I used to fix these things back in the day. The pots labeled LP adj were for long play adjust and there would be an SP adjust. If memory serves they were for centering the tracking. These things were a beast to repair and a lot of them had notorious surface mount cap issues. The red button on the front that you did not know what it did is just another record/pause button. It did the same thing that the one that would be under your right thumb did. A previous poster explained the delay line.
I've also heard of them being used to delay the video one line so that when the tape is scratched and the video drops out, the last line is displayed instead of black. The last line is certainly a better approximation as to what should be displayed compared to black.
That things a beast! Also in 1985 Sony released the Sony CCD-M8E Handycam. Much more compact and useable, and in keeping with the small size of the Video 8 cassettes.
Shoulder-mount cameras still exist. :) I work with HD ones at the television station I work at part time. They're still nicely modular, the tape transport on one of ours broke, so we just ordered a new one and installed it ourselves. They also have replacable cards for various encoders. You don't see them much in consumer cameras, but in the professional world they're alive and well.
I've gotta say, just getting into electronics a couple of weeks ago and trying to make simple circuits really makes me appreciate the amazing complexity involved in designing something like this. The mind boggles, as someone we know might say.
this is so awesome mister!!! I just happen to buy one for 200$ complete set w/ suitcase, original battery, i found a replacement battery, got the charger, instruction, spare tapes, but only the RF unit missing, but fear not i'll modify it to RCA outputs! thanks to your video, i'll be able to have a pre inside look before taking it apart, mine has issues with the motor section moving the lens and autofocus lens. :D time for beer and click play
@EEVblog: The delay line was used to sync up the video with the reconstructed horizontal sync. The video and the H-sync were separated from each other and recorded to different parts on the tape.
I really enjoy these tear downs anyway, but this is especially fascinating to me. It takes me right back to watching my father run television, vhs and other A/V repairs when I was a young child. Everything discrete with practically no IC's. The smell of soldier and huge 3 inch diameter electrolytics capacitors... Wonderful stuff!!!
Re the glass delay line. The PAL system requires a device to delay one scan line of video for colour phase comparison (PAL - Phase Alternate Line) hence unlike NTSC there was no tint control needed on PAL TV’s. Alternately the signal path for Chroma and luminance signals was different meaning a small delay might be required in the luminance signal so it remained in sync with the Chroma information which has a longer processing path to avoid the Chroma being shifted to one side of the image .
Delay lines where also used as an simple error correcting system. One line of video is stored in the dclay line, and if there was a signal dropout from the tape, the signal from the last line was used instead.
I believe the delay line stores the chroma signal between the odd and even half frames, so that the color of alternate lines can be averaged to reduce the hanover bar artifact.
Delay line is a scan lines timing scheme, Mechanical scanning of video lines using a rotating video head have inaccuracies, So the scan lines are delayed and released at a steady pace to have them stacked vertically with perfect timing, Modern analog camcorders had a line TBC using digital memory, so the lines are converted to digital, stored in a memory and released using a digital clock then converted back to analog and output using composite or S-Video connectors.
My dad bought one and I have it now......Still works just fine. Yes it's heavy and bulky but fun to play with. Battery's are getting hard to find so I got a variable wall wort from radio shack to power it.
The red photo sensor in the tape transport mechanism does not only detect the presence of the cassette. It also tells the VTR when either end of the tape has been reached. For fast forward or rewind this is critical, otherwise the tape could be stretched or snapped at the end of the spool. To tell the sensor when the end is reached, all tapes have a length of clear leader tape that the light beam can shine through.
Delay line is probably for compensation chrominance path delay to meet with luminance signal which was faster due to less processing. This device wasn't work on separate RGB signals instead signals for colors were coded to PAL system and recorded on the tape. So delay line is a part of PAL coder...
I just recently tore down 2 of these CCD 8AF, both had defective IR filter blocks in front of the sensor, creating a blurred image. I’m practicing because I want to replace the filter block in an otherwise fully working and mint condition 7AF, and I’m no expert.
