Retro

zansi

Moderator & General Globetrotter
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OK, I will kick off the new section. :-welcome

I have been involved with radio & Tv/video/satellite since leaving school in 1960, seen many changes things I would not have believed :)

Not a good trade now due to price erosion, too much product chasing too few buyers and severe competition from supermarkets with the crap from the Far East, Turkey etc.etc. ({})

Glad to be now semi retired O-Ha
 

Channel Hopper

Suffering fools, so you don't have to.
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Well, prior to Betamax there was the Philips two tier tape system

I had two of these buggers (CMOS ICs and transistors galore inside) , in a shed for nearly twenty years

Just thought Id run them through eBay before taking them down the dump, and they sold (both were collected which was nice as they weigh 21kgs each)

Even cleaned up one enough to run some tapes through it, lots of episodes of The Sweeney and even the Royal Wedding on one of them. Picture quality was actually better than VHS for ten or so years.
 

rkhsaw

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I've still got a Philips N1700 and a Betamax which I keep saying I will use to transfer my old tapes to VHS. -Except now I suppose I should skip VHS & go to DVD.
Has anyone tried picking up the composite video signal just before the modulator to feed directly into a video line in ? (I guess I should use a 1mf cap to isolated first).
 

Channel Hopper

Suffering fools, so you don't have to.
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rkhsaw said:
Has anyone tried picking up the composite video signal just before the modulator to feed directly into a video line in ? (I guess I should use a 1mf cap to isolated first).

The 1700 was the dual speed version of the 1500 series, and came out a year or so later. Both share very similar circuitry.

Since I did not have a close enough look inside when cleaning out the spiders I cant be absolutely sure, but I thought the composite video was actually run using a hard wired phono lead straight into the modulator, and this could be diverted out of the rear panel with a simple extension lead.

Some more pictures of the machine running, along with tapes.
 

rkhsaw

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Thanks for the info.
I'll have a go shortly after I too have removed those pesky spiders !
 

Likvid

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Yeah i had a Sony C7 Betamax once in the early 80's, boy they were built like tanks and lasted 15 years or so without any repair.
 

spiney

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yep, NV 1500 was 1st "domestic" VCR, with excellent picture. V2000 was pretty good too.

(added) When the 1700 came out, I remember you could get a conversion kit to upgrade the 1500, but there was something it still didn't do (azimuth recording?), dammit, I can't remember!

Shame about Betamax, better picture than VHS! Though it sort-of survives, as "Betacam".
 
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