Haha I've got 11 super drives. A lot of people don't know that the hi-fi track is deep layer helical. Sound quality is incredible. CD dynamic range nearly, but with tape saturation, you get a true analogue bass extension. I'm using one as we speak. Any one need any help, I'm here. Subscribed!
A saturation does not play. A carrier frequency goes to a limiter which eliminates all saturation effects. What remains is a missing of DAC artifacts that makes a sound pleasant. And of course 30kHz tails for backupping a vinyl.
I've downloaded two service manuals (1 PAL, 1 NTSC) to look at the tech specs for the different speeds. PAL-SP 23.39mm/s PAL-LP 11.70mm/s PAL-EP(SLP) 7.8mm/s NTSC-SP 33.3mm/s NTSC-LP Not Given (assumed to be 16.65mm/s - half of SP speed) NTSC-EP(SLP) 11.1mm/s As I thought NTSC-EP and PAL-LP are very similar speeds as both run around 11mm/s. Using those speeds a PAL E-180 cassette would run for 126 mins in NTSC-SP (so roughly a T-120).
I've got a SuperVHS deck with the PAL-EP mode. But I never really used that mode, tried it once and the picture was so fuzzy it wasn't worth the gain in recording time. Interesting that they've quoted 12 hours of recording time on the sticker, in theory if you use one of those E-300 cassettes it could record for 15 hours. Also the instruction manual didn't recommend playing EP recordings made on other machines. I guess the video tracks were so narrow they couldn't guarantee compatibility other than for it's own recordings. NTSC-EP(SLP) is roughly the same speed as PAL-LP so PAL-EP is an incredibly slow speed. The T-160 is roughly the same length as the E-240, so the T-160 is 8 hours in NTSC EP(SLP) and the E-240 is also 8 hours but in PAL-LP, therefore PAL-EP must be significantly slower than it's NTSC equivalent to be able to record for 12 hours. The longest NTSC tape I've seen was a BASF T-180 which I'm guessing must be similar in length to the E-300. That would make the longest recording time in NTSC 9 hours and PAL 15 hours using their respective EP modes. I'm sure when I used to play NTSC-EP tapes on my FS-200 or FV-77 they would only ever show as LP on the display, as I don't think they have the correct characters on the VFD to show EP, so it's probably trying to run the tape at NTSC-EP speed.
Yes, I'm puzzled as to why they didn't quote the potential 15-hour recording time on an E-300 cassette on that front-panel sticker. Presumably because "Panasonic do not recommend the use of E-300 tapes" or somesuch flannel. I agree, the FS200 is probably trying to play the tape as NTSC-EP, resulting in completely garbled output. Weird that it also thinks it's an S-VHS recording though.
Here in the US, I saw a Memorex T-200 tape back in the early 2000s at one of either Circuit City or Best Buy. J&R carried them, too IIRC. It was labelled 'the 10-hour tape' (EP) on the package. Given only 1 company seemed to make them for consumers, I doubt it wasall that popular. Usually only T-120/160/180 (6/8/9 hours in EP) could be found.
There's also the T-210 sold by SKC for surveillance recorders. Which is 10 hours and 30 minutes in EP/SLP mode. I tried one a few years back, and the film is super thin. I managed to make test recordings in SP and EP, the picture was very squiggly. I haven't tried it on a different VCR, since I fear it would get chewed. You can also find the Victor (JVC) T-210, which was only sold in Japan. I've owned a handful of T-180 (9 hour) tapes, and I thought those were thin. Lol
There were also localised versions of these recorders with the same EP function for different markets. As far as I know, there were also MESECAM EP (in this mode the amount of SECAM-fire is enormous, I've tried recording. In addition, sometimes vertical yellow-green moiré appears, it depends on the cassette itself. On 2-head tape recorders everything is very, very bad), and possibly SECAM EP, in the SECAM region tape recorders I'm trying to find, they were sold presumably only in France and Switzerland (e.g. NV-HV60F). Also there was a similar feature for 525-line regions, somewhere also since 2000 introduced VP speed (like 4 or 5 times slower than standard), it worked in NTSC and obviously should work also in PAL-M (for example in NV-HV60BR model). The quality of all these slow-speed recordings depends very much on the wear and tear of the VCR mechanism, and they don't play very well on other similar recorders...
That's interesting. I did wonder if SECAM EP existed. If you look in the user manual for the JVC HR-S9850, it says "it is not possible to select EP mode if COLOUR SYSTEM is set to MESECAM" which I assumed meant that MESECAM EP was not possible, but maybe Panasonic supported it.
