright: if anyone asks just say I told you you could use their photos. Not like they'll recognise them anyways. If they cause any trouble we'll just send them a nice Crowne Victoria to pick them up... maybe a Flowers By Irene truck for a nice flower delivery.

For cassette I have two decks, a Pioneer double deck with computer control solenoids so it can be remote controlled, with two kinds of Dolby, (That'll spoil you!) and a rare BIC T1 two-speed with Dolby.

fran,keep your eyes peeled.i can testify to the fact that those warehouse situations do occaisionally arise.

charles- same family,i'm sure,but i wouldn't bank on same quality.

pepse- ziggi had a 900 with a bin of $399. once i agonize sufficiently,i'll probably jump at a similar deal.

madness- separate rec/play heads but NOT separate rec /play amps.no simultaneous r/p monitoring.

got an entry level pioneer ct-4 cassette deck . ff and rew don't work but sounds ok still.

I can't imagine anyone seriously using those crapass 'bookshelf' stereo for any serious listening - or VeHoS tapes for serious viewing of movies for that matter .

I'm using a Pioneer stereo system that I inherited from my late brother. He apparently took a swim in the river in Novemeber and didn't surface till the spring of the next year - about a week after his apartment was emptied out by the property management company. Dad managed to save his stereo and a few other things but his vast - and I do mean vast music collection - was tossed into a dumpster (or into the van of whoever was cleaning out his crib). I still have boxes full of cassettes in the celler of American Top 40 tapes he obsessive recorded over the years (he'd record the shows then go out and buy every song that made the Top - 40). Curiously I never found any of records and cassette singles or CD he'd bought - musta took them with him. At any rate I'll never have to buy another box of audio cassette for as long as I live given my current rate of consumption (lessee I think I might've filled exactly one cassette in the last two years)...

It has a pretty nicely tricked out dual cassette with remote control ability and 'CD sync' that lets you synchronize the CD to the tape deck so when you record stuff it cues up properly and if the tape ends it holds the CD while it auto reverses. It records in Dolby HX Pro something but has Dolby B & C. It seems to be a bit mad at me for not using it all that much because I finally go and play it after like months and it was sluggish trying to auto reverse play a tape. I fed the gears some rubbing alcohol and that seems to have gratified it. I also have a nice TEAC V-360C deck with Dolby B & C as well as a 'brilliance' switch - which sorta takes the muffled edge off Dolby noise reduction.

It's so nice that all of us §etasnails have gathered around the electronic campfire during this holiday season...

Betamax Machines available for sale,Sony SL-F30 Sanyo VTC5150, VTC5000, Sanyo 9300, SL-C6.

Some vhs (if wanted) offers must be picked up. Cannot deliver or post (sorry)Manchester area

eeee yes, Joel I have a Pioneer CT-F1000 or something, its rew/ff dont work but play does. My Dolby gives a little mud, but I like it.. It's a lot better than hisssssssssssssssssssssss.....

Sometimes you want Dolby, sometimes you don't. That's what I've found. 8-tracks get a lot of disrespect because they sonunded awful. Well about 1/2 the equation was the players, which tended to be lousy. There was an 8-track player that had Dolby and it sounded INCREDIBLE.

I'd rather endure some hiss than listen to dolby mutilated sound.

I understand. Unless there is a lot of noise (Like from some rotten old records I have) I turn Dolby off. I hate car stereos that Default to having it on, I wonder if this is a way they try to sell more CD players because the Dolby only messes with good recordings. It's a nice option but you only need it when you need it.

I find that Dolby does muffle the highs abit on some cassette recordings; clears up w/ it off. But these days, I'm mostly burning CD's, so tapes get little use. But here & there.

Also, getting back to beta, I snagged an HF450 off Yahoo! Auctions a day or so ago for $80. That includes remote, 36 tapes & a rewinder. Glad to see there's no $nail$ over there yet; but then there's not many poor betas to prey on, either. ;)

BTW: Merry Xmas! *g*

Sez:

You all had ßeta have a great Holiday. :)

actually,proper reproduction of highs is masked by a cars ambient noise level, especially while driving.therefore,engaging your cars dolby certainly does result in the perception of inaccurate music reproduction. unless you're parked with your motor off.happy holidays everyone!

