I wish I never entered this field myself. I did it back in the 70's when I was in high school. Everyone thought I was a natural for electronics. What I should have done was get into telecom, but then who knew there was going to be this thing we call the internet back then right. That is the field I am in now, and I would say to anyone looking for a good career, it is the telecom industry. Home phone might not be a growth industry, but wire line is doing just fine in data services like DSL and fiber optics. After 20 years in repair I ended up doing what I should have done right out of school.
One of the most well made VHS recorders ever. Non working machines, usually it's pretty much just a case of change the rubber bits and the lamp, give it a clean and lube and its going again. The loading belt tends to be the first to go and also a bugger to change. Absolute tanks though. They're also good for running tapes through to repack them if they've been in storage with the unloaded ffw and rewind. Sold massively in the UK as the Ferguson 3V30, also seen as the Baird 8930 which was the rental version, both from the then huge Thorn company who had a distribution deal with JVC at the time for video equipment, you therefore see very few JVC branded VHS machines from this time in the UK. The PAL ones were 2 head, SP only as LP didn't really come in until the mid-late 80s. EP is very rare (and terrible quality) as the tape speed for LP is already about the same as NTSC EP. The connections on the back of the UK ones are BNC for the video and 5 pin DIN for audio in and out, this was before we adopted the european scart connectors, although most people would have used the rf output as UK TVs at that time generally didn't have baseband inputs.
I had a 4 head 1985ish GE Stereo Vcr. Awesome effects, great machine, headphone jack....I could control the speed of the slow motion. Not many units were doing that. It was the best VCR I ever had.
What a blast from my past. I must have repaired hundreds of these machines. I remember the cassette housing damper was a very silly air brake system. I always removed it and told customers to raise it with their hand on the top. I was regularly plagued with the diy twiddler, who always denied being inside, but they were built so well it was a breeze to realign them. Great video as always. Keep up the good work sir.
Takes Me Back Watching You Repair The HR7300 Used To Do Stacks Of These Machines Back in The Day As Well As The Fisher,Ferguson,Sany,Baird Variants Used To Have Belt Kits For These Machines That included All The Belts New F/R Idler Tyres Etc. The Loading Belt Always Gave Trouble The Chief Culprit For No Operation Was The 9v Cassette Lamp Going O.C. I Still Have a Working One From Back in The Day Lovely Machines Every Home Should Have One
When I was a kid we had the Ferguson 3V29 (equivalent to JVC HR-7200 so very similar to this unit), and a Santo VTC5000 (we hedged our bets on formats). Both were well used workhorses throughout the 1980s, and neither required repairs. Fantastically-reliable units the pair of them. I believe these two models were the best-selling VCRs in the UK in the early 80s, and both shared the fact that the tape doesn't spool until record/play is engaged which means the heads run forever. I still have the Sanyo and apart from belts, it *still* has never gone wrong, nearly 35 years later. They don't make them like that any more!
I really enjoy watching these videos. This VCR looks very similar to my Graetz Telerecorder 4914. I haven't tested it yet but I hope its condition isn't too bad (though after that water leak in my basement it probably is) because I don't have the proper equipment to repair it and I don't know anyone in my region who would be willing to take a look at something this old.
I had one nearly identical, badged as a Ferguson. The only differences were the PAL system of course, only two switches on the left, and the 5-pin DIN socket on the back rather than RCAs. Great old thing it was. It finally died last year and went to a collector. The loading belts were a problem on those, the motor'd spin merrily but the belt slipped. Changed many of those in my time. Lots of these were made under various names in the UK, as the TV Rental companies took them up with a vengeance. Sometimes the little bulb in the cassette compartment went, oh happy easy to work on days.
Hi River, If I remember correctly years ago you posted a video of an HR7200EK which was a machine I used to have. I think you even labeled the video as "one for jedw" :) I remember seeing the Ferguson version also many years ago at a friends house.
I have a similar model HR-7200U. When I first bought it, it worked amazingly well. I just had the fluttering in the audio do to the belt being worn. I replaced the belt and the machine worked without a hitch. I decided to go back to it last night. The problem I'm having now is I'm not getting any color. VHS tapes only playback in black and white and the picture quality is very grainy. I can't figure out what happened? I didn't touch anything just replaced a couple belts. But now I wonder if that relay might have something to do with it?
Do you happen to have any videos on how to take apart and reassemble the video head? I took my video head apart to get out all the tape rust in there. Now I think the timing is off, and I have a horrible picture, and it somehow crinkles the tape again. Tried tape path adjustment, and no beuno.
couldn't you put a small amount of talc on the belt, like an be done on belt drive turntables to prevent slippage? since the belt is below the tape transport area, it shouldn't contaminate anything right?
Hello I have a JVC HR7100 U and I’ve run into some issues, it forwards and rewinds but when I hit play it takes the tape and then makes a loud humming and then puts the tape back. I have no idea how to fix this or to figure out the problem
Smashing video, i havnt seen one of those in years. Now thats a nice old machine, ive repaired those in the past, the short tape loading belt would become floppy and would slip, a typical problem. Ahh i did tell you of some of my bodges in the betamax video, using rubber belts to help grip was also one of my tricks too, but i only used it for non sensitive ff/rew/takeup problems. I did see the tape loop out at 7:39, the takeup must have stopped for a second, later on you saw it too, again another typical problem. I never had a special tape tension tool so i would adjust it so the head crossover at the bottom of the screen looked vertical and clean, tracking/headpole adjustments too. My old scope did the fm output, you knew when it was right, it just operated so well afterwards :-D. Happy memorys of repairing them :-D.