I remember my dad having a zenith betamax camcorder back in the early 80's. It had a separate recorder that you would hold on your side with a shoulder strap. The camera was huge and the recorder and battery was heavy
Hi Dave, I didn't realise they are so sort after until I looked, So for now I would like to keep hold of it. It still works with all it's VHS-C goodness... I've just seen a couple on E-bay ...
I used to fix these for the rich kids' parents when I was in high school. But that was after several years of repairing VCRs (started that in junior high).
There still used in modern portible large board electronics SOMETIMES when a flex cable is to sensitive or small and vibration is a factor where a socket would end up having problems in the long run. but the more modern ones atleast genrily are able to be pulled apart with a tool.
Mine is Hi-8 and the user's manual says 440 lines in standard mode and 320 in LP. Unfortunately there was a problem with the SP mode when the camera was paused during recordings... Never used it much...
That one is built a lot nicer than the ones I've taken apart. Those viewfinders are useful when you need a small screen. I have used them in several of my projects. Most of them just take 5v power and a composite video signal. I like those hinged connectors. Are those available anywhere or are they custom?
Cheers Dave. It'd be nice to see the CCD sensor in another vid. Man, I wanted one of these camcorders so badly when I was a teenager but at £1200 I could only dream.
EEVblog I think it did have a macro-function, it usually was in the knob on the zoomring (The Panasonic MS-1 at least had it this way and was able to focus so close you could see dust inside the lens :P). Not that it matters anymore, but usually you could pull it out or press it in when nearing the wide-end of the zoomring, which would allow you to focus much, much closer. Some of the cheaper Fujinon lenses for ENG camera's still have the macrofunction on the zoomring.
I think i have a clue how that auto focus might work.There should be an IR diode somewhere over or under the lens of it. As the IR light bounces of something you're trying to focus at, it comes back at an angle, beacuse the emitter is not exacly where the reciver is. And so, the device can find a strongest IR light with that photosensor by moving it up or down. I'm not sure if it works that way here, but i'm sure that's how modern IR distance meters work.
DELAY LINEs... i once found quiet a couple in our old JVC VCR from the 80s too!!! not SMD in my case. But when i opened them up to look whats inside, i was quiet surprised!!! looked like "glass" with contacts to me back then. Todays guess would be, its made from quartz cristall. but how do they work ?! still a mystery to me
Just thinking that the whole block for the tape has been replaced with a single SD-card slot without any moving parts nowadays, shows how everyone can now afford gear that 20 years ago not even TV stations could have.
I have a Panasonic Omnivision, bit chunkier, and recorded to VHS, it looks amazing even with today's techonology. I think it was made after this camera, or maybe it just worked better than the Video 8.
240 lines is line-pairs! So, a HD screen with 1920x1080 resolution, at best, could do 960 line pairs. All of that is limited by optics and bandwidth. Beautiful camcorder though! Thanks! :)
I have the first Sony HandyCam from 1985 and I think it still works, but the sensor is compromised. Can you help me in some way? The sensor is a CCD-M8E and it records in PAL system. I would appreciate some advices on what to do with it, thank you.
Hi! I'm looking for a cable to connect this cam to a video recorder (vhs), from the multi connect to the video recorder, do you know where I could find this? Regards
So Dave, ifound your videos yesterday and im really enjoying them. i am a teenager and i am really interested in electronics and would like to be a electronics engineer one day. i am pretty early in my learning but i understand alot of your videos. i have kind of run out of ideas on what to build. is there anything that is cheap and easy that you would recommend for me to try building that i would learn alot from?
Not the actual model featured in the movie. Promotional consideration for Doc Brown seeing his future self on video was provided by JVC. "This is truly amazing, a portable television studio. No wonder your president has to be an actor, he's gotta look good on television!"
I saw them recently in an old 80s hifi. The through-hole pcbs were connected together like a puzzle box. That was a pain in the arse dismantling too!
I used to fix these things back in the day.
The pots labeled LP adj were for long play adjust and there would be an SP adjust.
If memory serves they were for centering the tracking.
These things were a beast to repair and a lot of them had notorious surface mount cap issues.