Whihch is why 8-tracks sounded OK in your car but not in the house. Unless you had a better player. Lots of 8-track players were made by little-known comanies or put in low-end stereos.

stop bashing Dolby! LOL! I've managed to build it a good reputation amongst my friends... LOL! I hate hiss... and would rather endure a little mud. Oh well... Merry x-mas everyone!

Funny but I prefer using Dolby for recording only and to kill Dolby on playback...

Somebody (smokey guy?) sent me an RMT-156 for my SL-HF 360 - been using a uni-remote all this time.

i have a toshiba v31. it looks to work (can watch tv program) but i have problems with the tape... it loads perfekt, then the screen is completely black and then i can see only this snow-storm thing... no picture.i got this vcr from my dad, who gave it to service. but he got it unrepaired back.i tried it today. the tapedeck made scrapy noise. so i opend it and saw, that the drum was opend, and the wires of the 2 heads were cut, so i soldert them, but i didn't get any picture... so can you help me or can i forget it anyways?

please mail me back

Sean, mentioning 8-Tracks reminded me that I have a recording deck stashed away. It's a Realistic w/ a Dolby NR switch on it. I dug it out and connected it up again. Of the dozen or so carts I have for it, I tried a copy of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" since the label indicated that it had been mastered w/ Dolby. I think my system (Sony ES audiostack /w Polk speakers) may've expressed the limitations on the sound of the 8-track. The highs varied w/ Dolby on and off, but I'm guessing the age & possible wear on the tape itself maybe accounted for some degrasion in the sound quality. I've never found any blank carts, so I can't test out how well it records (would like to, tho, say from a CD; give it a run for the money!).

Boy we're all Floyd fans here, aren't we... You wouldn't consider parting with that deck, would you, Madness? I've got lots of goodies to trade!

Geez Sean, has PF even come out with anything in your lifetime? Even The Wall is 20 years ago now. (Oops, there I go showing my advanced years again.. LOL)

I can think of at least a couple Pink Floyd albums - Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Divsion Bell. I remember seeing a clip of one of the videos to that on the old Beavis and Butthead show - every dramatic striking and artsey visual image the director could think of in one 3.5 minute video....

Floyd's recent stuff doesn't do it for me. I think the band was injured creatively when Waters left. Anyway, back On-topic, I advise you all to avoid tasty offers on used tapes since maybe 1/3 of the used tapes I've got are clogging up the heads in my 900. And I tried the double-speed with normal audio. HA! Oh, that;s something else! HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!

Usually, frequent clog-ups with old tapes is a sign of head wear. Don't necessarily blame the tapes !

Funny, though, Andy looked at my machine and told me it's a low-head hours machine. It shows no other signs of head wear, and believe me, these are really ROTTEN tapes, they clog up most of my machines occasionally, since the machine they were played in was a sanyo that had a VERY filthy head drum. I mean this thing was RUSTY. it's fine with other old tapes and with new tapse.

I'm a U.S. video collector, and I'm looking for two somewhat-obscure PAL-format home video recorders:

the original Philips "VCR" format (circa 1977)

and

the later Philips/Grundig "V2000" format

If anybody has either used machine in reasonable physical condition (working or not, but preferably working), with some blank tapes, please contact me via Email and perhaps we can work out an offer.

Thanks very much!

--Marc Wielage [email protected] Chatsworth, CA USA

The only old beta tapes that I've heard shed like mad are those made by Ampex (standards, tho, not betacam). Seems ironic (to me) that the company that *invented* the VTR would put out such crappy tapes. Sean, maybe try some betacams? I've gotten of used ones in various brands and can't remember having any trouble w/ a single one!

