Philips N1700 VCR-LP demonstration, recovered from an N1700 format tape. This is part of A video about videos about videos. • A video about videos a...
My first venture into Video recorder servicing was on the Philips N1500, Its was not long before the newer models came along and provided me with a good income for many years. I kept this tape from the showroom that i worked for at the time, Homevision of Pinner. It has been under my bench for 40 plus years waiting for a machine to come along for the chance to play it again, sadly this never happened. Thank you Colin for providing the chance to see it again.
AHHH, I remember this tape well. Often used as a demonstrator or continuously running on a set in the shop window of VISIONHIRE where I was Senior Engineer. Don't you just love the retro look - THREE CHANNELS and a THREE DAY - TWO HOUR timer. Wow, how did we live without them. 321's Ted Rogers had one of these and I repaired it several times, he was a good tipper. And NO, they weren't repeat repairs, mostly cleaning clogged heads. It was rare back then that they failed electrically, in my experience.
Imagine that back in those days, it needed this video just to explain the concept of timeshifting TV programmes. I suppose that nowadays in the world of streaming on demand, the next generation will be equally baffled by the concept!
"Why would you need to record it yourself? Couldn't you just stream it afterwards? Or get the podcast?" My 8-year old niece, when she and her dad visited me and couldn't figure out what sort of contraption I had sitting below my TV. "What's a VHS?" Told her what it was and how it was used, which clearly had her face looking like a huge question mark 😂
I loved Denis Norden too he had a great sense of humour i miss him. He and Frank Muir together were brilliant comedy writers, they were much better then the comedy writers today who can't writer a funny line to save there lives. I also miss seeing Denis Norden too on the programme 'It Will Be Alright On The Night" it was always his programme, seeing him with his clip board in hand. The programme is now presented by Griff Rhys Jones, I don't mind Griff in general but not presenting "It Will Be Alright On The Night" it's not the same without Dennis. This is a brilliant and very interesting documentary on the Philips N1700 Video Recorder I just wonder how many of these machine still work today, if they do and does anybody use one.
I dunno... There are places, where the blacks and whites are set way too high on the recording device used for capturing this. During the presenter sequences there are times when you can't make out a lot of things due to chrushings blacks. And during the sports segment, there's a spot where the scrolling white text almost vanishes due to whites being set to high. But other than that it's a very nice transfer and in surprisingly good quality, when you consider just how old both the tape as well as the VCR machine are. I'm guessing that particular tape didn't get a lot of playback. Couldn't see many of the telltale signs that usually indicate a tape has been placed back a lot. Used to have the VIVA SONYLAND Beta demo tape... and boy, it was both a regular dropout fest and had a somewhat grainy image.
@@rodrigobelinchon2982 The age of the VCR matters not in this case. What matters are 1) the settings Philips used to transfer the contents to the tape at the time and also 2) the transfer settings used on the computer to capture the content of that demo tape. I myself used to do video to digital transfers some 10 years ago. At the beginning I was wondering why my transfers looked so dark compared to when I hooked the VCR directly to the tv and watched the content directly... until I discovered the Gamma-settings on my capturing device was set for NTSC content rather than PAL. I used an HDD/DVD recorder back then to capture the contents, so I had it a bit easier in regards to recording settings. I would then transfer the captured video to a rewritable DVD, throw the contents on my laptop and then do a bit of post-processing to clean the image up to the best of my ability.
When I was a kid my mum always liked to watch medical documentaries, showing operations in full colour, when my dad and I wanted to watch The Incredible Hulk or Wonder Woman. Unfortunately our family didn't have a Philips N1700 VCR.
There was some horizontal wobble going on, but it was more that a TBC could handle. It seemed to improve later in the tape which implies that the problem was on the recording. But I'm not ruling out trying to run it again in the future, if it's a historically important recording.
Suggestion - when uploading captures to youtube you ideally want to upload the video upscaled to HD resolutions (e.g 1440x1080) to avoid the quality being crushed and to retain the full 50 fps for deinterlaced material.
720p50 is enough without wasting resolution. But it has to be 50p, not all HD content is. Unfortunately youtube doesn't support 576i50 natively, but it's possible to recreate it from 720p50 without losing any information.
