Who Has Beta?
 

I have a Sony SL-600HF and about 20 tapes.:D

I have an '83 Sanyo and a pile of tapes. don't know the model or how many tapes but I got 'em.....:)

Does Beta look as good as VHS or what?

I assume Beta was the first kind of "VCR" on the market,i wonder why it failed.. (AS VCRs were quite successfull (And still are liked quite a bit))

Beta looks much better than VHS.

I have three beta PAL vcrs. A Sanyo 9300, a Toshiba 8600 and a Sanyo M50 HiFI vcr along with some 200 cassettes. (In fact a friend arrived with a box of unused L750s the other day.)

PAL Beta vcrs are all single speed and an L750 at approx. BII speed gives 195 mins.

There were no PAL SuperBeta or BetaED vcrs.

Beta has some technical advantages over VHS but lost the marketing war.

I have found that I rarely get tracking errors with Beta tapes even old recordings or tapes from other vcrs.

Beta HiFi on NTSC machines is radically different to HiFi on PAL beta units which use a system akin to VHS HiFi depth multiplex recording. On NTSC Beta the HiFi sound is recorded in "spare" space on the video tracks ...this was not available in PAL and hence Sony adopted the VHS format for HiFi sound. Unlike VHS cassettes where HiFi will drop out if tracking drifts, I have never had this problem on my Beta HiFi unit.

Ah thats what i was curious about.....

Can you easily get a BETAMAX still?? (I'd like to take a gander @ it if i could)

have a check on eBay search for betamax... usually some units available ...not to mention thrift stores..

I wonder if the term "BETA" was because they were testing the technology before releasing the final "VHS" product...

Im curious now :)



EDIT:

Just found a picture!!

http://www.student.oulu.fi/~tomilepp/pics/betamax.jpg

What a nice looking unit!

Officially "Beta" came from the general shape of the tape path... which is somewhat like the ß symbol.... but I suspect it was more to do with marketing...

Somewhere around here I have an early color camera for Beta for decks with connectors. Clearly from Japan with Japanese characters on the body. Now I gotta find it and post a pix. Easier said than done.

"Beta" in Japanese means "The entire surface" and they chose that word because a betamax uses all of the surface of the videotape compared to VHS which does not.

At least that is the explanation I read years ago...

I have a couple beta machines-a monster Sears (Sanyo) top loader with knob tuning from the early 80s, still works well though can be a little lazy. Also a mid-80s Sony. I was given another, I can't even remember what brand. My brother-in-law's father bought it new. All the rubber had turned to gum; I can't remember if I saved it somewhere or just tossed it. Probably a few dozen tapes around here. I'm always on the lookout for off-the-air recordings from 20-30 years ago.

That must be why they look better!!

Why doesnt VHS use the full width?? (Pretty strange)

Cassette tapes also only use 1/2 the tape (Otherwise you couldnt record on both sides of course)

I have 4 Sony Beta HiFi's and one Sanyo. One of the Sonys is the home theater version with a 4 channel amp built in and connections for 4 external speakers. I have about 150 tapes to convert to DVD and my Sanyo was the last to work. I may have 5 Sonys. I forgot about the rack mount duplicator deck. The Sanyo was the last to run. I wish I could find someone to take all and swap me a hifi deck so i could finish my conversion work.

Were there any 50 HZ VTRs or VCRs that were made for 405 line British TV?
I'd like to find one of either flavour for a project I'm working on. Actually any 50Hz unit will do.

I'd like to try to run one on 48Hz power and record CBS sequential color on it. There were no video tape machines in 1951 when CBS color was the US Standard. Cliff

405 line VCRs
 

As I understand it many early UK vcrs could receive and record 405 line but I am not sure of the details.... perhaps one of the UK residents on the board can help you...

Hawkwind is correct on the origin of the term "Betamax"; Sony's engineers came up with the alternate-azimuth recording method that eliminated the need for guard bands between adjacent lines of video on the tape, reducing the length of tape needed per minute (and thus the cost, the all-important issue in an era when a one-hour blank tape even at Beta's introduction cost a few hours' pay for an average worker).

VHS, in fact, DOES use all of the tape area, as it has the same alternate-azimuth recording technique as Beta.

Ironically, when multi-speed VCRs were released, using the faster speeds would result in guard bands anyway. Multi-speed VCRs have heads the width needed for the slowest speed (LP or SLP/EP for VHS, BIII for Beta), which are narrower than for the faster (SP or BI, BII) speeds. Four-head VHS VCRs have two heads for SP and two for SLP/EP. LP, if the VCR has it, uses the EP/SLP heads.

Oh, to answer the original post, I have these Beta VCRs:

Sony LV-1901 (the first Beta; console with 19" TV and built-in SL-6200 VCR)
Sony ED9500 (ED Beta, probably the best non-digital home VCR ever made)
Toshiba Beta (I don't remember its model number)

I also have tapes going back to the original K-30 and K-60, which were the names used (for the recording time) before BII was added and the sizes changed to the tape length in meters (L250, L500, L750, L830).

I have 3 beta decks in my old VCR collection, all are unfortunately not working up to scratch:
Sanyo VTC-M10
Sanyo VTC-5005
Sony SL-C6 (recently serviced working great but when put in really bad tape it now tracks terribly :(, I just recently had it serviced by a beta serviceman named Betahaven too at a high price)

Good news, I've just won on Ebay a Sony SL-C40ES beta deck which is said to be in excellent condition so I assume it works :):
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/SONY-BETAMAX-...item4149e4d02d

I have hundreds of beta tape recordings dating from as early as 1979 to the early 90s, the majority of them still yet to be transferred so hopefully the Sony deck I just won is actually in good working order so I can continue the task.