Marc: The "VCR" VCR was marketed in the US but VERY briefly. I've only seen a tape for sale here ONCE and never a machine. If you can find one of those you'll be a HAPPY boy. Good luck. I'll give you the standard speech for anything hard to find: http://www.ebay.com/ Give that a try. They have a UK specific site too.

Madness: Yeah, kinda funny about the Ampex tapes, considering they did produce the first practical VTR. No, these tapes were ABUSED by the machine, lots of them are unusable due to stretching, scalloping, other errors. I have to open the flipper on each one before I even try to use it. it's the tapes only, the 900, like I said, shows no other signs of head wear, i.e. it plays perfectly, even if you deliberately mis-adjust the tracking, it has a good still frame, low noise, etc, whereas my 600 has very worn heads, and thusly has touchy tracking, bad betascan, etc.

Is it the 900 that's causing those tape problems? Maybe it needs a new pinch roller?

Hey, here's a rather unique item for beta fans, a set of Japanese art beta coasters:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=35&item=750265952

Hello all ...I'm really new to this land. I've been observing ebay for some weeks and all i can see is that pal vcr are mainely sold in germany, but I just don't understand german. And Altavista translator isn't very helpfull in that specific domain.Even if I'm living in france, I'm searching for a PAL betamax VCR. A pitty betacam are not reading Betamasx, I have plenty of Betacam player here at work (I'm a video technician in the french third TV chanel).

I have four 750 tapes that i want to transfert onto digital (through a professional tbc with noise reduction) in the goal of making a dvd. (for more details on the project you can see my site http://www.live-aid.info)

So : where is it possible ot buy with confidence a pal betamax vcr (no need to have a stereo deck as the audio will be processed separately) in europe ? And what are the expected prices ?

OK,; the question has been asked thousands of times, but it's christmas time isn't it ? Be kind and answer me again ;-)))

All the best for the new year.

à bientotJean-Manuel

There is a Dutch website that has a section devoted to PAL/SECAM Beta VCRs but if you have problems with the German I don't suppose Dutch is going to be any better as the Babelfish can't even handle Dutch...

http://www.marktplaats.nl/print.php3?g=video&u=betamaxrecorders

If you want to have a look anyway.

Finally it's a good thing we can't put rental tapes anymore in our betas. They're the "best" rotten tapes available !

You might also try the PALsite Directory page http://www.palsite.info/directory.html which lists sources for Beta-related items worldwide

That's why I;ve stopped renting tapes and stick to DVDs. I'd rather have my DVD player thunking its laser back and forth in confusion than have clogged Spamsung heads. Played back part of "The Shining" (the silly ABC version) on my SL-2000 to give it some exercise. It HATES anything recorded by the 300... Wonder why? My 300 made an absolutely perfect copy of "Divine Secrets of Ya-ya Sisterhood." The tracking got a little off near the end, but otherwise it was a PERFECT dub. I hate the way S-video makes component look all dark. I had watched part of it from S-video and when I look at the Beta dub it looks really dark compared to s-vid. I've never had any Ampex vidi-tape, Vehos or Beta. Someone here told me they came in red shells, is it true? I want one.. :) Hmmm Olive since Dolby is always on (congrats to auto manf. that make it default-on) here in my house; I tried playing back a tape on a deck that doesn't have it. I still hear hisssss, it's only slightly cut down. Is it me or are these idiotic new bookshelf systems, etc. esp designed to respond to the higher-end of the spectrum? I hear some bass, but it seems that they are optimised for the high freqs of the audio. It annoys the heck outta me how treble and mids are always really high and bass is just near the middle. The same with these projection TVs... Ugh!

Hey there! After catching up on the BetaInfoGuide, site, the "Betadied" section, I came up w/ this: http://members.verizon.net/~madness2/betapark.gif

;)

Well I have the equilizers on my stereo set with the bass and mids on max with the treble set to the center detent position so most of the hiss isn't gonna be there.

Man did we get wholloped this Christmas. Whiter than Micheal (I'll drop you like a bad habit kid!) Jackson out there. 24 inches of snow where we were. At least I think it was snow... could just be some GE asbestos or fallout from the nuclear power lab being released again...