@Matt Quinn I'm talking about what works best on youtube uploads here, not how a broadcaster or archive should store it. RUclips doesn't preserve the original 720x576/25i (maybe it does keep the original on the backend but I doubt it). If you upload at that (or anything else below 720p or possibly below 1080p now) it's scaled down to 640x480 at 25p or 29.97p at a very low bitrate as you can also see with this video. Hence why upscaling and deinterlacing before uploading to youtube is needed if you want to get somewhat decent quality. For storing in an archive the original resolution is of course the right choice but youtube doesn't keep that.
What about the good sound! But then even at half speed the VCR-LP tape ran at over 65 mm/sec. Compared to VHS LP tape speed of around 12 mm/sec, that's over 5 times faster. Philips own audio Compact Cassette's standard speed was only 47mm/sec. Philips also used Chrome tape on the VCR series. So you'd expect the linear audio track to sound good which here it does.
@@video99couk I think it would have been too early. N1700 was released in 1977. It seems Sony released Beta HiFi in 1983, then JVC first with VHS HiFi about a year later.
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I loved Denis Norden when he teamed up with Frank Muir, they were such a great comedic writing duo.
If you're one of those people... that like Denis Norden and Philips VCRs, this video is for you. 🙂
My first venture into Video recorder servicing was on the Philips N1500, Its was not long before the newer models came along and provided me with a good income for many years. I kept this tape from the showroom that i worked for at the time, Homevision of Pinner. It has been under my bench for 40 plus years waiting for a machine to come along for the chance to play it again, sadly this never happened. Thank you Colin for providing the chance to see it again.
AHHH, I remember this tape well. Often used as a demonstrator or continuously running on a set in the shop window of VISIONHIRE where I was Senior Engineer.
Don't you just love the retro look - THREE CHANNELS and a THREE DAY - TWO HOUR timer. Wow, how did we live without them.
321's Ted Rogers had one of these and I repaired it several times, he was a good tipper. And NO, they weren't repeat repairs, mostly cleaning clogged heads. It was rare back then that they failed electrically, in my experience.
I've found the N1700 to be a reasonably reliable machine, considering its age. I have three or four of them in working order.
Imagine that back in those days, it needed this video just to explain the concept of timeshifting TV programmes. I suppose that nowadays in the world of streaming on demand, the next generation will be equally baffled by the concept!
"Why would you need to record it yourself? Couldn't you just stream it afterwards? Or get the podcast?"
My 8-year old niece, when she and her dad visited me and couldn't figure out what sort of contraption I had sitting below my TV. "What's a VHS?" Told her what it was and how it was used, which clearly had her face looking like a huge question mark 😂
First time I'm seeing VCR(-LP) direct capture and I must say it's quite impressive considering how old the tape and machine are.
I’ve seen a few VCR recordings from the mid 70’s in Australia and the picture quality is quite impressive for something so old!
I had a digitisation back from a 1977 recording on one of these types of cassette and was stunned at how good the quality was. It was amazingly good.
I loved Denis Norden too he had a great sense of humour i miss him. He and Frank Muir together were brilliant comedy writers, they were much better then the comedy writers today who can't writer a funny line to save there lives. I also miss seeing Denis Norden too on the programme 'It Will Be Alright On The Night" it was always his programme, seeing him with his clip board in hand. The programme is now presented by Griff Rhys Jones, I don't mind Griff in general but not presenting "It Will Be Alright On The Night" it's not the same without Dennis. This is a brilliant and very interesting documentary on the Philips N1700 Video Recorder I just wonder how many of these machine still work today, if they do and does anybody use one.
I think Denis Norden 'It Will Be Alright On The Night" pops up on one of my other videos when I repair a Betamax machine.
I have the GRUNDIG version of this.....A Long, looooong story to restore..... awesome units
You may have seen in a previous video that I also have a Skantic branded one.
I miss Denis Norden's presenting
12:11 "If you're one of those people...."
The color looks fantastic , I guess it pays hiring a pro to transfer tapes to digital . Fantastic job Colin!
I dunno... There are places, where the blacks and whites are set way too high on the recording device used for capturing this.