The red button on the front that you did not know what it did is just another record/pause button. It did the same thing that the one that would be under your right thumb did.
A previous poster explained the delay line.
There's a date stamp on the inside of the casing around 11:25, but using Japanese emperor years (Showa 61 = 1986) - so it's from 1986.05.21
A portable television studio. Fascinating device, this video unit.
My dad bought a CCD-V9 in the 80's. I still used it until 2005! Beast! They had great optics for the time.
I really love these vintage teardowns! And i seriously hope there is a part two! :)
Good job
thanks for the 80's throwback! I love your tear-downs!
I've also heard of them being used to delay the video one line so that when the tape is scratched and the video drops out, the last line is displayed instead of black. The last line is certainly a better approximation as to what should be displayed compared to black.
That things a beast! Also in 1985 Sony released the Sony CCD-M8E Handycam. Much more compact and useable, and in keeping with the small size of the Video 8 cassettes.
im 16 and i always love to pull apart old tech always so much more fascinating
I wanted to film the intro with the camera, but couldn't get it working in time.
Shoulder-mount cameras still exist. :) I work with HD ones at the television station I work at part time. They're still nicely modular, the tape transport on one of ours broke, so we just ordered a new one and installed it ourselves. They also have replacable cards for various encoders.
You don't see them much in consumer cameras, but in the professional world they're alive and well.
I've gotta say, just getting into electronics a couple of weeks ago and trying to make simple circuits really makes me appreciate the amazing complexity involved in designing something like this. The mind boggles, as someone we know might say.
this is so awesome mister!!! I just happen to buy one for 200$ complete set w/ suitcase, original battery, i found a replacement battery, got the charger, instruction, spare tapes, but only the RF unit missing, but fear not i'll modify it to RCA outputs! thanks to your video, i'll be able to have a pre inside look before taking it apart, mine has issues with the motor section moving the lens and autofocus lens. :D time for beer and click play
The noise this beast used to make when ejecting tapes is part of my childhood, classic. To a kid this thing practically transformed when you eject.
Nice teardown this one.
I like the vintage stuff..
great that the tape player still works.
@EEVblog:
The delay line was used to sync up the video with the reconstructed horizontal sync. The video and the H-sync were separated from each other and recorded to different parts on the tape.
I really enjoy these tear downs anyway, but this is especially fascinating to me. It takes me right back to watching my father run television, vhs and other A/V repairs when I was a young child. Everything discrete with practically no IC's. The smell of soldier and huge 3 inch diameter electrolytics capacitors...
Wonderful stuff!!!
The intro is pure Dave goodness. Thanks man, almost laughed out loud in the office.
IIRC, the delay line was for phase compensation used for stabilizing the color (colour) signal coming off the tape.
No, I was trying to say this was done before reflow soldering was perfected. Yes, it was wave soldered.
Re the glass delay line. The PAL system requires a device to delay one scan line of video for colour phase comparison (PAL - Phase Alternate Line) hence unlike NTSC there was no tint control needed on PAL TV’s. Alternately the signal path for Chroma and luminance signals was different meaning a small delay might be required in the luminance signal so it remained in sync with the Chroma information which has a longer processing path to avoid the Chroma being shifted to one side of the image .
Brillant teardown, by the Way, as always
Delay lines where also used as an simple error correcting system. One line of video is stored in the dclay line, and if there was a signal dropout from the tape, the signal from the last line was used instead.
I believe the delay line stores the chroma signal between the odd and even half frames, so that the color of alternate lines can be averaged to reduce the hanover bar artifact.
Delay line is a scan lines timing scheme, Mechanical scanning of video lines using a rotating video head have inaccuracies, So the scan lines are delayed and released at a steady pace to have them stacked vertically with perfect timing, Modern analog camcorders had a line TBC using digital memory, so the lines are converted to digital, stored in a memory and released using a digital clock then converted back to analog and output using composite or S-Video connectors.
My dad bought one and I have it now......Still works just fine. Yes it's heavy and bulky but fun to play with. Battery's are getting hard to find so I got a variable wall wort from radio shack to power it.