Gonna testmy luck with this question, i have recently bought this exact same jvc player as it was the same one i grew up with , anyways my question. Everything turns on great, i cleaned the head and basic dust out, tape inserts well, when i press play the tape is pulled over the spinning head but 2 seconds later the tape stops mobing and it automatically stops and retracts, what do you suppose the issue or issues could be?
Ah! so much like the HR 7100 U (with the weird color buttons) my Father bought when I was 3 or 4. 20 + years of extremely hard use and it's the ONLY machine that I've seen that never failed even in spite of the abuse I gave it which is almost unreal! Last I checked it plays tapes just fine. I mean the air brake on the pop top is the only thing that doesn't work. It even ran for 20 years without ever being cleaned and it never had to be cleaned in order to work!! When I was growing up everyone else had their early front loader VHS machines in and out of the shop. I think on more then one occasion I remember going to a friends house and we had to watch the old beta tapes or even RENT a movie on Beta because the Akai or fisher or whatever was in the shop.
Ah yes the wonderful old Akai (Mitsubishi) and Fisher (Sanyo) garbage.Yes they did have their issues for sure. Total garbage. I used to love those old Mitsubishi units before they fixed their mechanical problems.They used an Allan screw to lock the guide posts. The allan screw would screw down, and push on a metal pin, that would push up against the buide pin to stop it from turning.... NOT!I would take the pins out, put Loctite on the threads and align them. Would never come back after that glue dried.
My uncle gave me the same machine when I was 13 years old and 1990 he got himself Toshiba if I remember correctly he had gotten this machine new in the 80s he gave me everything you had with it even at remote remotes was not working anymore by that point and as I was using it to but instead of popping out and it wouldn't stay so I said the heck we didn't use the plastic buttons just use the controls underneath everything else worked you don't even needed replacing was the belts which was a heck of a lot cheaper to do at a repair shop cuz I was young I didn't know how to do that been buying a new VCR the only reason why he gave it to me also was because I asked my mother for a VCR Christmas that year and at the time they was still too expensive I had for a bunch of years to the heads want and it wasn't worth replacing at that point my neighbor saw me taking it to the trash can now I wish I kept it and he had a VCR that he didn't use anymore that was for dubbing purposes I had that for a bunch of years to my last VCR was a Panasonic 4 head HiFi VCR the remote had a jog dial on the bottom good old days
The VCR tape transports that feature the "dropping" pinch roller system (pinch roller below the capstan) have another major advantage. Thanks to the "fork" housing of the capstan (which most of these systems implement), with one bearing sleeve below the pinch roller and one above, the pressure on the bearings is much lower and balanced compared to the "classic" system, where the bearings are below the pinch roller and closer to one another. Also, because the pinch roller pressure area falls between the bearings, it does not cause the capstan to tilt in the direction the pinch roller is pushing, keeping its axis perpendicular to the chassis plane even as the bearings wear down, if the wear is even. On the "classic" system, this tilting effect is obvious and it gets worse as the bearings wear. Regarding FF/REW, many of the cheap later VCRs that feature the "classic" transport rewind the tape fully loaded, while some of the older, better ones which feature the "dropping" pinch roller system (such as the JVC HR-S4700) rewind and fast forward in half-loaded mode.
That right and that is why I changed literally hundreds of failed capstan bearings on the "dropping pinch roller" mechanisms, and hundreds of broken pinch arm assy when t he grease on the mounting post dried out and the mechanism broke the pinch arm, and usually a few plastic gears as well.The classic design, may have slightly more bearing wear because it is supported from only one side, but then cassette decks, and open reel audio decks were the same design, and that was never an issue. In fact I can't ever remember replacing a capstan bearing on one of these designs, but I remember changing hundreds upon hundreds of Sony, JVC and Mitsubishi capstan bearings of the other design.Not all the dropping pinch roller had a double bearing either. Many had just a conventional capstan shaft like this, just located further back with a dropping pinch roller to allow the tape to remain threaded.
Great video! I have a JVC hr7100 and it starts to load when play is pushed but then drops out and doesn't start. The fast forward and rewind work fine. Any Ideas?
When you adjust the guides you have to undue the locking allen screws at the bottom first to properly release them then tighten them after you've finished adjusting them.
@@glpilpi6209 The really old ones did. Mitsubishi was famous for the walking guide syndrome because they used a set screw that pushed a metal pin that pressed onto the guide base. The newer ones they started sticking an o ring below the base of the guide to hold the guide on place. I do check the rf envelope. I have done videos to show how to do it with and without a scope. Not everyone has a scope at their disposal. All the vcrs you see me working on are my own units. I don't fix vcrs and haven't for about 20 years.
On my 1985 Panasonic RQ-2107 Tape Recorder when the belt for capstan shaft is worn out, would I also add the rubber band by wrap around the flywheel, will it make the speed stay on balance?
I should take my camera out to my old work shop where my 3/4" decks live and show you how I reworked the NV9800 to keep the capstan belt on. I put a new belt on it, but I couldn't get the exact size, and when the motor starts it flings the belt off.