You can never have enough Beta (you'll see why in a sec). I have:

Sony SL-2401 with remote and manual, and a sloppy mouth that spits out the cassette but not the tape
Sony SL-7200, missing a couple parts
Toshiba V-S443 with an idler issue
Sony SL-HF750 SuperBeta that loses its chroma after a couple hours on and playing...

And a Sanyo 4400.

Plus 150 or so tapes, some blank and some pre-recorded. Even a couple still sealed.

I fixed a Sony Beta chroma problem years ago (in a different model) by replacing the color crystal. I think it was a 3.579545 MHz crystal, like the one in color TVs but smaller.

Seems like I recall that Sony wouldn't license anyone to make Beta machines until way late in the game. Matsushita apparently would let ANYONE make VHS machines, almost from the get-go & VHS also won the "length" war-altho a movie on the 6-hour speed was almost unwatchable, IMHO, especially on a tape that had been "used" a time or 2. I remember reading somewhere that VCRs had some of the tightest manufacturing tolerances ever made up til that time on any consumer good, considering the literally zillions of 'em that were spit out, its amazing they worked as well as they did...

We have two working Sony Beta machines and probably 75 tapes. We bought one of the machines new when our kids were small, so almost all of our kid-vids are Beta. The second machine we got at a garage sale for $5 along with a boxful of movies on tape. I later bought some movies from rental stores when they were phasing out Beta.

I have to hand it to Sony for quality. The machine that we bought new was used daily for years, has never been serviced, and still works beautifully. We have gone through about 5 VHS machines since that format became popular, and even the newest/priciest one doesn't look as good as the old Sony.

Phil Nelson

Just got my SL-10 back from repairs! Works like new. Also have a functional SL2000 and a SL300 Super Beta.
I prefer Beta as tapes seem to last a lot longer and the picture is better than VHS.
Sonys seem to have a good attitude where the other Betas can be a bit persnickity

Im glad it works!! (I'd be weary of the techs of today trying to work on GOOD STUFF like that (They might make it worse,etc))

I've got a SL-HF950 from the late 1980s that I bought new. Other than my occasional cleanings, it has never been serviced other than issues with the shuttle wheel when I dropped it one time... Never did that again.:tears:

Does anyone here have any recommendations as to where one can get a Beta VCR repaired? I know there are some techs who advertise on-line where you can ship your unit to be serviced/overhauled. Anyone have any experience with anyone like this or places you would or would not recommend? I have several Sony Beta Hi-Fi units I would like to have repaired and gone through so I can use them for dubbing. Thanks!

Gilbert

---

All of my Beta machines are Sanyo the oldest one is a VTC9300. I also have a VTC6500, VTCM30 and heaps of tapes. Some stuff on these tapes has been taped of TV in the mid 1980's so one day I'll transfer the interesting bits across to DVD and from memory there's even a poorly copied 1970's blue movie on one of those tapes, will probably copy that across too for a laugh! :D

G.

I was given a broken Sony SL-HF600 along with over 100 tapes that were recorded from that VCR. I managed to fix the VCR (bad voltage regulator IC STK5441 in the power supply, along with a gear in the cassette loading mechanism that I broke), and aside from the regular (non hi-fi) audio being very muffled, it works perfectly.

The recording quality is very good -- especially in Beta II mode. Most of the tapes are simply movie copies in Beta III mode, so the quality isn't super-great, but considering that most of the tapes are 20+ years old (and were stored in an attic for quite some time), the quality isn't as bad/deteriorated as I would expect from VHS.

Here's the machine:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4061/...84bc356c83.jpg

I always loved the look that the Sony machines had. Nice job getting it going, and welcome to VK!

Thanks! The funny thing is, that Betamax is now the only working VCR between me and my parents. Our JVC HR-D870U VHS VCR from 1989 started eating tapes, and our Realistic 125 VHS camcorder (which we never really used), died with a foul odor. Lol

Those first-generation SuperBeta VCRs (SL-HF400, 600, 900) were really nice machines, all with built-in stereo TV tuners to go with the Hi-Fi sound. I recorded a lot of early stereo TV shows with my '900. I think I still have most of them.

SL-2500 and SL-HF750 here.

I have a Sony SLO-1800 Professional Beta Duplicator, as well as 3 or 4 consumer grade Beta machines. Also have lots of video test equipment, Tentel gauges and a fully equipped VCR repair/service bench.

Welcome ashore my friend :)

Can you fix that issue??

Congrats for getting her going!!

:)

I have that one too, that is one beautiful machine. I hope and pray that you never need to remove the front panel, because it is an absolute nightmare to snap back into place and get all the switches lined up properly on the slanted portion. The worst I've ever seen in 40 years of electronic servicing. Mine works perfectly, except the drive motor is mildly intermittent and only malfunctions after the machine is all put back together and at the bottom of a stack on top of the TV.

Quite a shame. I ended up having to put a voltmeter AND ammeter on the motor to make sure it wasn't the driver chip. Sure enough - current quit and voltage stayed. Took motor apart, cleaned the brushes and replaced the anti-spark caps, worked great as long as it was on the bench!

On the muffled audio, have you tried gently tweaking the A/C head azimuth or front-to-back tilt? Usually a tiny adjustment will clear it up.

I have a Sanyo 4035...but it's dead now. Paid 5$ for it, but now the clock comes on but nothing else works...
Any common sanyo problems that you guys know of that might be the trouble?

But more to the point : I have Beta...I guess :P

Have about fifteen betamax units. One Multi system T9ME
Current list

Sony SLHF950 aka 750 in mint condition
Sony C9
Sony C6, C7 x 2 and C5
Sanyo M20

and a few VTC5000's

and about 750 original pre certification tapes from australia

I would love getting a BETA unit and @ least 1 movie to view on it! (Commando maybe (Hopefully it wouldnt be digitally compromised))