The red photo sensor in the tape transport mechanism does not only detect the presence of the cassette. It also tells the VTR when either end of the tape has been reached. For fast forward or rewind this is critical, otherwise the tape could be stretched or snapped at the end of the spool. To tell the sensor when the end is reached, all tapes have a length of clear leader tape that the light beam can shine through.
Another interesting teardown.
Thanks!
Delay line is probably for compensation chrominance path delay to meet with luminance signal which was faster due to less processing. This device wasn't work on separate RGB signals instead signals for colors were coded to PAL system and recorded on the tape. So delay line is a part of PAL coder...
Excellent video as always mate. Great teardown. I think the delay line is for the Chrominance (Colour Processing).
Excellent tear down, my father had one of these!!
I love these old Sony shoulder cams. Repaired a CCD-V5000 a while ago. Replacing 82 caps, that took a while... ;)
I just recently tore down 2 of these CCD 8AF, both had defective IR filter blocks in front of the sensor, creating a blurred image. I’m practicing because I want to replace the filter block in an otherwise fully working and mint condition 7AF, and I’m no expert.
The detektor is a end-of-tape detector. There are holes on the side of the cassette and photo transistors on the sides of the holder.
I used to have that same camera. Auto focus and everything, wish I still had it.
I remember my dad having a zenith betamax camcorder back in the early 80's.
It had a separate recorder that you would hold on your side with a shoulder strap.
The camera was huge and the recorder and battery was heavy
Hi Dave, I didn't realise they are so sort after until I looked, So for now I would like to keep hold of it. It still works with all it's VHS-C goodness...
I've just seen a couple on E-bay ...
I used to fix these for the rich kids' parents when I was in high school. But that was after several years of repairing VCRs (started that in junior high).
Just a label maker. Headed down now for my regular check...
Yeah, something happened there. I didn't realise it at the time, but heard it on the edit.
looking forward to part 2!
Great camera my one still works well bought it in 1986
Introduction was hilarious. Another great video! :)
> Though, on further reflection it may possibly also be used to store the image for line doubling.
Dave that delay line is likely for the phase alternation in the PAL system. I don't think delay lines were used that much in NTSC.
There still used in modern portible large board electronics SOMETIMES when a flex cable is to sensitive or small and vibration is a factor where a socket would end up having problems in the long run. but the more modern ones atleast genrily are able to be pulled apart with a tool.
Mine is Hi-8 and the user's manual says 440 lines in standard mode and 320 in LP. Unfortunately there was a problem with the SP mode when the camera was paused during recordings... Never used it much...
That one is built a lot nicer than the ones I've taken apart.
Those viewfinders are useful when you need a small screen. I have used them in several of my projects. Most of them just take 5v power and a composite video signal.
I like those hinged connectors. Are those available anywhere or are they custom?
Cheers Dave. It'd be nice to see the CCD sensor in another vid.
Man, I wanted one of these camcorders so badly when I was a teenager but at £1200 I could only dream.
Yes, I know, but they are impossible to get.
EEVblog I think it did have a macro-function, it usually was in the knob on the zoomring (The Panasonic MS-1 at least had it this way and was able to focus so close you could see dust inside the lens :P). Not that it matters anymore, but usually you could pull it out or press it in when nearing the wide-end of the zoomring, which would allow you to focus much, much closer. Some of the cheaper Fujinon lenses for ENG camera's still have the macrofunction on the zoomring.
The delay line is part of the PAL color system. Look it up! :)
I think i have a clue how that auto focus might work.There should be an IR diode somewhere over or under the lens of it. As the IR light bounces of something you're trying to focus at, it comes back at an angle, beacuse the emitter is not exacly where the reciver is. And so, the device can find a strongest IR light with that photosensor by moving it up or down. I'm not sure if it works that way here, but i'm sure that's how modern IR distance meters work.
I love tear down Tuesday!
THAT THING IN THE INSIDE IS SO ADVANCED !! than today's modern electronic
Delay line so that when you press record, the tape transport mechanism has time to get up to speed I would assume.