This was my families first VCR, which we must have gotten around 1981 or 1982. From the comments below it sounds like these retailed for $800. My father was always into getting deals, and I recall he got it from somewhere mail-order... possibly around $600. Of course, that was a lot more in 1982 than it is today. My CPI calculator says $600 1982 dollars is like paying around $1500 2020 dollars. The thing worked for years and years, and I think it was eventually replaced with a newer model in the 1990s with something that supported VCR+, since my mother could never figure out how to program the one from 1982. As I remember the same thing happened with the time display. To me it's interesting to put the price into a more modern perspective. Who spends $1500 on a piece of whiz-bang new technology today? Sure, people buy expensive laptops, but a $1500 laptop isn't really that much functionally different than a $200 one. Both my parents worked for the public school system, so it's not like they had a large disposable income. My dad worked as part of a technical school administration, and my mother a part time ESL teacher. But yet they decided to buy a (relatively) expensive piece of technology in 1982, when VCRs were just first starting to become popular. The other thing I find interesting is simply the revolution that VCRs brought to the world. This was the first time most people could rent a movie at home and watch it. Before that, you had to either watch whatever was on TV right then, or go to a theater. Everything that's come out since then has largely been an evolution (as opposed to revolution) of the market the VCR created. I'd argue even streaming TV is an evolution. That may explain why my parents shelled out so much money for one, circa 1982.
I don't know about you, but I have shelled out thousands for tech stuff. I just dropped 1500 on a new camera last month, just to have as a spare for when the one I currently use breaks, and I have another bigger one available too. I still have a camera I paid 10,000.00 for! OK that's isn't really the truth, I did may 10 grand for it, but that included the 3,000 tripod and head! # grand for a tripod you say, yup and I can show it to you if you really want to see what a 3,000 tripod looks like and that is considered a pretty cheap one as far as professional tripods and fluid heads go.
@@12voltvids I don't doubt that some people spend a lot of money on electronics. They have for quite a long time. But my point is more that I can't really think of any modern piece of technology where you have to spend $1500 to even get into whatever that technology delivers. The VCR was a game changing technology, so I think back then people would shell out quite a bit of money on something they normally wouldn't. I just don't think that exists today, electronics are expected to be "cheap", like under $400.
@@stevesether You have obviously never bought a new cell phone. I don't mean on a contract, where the phone company picks up the tab, and you pay it off over a few years on a 100+ a month plan. I mean buying one outright and paying 20.00 a month for your plan like I do. 1000-2000 is NOT uncommon to pay for a phone. The most I have ever paid on a cellphone plan is 30 bucks a month. I live in Canada and everyone bitches about the high cost of their monthly plan, and they forget that 40-50 a month of that plan they are playing is going to pay for the phone they got at a discount. I have never had a cell phone on a contract and I get a great plan rate because of that.
@@stevesether Oh I get your point. When I was in the retail business people would come in and complain about the prices, and the salesguy would say "It is too much or too much for you!" I live and work in an affluent area, and everyone has the newest, and expensive devices. I see more OLED TVs than you can imagine. These are not cheap sets. Some people go for the cheap Walmart stuff, but at least in my area more are going for the high end Sony, Samsung and LG gear, and Sonos. That stuff isn't cheap. When I buy I buy premium gear too. My new camcorder was 1500.00. When VCRs first were available here in Canada, the cheapest ones you could find were 2,000.00 and that was in 1979. That is what my first VCR cost me. I was 16 and saved up all summer to buy one. FYI blank tapes were 49.99 for a T120 tape. Even in the mid 80s the cheapest mono machines were around 400 and hifi started 699 and SVHS started about 1000 and went up from there.
I have a Ferguson 3v39 looks very similar inside same sort of vintage but one problem with it if I insert a tape it will go down then start to load then eject the tape any ideas? You help would be appreciated, the deck was my dad's still mint condition and really don't want to chuck it. Did these older vcrs have mode switches just wondering if that might be playing up
Yes they all have a mode switch. Some used multiple leaf switches and others used switches on both the mechanism and on the front loader assembly. Some vintage JVC built units used 2 optical sensors mounted on the main cam gear that detected holes in the cam gear as they rotated. Yes the optical sensors did give trouble.
I have the JVC version of that machine. Actually two of them. They definitely use leaf switches on both the front loading carriage and the main chassis. Just like the Sony Betamax front loaders, these switches need cleaning. Also clean the dried up grease from the worm gear of the cassette carriage. On my JVC, it was very dry and sticky and the tape would not go in.
Belts are used because they dampen out the pulsations caused by DC motors. The elasticity of the belt and inertia of the flywheel dampens out jitter. Newer machines used 3 phase BSL direct drive motors.
Interesting about the separate heads for EP / LP, I thought the difference was spread only....maybe in a future "Tech Talk" you could get into that topic more. The wow and flutter made the music kinda sound like Steve Miller's "Fly Like An Eagle".
All 4 head machines use 4 separate heads, it is just on earlier machines they were located on physically different positions of the drum. Then came Hifi that needed the hifi heads a specific distance from the video heads. They then moved to a dual azimuth design with the 2 heads glued to the same mount. The A SP head would be have the B EP head, and the B field SP head would have the A field EP head. For machines that had LP, which was never a reconized speed by JVC, they used the EP head for that speed, which did not improve the picture quality of LP. It probably made it worse as there you have a skinny track with a bunch of blank tape producing niose on each side of the track. That was the idea behind 4 head machines. So you could have a nice wide gap for the faster speed, and a narrow gap for the slower speed to optimize performance.Music was Jean Michele Jarre. He performed Oxygen and many of his other stuff for a concert put on for the Royal Wedding on Monaco.There is a stufio release of him performing that album live, and it took 4 musicians each with all the same instruments he used to make the original album that he recorded in his basement something like 40 years ago. Instruments that many have never heard of like a Mellowtron, Therimin ect.