During the presenter sequences there are times when you can't make out a lot of things due to chrushings blacks.
And during the sports segment, there's a spot where the scrolling white text almost vanishes due to whites being set to high.
But other than that it's a very nice transfer and in surprisingly good quality, when you consider just how old both the tape as well as the VCR machine are. I'm guessing that particular tape didn't get a lot of playback. Couldn't see many of the telltale signs that usually indicate a tape has been placed back a lot.
Used to have the VIVA SONYLAND Beta demo tape... and boy, it was both a regular dropout fest and had a somewhat grainy image.
@@pHD77 it's a 40 year old domestic vcr dude
@@rodrigobelinchon2982 The age of the VCR matters not in this case. What matters are 1) the settings Philips used to transfer the contents to the tape at the time and also 2) the transfer settings used on the computer to capture the content of that demo tape.
I myself used to do video to digital transfers some 10 years ago. At the beginning I was wondering why my transfers looked so dark compared to when I hooked the VCR directly to the tv and watched the content directly... until I discovered the Gamma-settings on my capturing device was set for NTSC content rather than PAL.
I used an HDD/DVD recorder back then to capture the contents, so I had it a bit easier in regards to recording settings. I would then transfer the captured video to a rewritable DVD, throw the contents on my laptop and then do a bit of post-processing to clean the image up to the best of my ability.
Now its good enough to watch as a short comedy movie.
When I was a kid my mum always liked to watch medical documentaries, showing operations in full colour, when my dad and I wanted to watch The Incredible Hulk or Wonder Woman. Unfortunately our family didn't have a Philips N1700 VCR.
I was just about to ask why you filmed it off the screen
I wonder whether none of all of the TBCs you have could completely stabilize the picture?
There was some horizontal wobble going on, but it was more that a TBC could handle. It seemed to improve later in the tape which implies that the problem was on the recording. But I'm not ruling out trying to run it again in the future, if it's a historically important recording.
Suggestion - when uploading captures to youtube you ideally want to upload the video upscaled to HD resolutions (e.g 1440x1080) to avoid the quality being crushed and to retain the full 50 fps for deinterlaced material.
720p50 is enough without wasting resolution. But it has to be 50p, not all HD content is. Unfortunately youtube doesn't support 576i50 natively, but it's possible to recreate it from 720p50 without losing any information.
I leave the material in its original form and let RUclips decide how it wants to display it.
If it was shot on film, 25fps will suffice, since 24fps is sped up to 25fps to better fit the 50hz tv-signal back in the day
@Matt Quinn I'm talking about what works best on youtube uploads here, not how a broadcaster or archive should store it. RUclips doesn't preserve the original 720x576/25i (maybe it does keep the original on the backend but I doubt it). If you upload at that (or anything else below 720p or possibly below 1080p now) it's scaled down to 640x480 at 25p or 29.97p at a very low bitrate as you can also see with this video. Hence why upscaling and deinterlacing before uploading to youtube is needed if you want to get somewhat decent quality. For storing in an archive the original resolution is of course the right choice but youtube doesn't keep that.
I'd take Cowboy Accountant over whatever's on TV today...
(yeah I know I know there's reruns of really good movies, but I already have them on tape)
The Recorder is transistorized ! Germanium or Silicon ?🤣
All silicon on these. Quite a lot of ICs too.
"Just like your kid's tape recorder"
What about the good sound! But then even at half speed the VCR-LP tape ran at over 65 mm/sec. Compared to VHS LP tape speed of around 12 mm/sec, that's over 5 times faster. Philips own audio Compact Cassette's standard speed was only 47mm/sec. Philips also used Chrome tape on the VCR series. So you'd expect the linear audio track to sound good which here it does.
Pity they didn't add stereo sound for N1700, the tape speed was high enough that they could have.
@@video99couk I think it would have been too early. N1700 was released in 1977. It seems Sony released Beta HiFi in 1983, then JVC first with VHS HiFi about a year later.
@@video99couk I might have misunderstood. Did you mean linear stereo?
Hey, that Lithuanian folk opera might not actually have been so bad, haha
4 minutes before he even mentions the product name. :D
Funny