Vintage Sony Recording Equipment. Any info or advise?

[JohnInICT]

I've never owned any video recording equipment before now and am def. a newbie.

I picked this gear up at local sale because they guy swore it worked and it gave to me for $5. I have no clue how to use it, but would like to try. I love vintage electronics...up til now, mainly audio...but this is pretty cool. Still need to go through and clean it..any tips for cleaning?

Any advise on the equipment itself? Is it any good? Where can I locate tape for it?

[NJRoadfan]

Its an EIA-J black and white video recorder/player and uses standard 1/2" width video tape.

[Chip Chester]

If you can't locate an online source for the tape, look up the oldest audio recording studio in town. They might have some 1/2" reels, 7" in diameter, you can get ahold of. If they have audio tape on 'em, don't use it (!) but rather strip it off and use the reels. As a guess (and without measuring) tape removed from a VHS cassette might work. Just standard stuff, not SVHS.

If you need lots of new reels, we used to get ours from Polyline. Don't know if they're still around, or if they would have those reels.

These things were the darling of the video deposition crowd back in the heady days before the great VHS/Beta wars.

Chip