If the drum was drifting the picture would. For the capstan it can flutter quite a bit before it causes a tracking issue, because the control track is being read and the drum servo is adjusting accordingly.
Neither of my Umatic units have search. One is a mechanical key player, and the other is a solenoid control, but it unthreads to go into FF and REW. With the dedicated edit controller it could search with audio. My SL1000 beta units searched with audio from the linear track only.
I don't get it, what went wrong with newer video recorders compared to these old units? I understand there's bad caps, but what else caused newer 80's, 90's vcr's to break down so easily?
In the early days there were few manufactures that built expensive VCRs. These core companies, Sony, Hitachi, Panasonic and JVC built heavy high quality VCRs out of strong beefy metal parts and quality semiconductors, many of which were made in house. You paid for this quality, and early VCRs were in the 2,000 and up price range. This at a time when the minimum wage, at least in Canada was 3.00 an hour, a new car went for 10 grand, and a new house 100,000. So 2000 for a tape recorder to record TV shows and watch movies was out of reach for a good percentage of the population. In order to sell VCRs to everyone, the companies started contracting out assembly of their machines away from Japan, where wages were high to countries where labour costs were much cheaper, and that 2000.00 VCR quickly dropped to 500.00 and kept falling. This was from using plastic parts instead of metal, and moving to robotic assembly where parts are just stamped out, and clipped together. The PC Boards were contracted out to other companies for parts placement. The result is what you asked for. A low quality cheap machine that will last long enough for the warranty, and anything else is a bonus.
Dead Christmas 3/4 were never a consumer format so there was no pressure to cut costs. They were industrial and broadcast and those users paid the price no matter what it was. It's like the early HD cameras. I have one sitting it it's case I I paid over 6 grand for. For that matter I have an SD professional camera sitting on an old wheelie tripod that I paid even more for back in 2000. About 10 grand and today it is a room decoration.
This one appears to be from 1981. That's what my HR-7300 service manual says. Could be from 1980 too but not sure. Btw, I have a HR-7700 which is the first front loading VHS machine! It uses a CHAIN in the carriage to load the god damn tape in! Amazing machines...built to last...
First advert I see was from Sept. 1981, states it's a "new" item and sold for $999US. also in this ad is the JVC HR-6700U, which sold for $799.95US. In July 1981, I see an advert for the new HR-7700 for $1499AUD. It would be cool to see the chain drive!
A tube radio manufactured 100 years ago will last at least 200 years. A VCR manufactured 50 years ago will only last 100 years. There are too many plastic parts in it. Pity...
A VCR manufactured 40 years ago won't last another 40 years because the plastic will deteriorate. I bet if I were to start using this machine it wouldn't be long before the loading gear would split that happened on my old 1979 Panasonic machine. very well still be working in 100 years if it doesn't get used. it's had the paper capacitors replaced with mylar so they're not going to fail, it's had the rubber insulated wires replaced with plastic insulated wires because the rubber installation fell off and everything was ready to Short. but if that 100-year-old radio is played on a regular basis the four totally obsolete tubes that it contains will wear out and then it will no longer play. I have quite a few vintage tube radios that I do not run for that reason. That's the same reason I don't run my Macintosh receiver because the four output tubes have not been available since about 1980. Sure it can be modified to use an el34 or a 6l6 but changing the circuitry to use modern tubes one will change the sound and two will make it not authentic and therefore it's lost its value. Since my unit has all original tubes I won't run it because I don't want to wear the tubes down. Plus it was my dad's and for sentimental reasons I want to try to keep it in working state unfortunately the cabinet looks like crap because when my dad bought this receiver new in the late sixties let's just say my mother was not too happy with him spending that kind of money on a stereo and she told him to take it back, whoever the store wouldn't take it so he put it in the crawl space and it sat there until I found it in the 90s. By that time rats mice had gotten into the box chewed the power cord chewed the wooden cabinet and made a real mess of the unit they didn't get inside electronics but they did make a real mess of the wooden cabinet which would all need to be redone and restored.
I enjoy your videos about the old video machines. I have a number of old Sony Betamax machines and a Sony VTR that desperately need service. Do you know anyone in the NH, VT, MA area that does this? Unfortunately, you are too far away...
I don't know of anyone even local that still works on video gear. I get stuff from all over the country shipped in. Everyone i knew has long retired from service. I did too , 20 years ago and then about 10 started working on a few pieces a week to keep the mind sharp. I do it now just to teach practical repairs to viewers for those interested in this old stuff. Nothing makes my day more than someone sending me a message telling me their fault was the same as one i demoed and they got their unit working. Of course when that thanks comes with a "tip" of appretion it really makes my day.
@@12voltvids Many thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I haven't the ability to do the repairs myself. I wish I could for all the old AV equipment I have had over the years.
8 лет назад
That's interesting, i've done intense research about the history of videotape recorders, vhs and betamax, and i have never read that Sony invented the original M loading system. You were a repair man for Sony, isn't that right? So it might just some information that never surfaced in the web, not that i have seen.