@@timf-tinkering all JVC that i used can't record MESECAM / SECAM in EP. In the instructions for French models it is even separately stated that you can not record SECAM in LP/EP, so Panasonic probably has the most loyal attitude to SECAM. Sharp, by the way, also cannot record MESECAM/SECAM EP
That last deck non ep goes through massive computerised tracking procedure, including gears, clutch, weight of spools, time stamp, and electro mechanical tracking. When it can't work it out, it just plays the audio at triple speed. Quite funny. More power than the space shuttle in those. Audio quality is very good. Thanks for upload.
Thanks to this video, now I know that my Panasonic NV-FJ618 have this feature 👍 Great videos, love your channel. I'm glad I found your videos and subscribed 🙏
It's kinda amazing that the EP mode looks half decent! For recording terrestrial broadcasts it would really be good enough, especially if you didn't have the best reception. I don't know when this model came out, but there's a Web address in the manual so I assume at least mid 90s. By then many people had cable, digital satellite or DVD so this would look bad in comparison. Also, tapes were pretty cheap by then, if you were too broke to afford tapes you wouldn't go and buy a new VCR just to squeeze 50% more out of them.
Yep, that's exactly what I thought. I was surprised at how "not terrible" it looked. Only marginally worse than LP. Perfectly adequate for timeshifting two weeksworth of daily soaps while you're on holiday. I can't find any definitive info on when this model was released, but the serial number of my unit would suggest it was manufactured in 2002.
Hi, my mum has given me her old vhs player which is this one. It has no cables with it. So far I have ordered the power supply cable and a scart cable. Do I need anything else for it to work ?
Congratulations, it’s a good machine. If your TV has a SCART input, then you’ll only need the power cable and a SCART cable. Use the SCART connector labelled as “AV1(TV)” on the FJ630.
Thanks for the quick reply. My tv does not have a scart input unfortunately as its too modern. I was going to buy a scart to hdmi connector off amazon. Do you think this should work ? @@timf-tinkering
@@walliswheeler8735 A SCART to HDMI converter should work, but I have never used one myself, so not sure if there are any “gotchas” to watch for with these. As long as it can accept composite video (not RGB) on the SCART side it should work. The video recorder will only output Composite, not RGB.
![FendiDa Rappa - Clock Dat ft. Shamar Marco [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3NBU8KHdxYY/mqdefault.jpg)
Haha I've got 11 super drives. A lot of people don't know that the hi-fi track is deep layer helical. Sound quality is incredible. CD dynamic range nearly, but with tape saturation, you get a true analogue bass extension. I'm using one as we speak. Any one need any help, I'm here. Subscribed!
A saturation does not play. A carrier frequency goes to a limiter which eliminates all saturation effects. What remains is a missing of DAC artifacts that makes a sound pleasant. And of course 30kHz tails for backupping a vinyl.
I've downloaded two service manuals (1 PAL, 1 NTSC) to look at the tech specs for the different speeds.
PAL-SP 23.39mm/s
PAL-LP 11.70mm/s
PAL-EP(SLP) 7.8mm/s
NTSC-SP 33.3mm/s
NTSC-LP Not Given (assumed to be 16.65mm/s - half of SP speed)
NTSC-EP(SLP) 11.1mm/s
As I thought NTSC-EP and PAL-LP are very similar speeds as both run around 11mm/s.
Using those speeds a PAL E-180 cassette would run for 126 mins in NTSC-SP (so roughly a T-120).
I wonder why PAL used such a slower inferior speed for SP compared to NTSC.
My favourite VHS VCRs are the Panasonic FJ and HV series. They do everything and they're cheap as chips (or even free!) to pick up!
Back in the day some radio stations would use this for logging their output/ So you could record a whole day on 2 tapes.
Yes in EP mode
Super long play was introduced to record the Olympic games in the 80s
I've got a SuperVHS deck with the PAL-EP mode. But I never really used that mode, tried it once and the picture was so fuzzy it wasn't worth the gain in recording time. Interesting that they've quoted 12 hours of recording time on the sticker, in theory if you use one of those E-300 cassettes it could record for 15 hours. Also the instruction manual didn't recommend playing EP recordings made on other machines. I guess the video tracks were so narrow they couldn't guarantee compatibility other than for it's own recordings. NTSC-EP(SLP) is roughly the same speed as PAL-LP so PAL-EP is an incredibly slow speed.
The T-160 is roughly the same length as the E-240, so the T-160 is 8 hours in NTSC EP(SLP) and the E-240 is also 8 hours but in PAL-LP, therefore PAL-EP must be significantly slower than it's NTSC equivalent to be able to record for 12 hours. The longest NTSC tape I've seen was a BASF T-180 which I'm guessing must be similar in length to the E-300. That would make the longest recording time in NTSC 9 hours and PAL 15 hours using their respective EP modes.