Did you ever fix it back up? it would be cool to see it working
DELAY LINEs... i once found quiet a couple in our old JVC VCR from the 80s too!!! not SMD in my case. But when i opened them up to look whats inside, i was quiet surprised!!! looked like "glass" with contacts to me back then. Todays guess would be, its made from quartz cristall. but how do they work ?! still a mystery to me
I scrapped the very same camera last month.. I didn't even wanted to open that thing..
Now I can see what I "missed". ;)
thumbs up for the Back to the future quote :)
Finally on 8mm film Dave? Now you're cooking with fire!
Some camcorders have humidity/water sensors that can cause the camera to shut down. Might be why the camera didn't start up and eject the tape?
The old AF systems used IR rangefinding to do so. I guess it didn't work too well on that camera.
2021 feb - still super modern 1985 tech
Just thinking that the whole block for the tape has been replaced with a single SD-card slot without any moving parts nowadays, shows how everyone can now afford gear that 20 years ago not even TV stations could have.
How much you want for it?
assuming the viewfinder just has a standard video input signal, i would LOVE to actually use that on something else....
@ 7:00 - Finally a collaboration between Mike and Dave.
I have a Panasonic Omnivision, bit chunkier, and recorded to VHS, it looks amazing even with today's techonology. I think it was made after this camera, or maybe it just worked better than the Video 8.
Am i right? The huge Board is ONLY for the Transport mechanism? Ugh! Surprised that it has smd resistors thought they came up later
aaand the same year I was born! loved the teardown :)
Maybe the delay line has something to do with the NTSC colour encoding.
In 20 years we will watch the teardown of your full hd camcorder, and laughing our ass off about that resolution.
240 lines is line-pairs! So, a HD screen with 1920x1080 resolution, at best, could do 960 line pairs. All of that is limited by optics and bandwidth.
Beautiful camcorder though! Thanks! :)
Rare. Thank you.
You might consider switching over to Beta...
is it possible, that they wave-soldered this thing?
because they glued the smd-components and the solder just "swaps" over between the parts...
they were built well back then!
I have the first Sony HandyCam from 1985 and I think it still works, but the sensor is compromised. Can you help me in some way? The sensor is a CCD-M8E and it records in PAL system. I would appreciate some advices on what to do with it, thank you.
ahaha the straight faced intro, so good
Wow panio hinge conector :) Havent seen one of those in a while.........
Hi! I'm looking for a cable to connect this cam to a video recorder (vhs), from the multi connect to the video recorder, do you know where I could find this? Regards
So Dave, ifound your videos yesterday and im really enjoying them. i am a teenager and i am really interested in electronics and would like to be a electronics engineer one day. i am pretty early in my learning but i understand alot of your videos. i have kind of run out of ideas on what to build. is there anything that is cheap and easy that you would recommend for me to try building that i would learn alot from?
Those electronic controlled mini mechanical devices are an absolute nightmare to work on.
Love it! Thx!
Hey Dave,
next time you mention that it's australia, not austria, throw out a hello to your austian viewers!
would love that.
- an austrian viewer
hmm given how far it wraped that tape around the head....
it's proby an audio delay.
Did that bug thing fall out of the camera?
I have the same one and everything works great but no camera as well any suggestions?
I Have a JVC VRC1 - the red one, like in Back to the Furture !
Not the actual model featured in the movie. Promotional consideration for Doc Brown seeing his future self on video was provided by JVC.
"This is truly amazing, a portable television studio. No wonder your president has to be an actor, he's gotta look good on television!"
Would you like a Telstra 3G modem to tear down? Where do I send it to?
Respekt vor dieser hochqualifizierten Technik.
Hello Dave
Believe me or not, i just received the same camera off from ebay in the mail today, for collection purpose. I paid 2 euros for it.
Damn, that's the name, do you think I could remember that...
I have one like this - working great. Of course I don't use it any more.
aaawww I wanted to see the CCD image sensor please do a part 2 :(
Manual focus model are rare?
I got one from japan auction site for 500 yen the shipping is expensive though.