Sony, when they finally did make the change to VHS even advertised that they were the co-developer of the format. There is lots of info out there. I just found this: "In September 1976, JVC announced the VHS-format VCR to compete head to head against Betamax. With this announcement, the VCR format battle began. The JVC product boasted two hours of recording time twice that of Betamax. The year before the Betamax release, Sony had approached Matsushita and JVC, its two partners for the U Format, about unifying product specifications. At that time, Sony had disclosed information regarding the Betamax specifications and technology to the two companies. In response, Matsushita and JVC delayed any decisions about unifying standards for a year. After Sony announced the advent of the video age and followed this with an aggressive sales drive, JVC began its own highly effective advertising campaign. Sony took a closer look at the VHS format and everyone was aghast. The technology and know-how that Sony had willingly disclosed when it proposed the unification of the U and Beta formats was incorporated in the VHS format. Although Sony had freely given the two companies access to its basic, patented technology, it was impossible for Sony to hide its shock and surprise."Basically what JVC did was take the design, and change it just enough so that it was not infringing on patents. They couldn't use the U loading system, so they basically turned it sideways and used 2 threading arms to achieve the same thing.Incidentally, the original 8mm cameras used the U loading, and then later cameras changed to the M system as it was more compact. Sony would NEVER have been permitted to use the M loading design on their 8mm cameras if JVC had a patent to it, but they didn't because it was the first design before Sony settled on the U loading system for Betamax. The reason they went with the U system was it had fewer moving parts. Basically 1 loading ring as opposed to 2 that turned in opposite directions, which the M system initially had.
Rubber bands will eventually crack, or turn into a nasty gooey like substance, as the years go by. Hopefully that is a temporary fix. Nice videos nonetheless!!!
This is not a machine going back into service. I just wanted to get it running for the video. I did explain that this was a temporary solution to get a machine back up and running for a short term fix. This is done quite often in the broadcast world say when a turn table broke a belt, or a cart machine belt started slipping and the engineer didn't have a replacement on hand. That is where I learned this trick when I was in broadcast, and we were out of a remote shoot and a belt started slipping, or broke. The field engineer would whip out his box of rubbers (pun intended) and make a quick fix to get the production in the can, and then once we got the production truck back to the studio would pull the machine into the shop and do it right.Since I am not planning on using this machine any time soon I am not about to spend 20.00 or more on a belt that will just sit there. If it was a machine that I was planning to use regularly then yes I would, but this was more to look at the old unit, and see if it would work after sitting unused for many years. This unit probably hasn't seen power since the mid 80's as I upgraded to hi-fi decks when they first came out. I only hang on to this old unit because I like to collect old pieces of technology, for nostalgia. Who knows some day it might be worth something. I once rented out one of my old Betamax units to a film company that needed one to use as a prop for a film that the period was early 80's. It was actually the SL8600 that I recently fixed, screws missing and all. They just wanted it to sit on a shelf plugged in with the clock light up.
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Watching your videos really makes me regret not going to electronics tech school. Wish I had a fraction of your knowledge.
I wish I never entered this field myself. I did it back in the 70's when I was in high school. Everyone thought I was a natural for electronics. What I should have done was get into telecom, but then who knew there was going to be this thing we call the internet back then right. That is the field I am in now, and I would say to anyone looking for a good career, it is the telecom industry. Home phone might not be a growth industry, but wire line is doing just fine in data services like DSL and fiber optics. After 20 years in repair I ended up doing what I should have done right out of school.
One of the most well made VHS recorders ever. Non working machines, usually it's pretty much just a case of change the rubber bits and the lamp, give it a clean and lube and its going again. The loading belt tends to be the first to go and also a bugger to change. Absolute tanks though. They're also good for running tapes through to repack them if they've been in storage with the unloaded ffw and rewind. Sold massively in the UK as the Ferguson 3V30, also seen as the Baird 8930 which was the rental version, both from the then huge Thorn company who had a distribution deal with JVC at the time for video equipment, you therefore see very few JVC branded VHS machines from this time in the UK. The PAL ones were 2 head, SP only as LP didn't really come in until the mid-late 80s. EP is very rare (and terrible quality) as the tape speed for LP is already about the same as NTSC EP. The connections on the back of the UK ones are BNC for the video and 5 pin DIN for audio in and out, this was before we adopted the european scart connectors, although most people would have used the rf output as UK TVs at that time generally didn't have baseband inputs.
I had a 4 head 1985ish GE Stereo Vcr. Awesome effects, great machine, headphone jack....I could control the speed of the slow motion. Not many units were doing that. It was the best VCR I ever had.
Brings back memories. We did service on these and most other brands. Now you know how old I am!!!!
Rca vct201. Got you beat lol.
What a blast from my past. I must have repaired hundreds of these machines. I remember the cassette housing damper was a very silly air brake system. I always removed it and told customers to raise it with their hand on the top. I was regularly plagued with the diy twiddler, who always denied being inside, but they were built so well it was a breeze to realign them.
Great video as always.
Keep up the good work sir.
Takes Me Back Watching You Repair The HR7300 Used To Do Stacks Of These Machines Back in The Day As Well As The Fisher,Ferguson,Sany,Baird Variants Used To Have Belt Kits For These Machines That included All The Belts New F/R Idler Tyres Etc. The Loading Belt Always Gave Trouble The Chief Culprit For No Operation Was The 9v Cassette Lamp Going O.C. I Still Have a Working One From Back in The Day Lovely Machines Every Home Should Have One
I’m almost certain I owned one almost exactly like this. It looks so familiar.