I'm sure when I used to play NTSC-EP tapes on my FS-200 or FV-77 they would only ever show as LP on the display, as I don't think they have the correct characters on the VFD to show EP, so it's probably trying to run the tape at NTSC-EP speed.
Yes, I'm puzzled as to why they didn't quote the potential 15-hour recording time on an E-300 cassette on that front-panel sticker. Presumably because "Panasonic do not recommend the use of E-300 tapes" or somesuch flannel.
I agree, the FS200 is probably trying to play the tape as NTSC-EP, resulting in completely garbled output. Weird that it also thinks it's an S-VHS recording though.
Here in the US, I saw a Memorex T-200 tape back in the early 2000s at one of either Circuit City or Best Buy. J&R carried them, too IIRC. It was labelled 'the 10-hour tape' (EP) on the package. Given only 1 company seemed to make them for consumers, I doubt it wasall that popular. Usually only T-120/160/180 (6/8/9 hours in EP) could be found.
There's also the T-210 sold by SKC for surveillance recorders. Which is 10 hours and 30 minutes in EP/SLP mode. I tried one a few years back, and the film is super thin. I managed to make test recordings in SP and EP, the picture was very squiggly. I haven't tried it on a different VCR, since I fear it would get chewed. You can also find the Victor (JVC) T-210, which was only sold in Japan. I've owned a handful of T-180 (9 hour) tapes, and I thought those were thin. Lol
There were also localised versions of these recorders with the same EP function for different markets. As far as I know, there were also MESECAM EP (in this mode the amount of SECAM-fire is enormous, I've tried recording. In addition, sometimes vertical yellow-green moiré appears, it depends on the cassette itself. On 2-head tape recorders everything is very, very bad), and possibly SECAM EP, in the SECAM region tape recorders I'm trying to find, they were sold presumably only in France and Switzerland (e.g. NV-HV60F). Also there was a similar feature for 525-line regions, somewhere also since 2000 introduced VP speed (like 4 or 5 times slower than standard), it worked in NTSC and obviously should work also in PAL-M (for example in NV-HV60BR model). The quality of all these slow-speed recordings depends very much on the wear and tear of the VCR mechanism, and they don't play very well on other similar recorders...
That's interesting. I did wonder if SECAM EP existed. If you look in the user manual for the JVC HR-S9850, it says "it is not possible to select EP mode if COLOUR SYSTEM is set to MESECAM" which I assumed meant that MESECAM EP was not possible, but maybe Panasonic supported it.
@@timf-tinkering all JVC that i used can't record MESECAM / SECAM in EP. In the instructions for French models it is even separately stated that you can not record SECAM in LP/EP, so Panasonic probably has the most loyal attitude to SECAM. Sharp, by the way, also cannot record MESECAM/SECAM EP
That last deck non ep goes through massive computerised tracking procedure, including gears, clutch, weight of spools, time stamp, and electro mechanical tracking. When it can't work it out, it just plays the audio at triple speed. Quite funny. More power than the space shuttle in those. Audio quality is very good. Thanks for upload.
Thanks to this video, now I know that my Panasonic NV-FJ618 have this feature 👍
Great videos, love your channel. I'm glad I found your videos and subscribed 🙏
It's kinda amazing that the EP mode looks half decent! For recording terrestrial broadcasts it would really be good enough, especially if you didn't have the best reception. I don't know when this model came out, but there's a Web address in the manual so I assume at least mid 90s. By then many people had cable, digital satellite or DVD so this would look bad in comparison. Also, tapes were pretty cheap by then, if you were too broke to afford tapes you wouldn't go and buy a new VCR just to squeeze 50% more out of them.
Yep, that's exactly what I thought. I was surprised at how "not terrible" it looked. Only marginally worse than LP. Perfectly adequate for timeshifting two weeksworth of daily soaps while you're on holiday.
I can't find any definitive info on when this model was released, but the serial number of my unit would suggest it was manufactured in 2002.
got one for free.
Me too! It's a pretty nice machine considering that it dates from the early 2000s (very much the tail end of VHS in the UK.)
Hi, my mum has given me her old vhs player which is this one. It has no cables with it. So far I have ordered the power supply cable and a scart cable. Do I need anything else for it to work ?
Congratulations, it’s a good machine. If your TV has a SCART input, then you’ll only need the power cable and a SCART cable. Use the SCART connector labelled as “AV1(TV)” on the FJ630.
Thanks for the quick reply. My tv does not have a scart input unfortunately as its too modern. I was going to buy a scart to hdmi connector off amazon. Do you think this should work ? @@timf-tinkering
@@walliswheeler8735 A SCART to HDMI converter should work, but I have never used one myself, so not sure if there are any “gotchas” to watch for with these. As long as it can accept composite video (not RGB) on the SCART side it should work. The video recorder will only output Composite, not RGB.