When I was a kid we had the Ferguson 3V29 (equivalent to JVC HR-7200 so very similar to this unit), and a Santo VTC5000 (we hedged our bets on formats). Both were well used workhorses throughout the 1980s, and neither required repairs. Fantastically-reliable units the pair of them. I believe these two models were the best-selling VCRs in the UK in the early 80s, and both shared the fact that the tape doesn't spool until record/play is engaged which means the heads run forever. I still have the Sanyo and apart from belts, it *still* has never gone wrong, nearly 35 years later. They don't make them like that any more!
I really enjoy watching these videos. This VCR looks very similar to my Graetz Telerecorder 4914. I haven't tested it yet but I hope its condition isn't too bad (though after that water leak in my basement it probably is) because I don't have the proper equipment to repair it and I don't know anyone in my region who would be willing to take a look at something this old.
I had one nearly identical, badged as a Ferguson. The only differences were the PAL system of course, only two switches on the left, and the 5-pin DIN socket on the back rather than RCAs. Great old thing it was. It finally died last year and went to a collector. The loading belts were a problem on those, the motor'd spin merrily but the belt slipped. Changed many of those in my time. Lots of these were made under various names in the UK, as the TV Rental companies took them up with a vengeance. Sometimes the little bulb in the cassette compartment went, oh happy easy to work on days.
Hi River, If I remember correctly years ago you posted a video of an HR7200EK which was a machine I used to have. I think you even labeled the video as "one for jedw" :) I remember seeing the Ferguson version also many years ago at a friends house.
I have a similar model HR-7200U. When I first bought it, it worked amazingly well. I just had the fluttering in the audio do to the belt being worn. I replaced the belt and the machine worked without a hitch. I decided to go back to it last night. The problem I'm having now is I'm not getting any color. VHS tapes only playback in black and white and the picture quality is very grainy. I can't figure out what happened? I didn't touch anything just replaced a couple belts. But now I wonder if that relay might have something to do with it?
Do you happen to have any videos on how to take apart and reassemble the video head? I took my video head apart to get out all the tape rust in there. Now I think the timing is off, and I have a horrible picture, and it somehow crinkles the tape again. Tried tape path adjustment, and no beuno.
couldn't you put a small amount of talc on the belt, like an be done on belt drive turntables to prevent slippage? since the belt is below the tape transport area, it shouldn't contaminate anything right?
Hello I have a JVC HR7100 U and I’ve run into some issues, it forwards and rewinds but when I hit play it takes the tape and then makes a loud humming and then puts the tape back. I have no idea how to fix this or to figure out the problem
Smashing video, i havnt seen one of those in years.
Now thats a nice old machine, ive repaired those in the past, the short tape loading belt would become floppy and would slip, a typical problem.
Ahh i did tell you of some of my bodges in the betamax video, using rubber belts to help grip was also one of my tricks too, but i only used it for non sensitive ff/rew/takeup problems.
I did see the tape loop out at 7:39, the takeup must have stopped for a second, later on you saw it too, again another typical problem.
I never had a special tape tension tool so i would adjust it so the head crossover at the bottom of the screen looked vertical and clean, tracking/headpole adjustments too.
My old scope did the fm output, you knew when it was right, it just operated so well afterwards :-D.
Happy memorys of repairing them :-D.
This is the same as the UK market Ferguson 3V30 :)
Yup the sloppy play belt was causing that. I had one that fit for that.
Yes ive seen the ferguson version as well :-D, its allways satisfying to repair quality equipment :-D.
Gonna testmy luck with this question, i have recently bought this exact same jvc player as it was the same one i grew up with , anyways my question.
Everything turns on great, i cleaned the head and basic dust out, tape inserts well, when i press play the tape is pulled over the spinning head but 2 seconds later the tape stops mobing and it automatically stops and retracts, what do you suppose the issue or issues could be?
Ah! so much like the HR 7100 U (with the weird color buttons) my Father bought when I was 3 or 4. 20 + years of extremely hard use and it's the ONLY machine that I've seen that never failed even in spite of the abuse I gave it which is almost unreal! Last I checked it plays tapes just fine. I mean the air brake on the pop top is the only thing that doesn't work. It even ran for 20 years without ever being cleaned and it never had to be cleaned in order to work!! When I was growing up everyone else had their early front loader VHS machines in and out of the shop. I think on more then one occasion I remember going to a friends house and we had to watch the old beta tapes or even RENT a movie on Beta because the Akai or fisher or whatever was in the shop.
Ah yes the wonderful old Akai (Mitsubishi) and Fisher (Sanyo) garbage.Yes they did have their issues for sure. Total garbage. I used to love those old Mitsubishi units before they fixed their mechanical problems.They used an Allan screw to lock the guide posts. The allan screw would screw down, and push on a metal pin, that would push up against the buide pin to stop it from turning.... NOT!I would take the pins out, put Loctite on the threads and align them. Would never come back after that glue dried.
My uncle gave me the same machine when I was 13 years old and 1990 he got himself Toshiba if I remember correctly he had gotten this machine new in the 80s he gave me everything you had with it even at remote remotes was not working anymore by that point and as I was using it to but instead of popping out and it wouldn't stay so I said the heck we didn't use the plastic buttons just use the controls underneath everything else worked you don't even needed replacing was the belts which was a heck of a lot cheaper to do at a repair shop cuz I was young I didn't know how to do that been buying a new VCR the only reason why he gave it to me also was because I asked my mother for a VCR Christmas that year and at the time they was still too expensive I had for a bunch of years to the heads want and it wasn't worth replacing at that point my neighbor saw me taking it to the trash can now I wish I kept it and he had a VCR that he didn't use anymore that was for dubbing purposes I had that for a bunch of years to my last VCR was a Panasonic 4 head HiFi VCR the remote had a jog dial on the bottom good old days
Top loader
7100 was the classic top loader with big color buttons
WOW I used to have the HR7200 (HR7200EK it was the UK version) and it looked identical to this!
And It must've played PAL tapes too
The VCR tape transports that feature the "dropping" pinch roller system (pinch roller below the capstan) have another major advantage. Thanks to the "fork" housing of the capstan (which most of these systems implement), with one bearing sleeve below the pinch roller and one above, the pressure on the bearings is much lower and balanced compared to the "classic" system, where the bearings are below the pinch roller and closer to one another. Also, because the pinch roller pressure area falls between the bearings, it does not cause the capstan to tilt in the direction the pinch roller is pushing, keeping its axis perpendicular to the chassis plane even as the bearings wear down, if the wear is even. On the "classic" system, this tilting effect is obvious and it gets worse as the bearings wear.
Regarding FF/REW, many of the cheap later VCRs that feature the "classic" transport rewind the tape fully loaded, while some of the older, better ones which feature the "dropping" pinch roller system (such as the JVC HR-S4700) rewind and fast forward in half-loaded mode.
That right and that is why I changed literally hundreds of failed capstan bearings on the "dropping pinch roller" mechanisms, and hundreds of broken pinch arm assy when t he grease on the mounting post dried out and the mechanism broke the pinch arm, and usually a few plastic gears as well.The classic design, may have slightly more bearing wear because it is supported from only one side, but then cassette decks, and open reel audio decks were the same design, and that was never an issue. In fact I can't ever remember replacing a capstan bearing on one of these designs, but I remember changing hundreds upon hundreds of Sony, JVC and Mitsubishi capstan bearings of the other design.Not all the dropping pinch roller had a double bearing either. Many had just a conventional capstan shaft like this, just located further back with a dropping pinch roller to allow the tape to remain threaded.
Great video! I have a JVC hr7100 and it starts to load when play is pushed but then drops out and doesn't start. The fast forward and rewind work fine. Any Ideas?
Needs new belts.
When you adjust the guides you have to undue the locking allen screws at the bottom first to properly release them then tighten them after you've finished adjusting them.
Not all have lock screws.
The ones I did when I worked on them 40 years ago did . You should also be checking the FM envelope as you do it .
@@glpilpi6209
The really old ones did. Mitsubishi was famous for the walking guide syndrome because they used a set screw that pushed a metal pin that pressed onto the guide base. The newer ones they started sticking an o ring below the base of the guide to hold the guide on place. I do check the rf envelope. I have done videos to show how to do it with and without a scope. Not everyone has a scope at their disposal. All the vcrs you see me working on are my own units. I don't fix vcrs and haven't for about 20 years.
On my 1985 Panasonic RQ-2107 Tape Recorder when the belt for capstan shaft is worn out, would I also add the rubber band by wrap around the flywheel, will it make the speed stay on balance?
I should take my camera out to my old work shop where my 3/4" decks live and show you how I reworked the NV9800 to keep the capstan belt on. I put a new belt on it, but I couldn't get the exact size, and when the motor starts it flings the belt off.
This was my families first VCR, which we must have gotten around 1981 or 1982. From the comments below it sounds like these retailed for $800. My father was always into getting deals, and I recall he got it from somewhere mail-order... possibly around $600. Of course, that was a lot more in 1982 than it is today. My CPI calculator says $600 1982 dollars is like paying around $1500 2020 dollars.
The thing worked for years and years, and I think it was eventually replaced with a newer model in the 1990s with something that supported VCR+, since my mother could never figure out how to program the one from 1982. As I remember the same thing happened with the time display.
To me it's interesting to put the price into a more modern perspective. Who spends $1500 on a piece of whiz-bang new technology today? Sure, people buy expensive laptops, but a $1500 laptop isn't really that much functionally different than a $200 one. Both my parents worked for the public school system, so it's not like they had a large disposable income. My dad worked as part of a technical school administration, and my mother a part time ESL teacher. But yet they decided to buy a (relatively) expensive piece of technology in 1982, when VCRs were just first starting to become popular.
The other thing I find interesting is simply the revolution that VCRs brought to the world. This was the first time most people could rent a movie at home and watch it. Before that, you had to either watch whatever was on TV right then, or go to a theater. Everything that's come out since then has largely been an evolution (as opposed to revolution) of the market the VCR created. I'd argue even streaming TV is an evolution. That may explain why my parents shelled out so much money for one, circa 1982.
I don't know about you, but I have shelled out thousands for tech stuff. I just dropped 1500 on a new camera last month, just to have as a spare for when the one I currently use breaks, and I have another bigger one available too. I still have a camera I paid 10,000.00 for! OK that's isn't really the truth, I did may 10 grand for it, but that included the 3,000 tripod and head!
# grand for a tripod you say, yup and I can show it to you if you really want to see what a 3,000 tripod looks like and that is considered a pretty cheap one as far as professional tripods and fluid heads go.
@@12voltvids I don't doubt that some people spend a lot of money on electronics. They have for quite a long time. But my point is more that I can't really think of any modern piece of technology where you have to spend $1500 to even get into whatever that technology delivers. The VCR was a game changing technology, so I think back then people would shell out quite a bit of money on something they normally wouldn't. I just don't think that exists today, electronics are expected to be "cheap", like under $400.
@@stevesether You have obviously never bought a new cell phone.
I don't mean on a contract, where the phone company picks up the tab, and you pay it off over a few years on a 100+ a month plan. I mean buying one outright and paying 20.00 a month for your plan like I do. 1000-2000 is NOT uncommon to pay for a phone.
The most I have ever paid on a cellphone plan is 30 bucks a month. I live in Canada and everyone bitches about the high cost of their monthly plan, and they forget that 40-50 a month of that plan they are playing is going to pay for the phone they got at a discount.
I have never had a cell phone on a contract and I get a great plan rate because of that.
@@12voltvids I don't think you're really understanding the point I'm trying to make. No matter, sometimes it's too hard to communicate.
@@stevesether Oh I get your point.
When I was in the retail business people would come in and complain about the prices, and the salesguy would say "It is too much or too much for you!"
I live and work in an affluent area, and everyone has the newest, and expensive devices. I see more OLED TVs than you can imagine. These are not cheap sets.
Some people go for the cheap Walmart stuff, but at least in my area more are going for the high end Sony, Samsung and LG gear, and Sonos. That stuff isn't cheap. When I buy I buy premium gear too. My new camcorder was 1500.00.
When VCRs first were available here in Canada, the cheapest ones you could find were 2,000.00 and that was in 1979. That is what my first VCR cost me. I was 16 and saved up all summer to buy one. FYI blank tapes were 49.99 for a T120 tape. Even in the mid 80s the cheapest mono machines were around 400 and hifi started 699 and SVHS started about 1000 and went up from there.
I have a Ferguson 3v39 looks very similar inside same sort of vintage but one problem with it if I insert a tape it will go down then start to load then eject the tape any ideas? You help would be appreciated, the deck was my dad's still mint condition and really don't want to chuck it.
Did these older vcrs have mode switches just wondering if that might be playing up
Yes they all have a mode switch. Some used multiple leaf switches and others used switches on both the mechanism and on the front loader assembly. Some vintage JVC built units used 2 optical sensors mounted on the main cam gear that detected holes in the cam gear as they rotated. Yes the optical sensors did give trouble.
I have the JVC version of that machine. Actually two of them. They definitely use leaf switches on both the front loading carriage and the main chassis. Just like the Sony Betamax front loaders, these switches need cleaning. Also clean the dried up grease from the worm gear of the cassette carriage. On my JVC, it was very dry and sticky and the tape would not go in.
How many VHS tapes do you have? You always use the same VHS tape.
Since they always keep giving problems, why do they use (rubber) belts and not cogwheels or something in video and cd players?
Belts are used because they dampen out the pulsations caused by DC motors. The elasticity of the belt and inertia of the flywheel dampens out jitter. Newer machines used 3 phase BSL direct drive motors.
Is it possible to get belts and parts for these mechines?
You can probably find belts but other parts unlikely unless they are used.
Interesting about the separate heads for EP / LP, I thought the difference was spread only....maybe in a future "Tech Talk" you could get into that topic more. The wow and flutter made the music kinda sound like Steve Miller's "Fly Like An Eagle".
All 4 head machines use 4 separate heads, it is just on earlier machines they were located on physically different positions of the drum. Then came Hifi that needed the hifi heads a specific distance from the video heads. They then moved to a dual azimuth design with the 2 heads glued to the same mount. The A SP head would be have the B EP head, and the B field SP head would have the A field EP head. For machines that had LP, which was never a reconized speed by JVC, they used the EP head for that speed, which did not improve the picture quality of LP. It probably made it worse as there you have a skinny track with a bunch of blank tape producing niose on each side of the track. That was the idea behind 4 head machines. So you could have a nice wide gap for the faster speed, and a narrow gap for the slower speed to optimize performance.Music was Jean Michele Jarre. He performed Oxygen and many of his other stuff for a concert put on for the Royal Wedding on Monaco.There is a stufio release of him performing that album live, and it took 4 musicians each with all the same instruments he used to make the original album that he recorded in his basement something like 40 years ago. Instruments that many have never heard of like a Mellowtron, Therimin ect.
5:47."711" mechanism?
👍 Thank you! 👍 ♥
I'm kind of surprised that with that amount of wow and flutter that the image is rock solid! I would expect the image to wobble a bit.
If the drum was drifting the picture would. For the capstan it can flutter quite a bit before it causes a tracking issue, because the control track is being read and the drum servo is adjusting accordingly.
Very cool, analog video recording never ceases to amaze me!
I should haul out my old 3/4" Sony playback deck and give that a work over.
Please do! Is that the U-matic format? I love how you can hear the audio in the search modes, too bad VHS mutes the audio.
Neither of my Umatic units have search. One is a mechanical key player, and the other is a solenoid control, but it unthreads to go into FF and REW. With the dedicated edit controller it could search with audio. My SL1000 beta units searched with audio from the linear track only.
I don't get it, what went wrong with newer video recorders compared to these old units? I understand there's bad caps, but what else caused newer 80's, 90's vcr's to break down so easily?
In the early days there were few manufactures that built expensive VCRs. These core companies, Sony, Hitachi, Panasonic and JVC built heavy high quality VCRs out of strong beefy metal parts and quality semiconductors, many of which were made in house. You paid for this quality, and early VCRs were in the 2,000 and up price range. This at a time when the minimum wage, at least in Canada was 3.00 an hour, a new car went for 10 grand, and a new house 100,000. So 2000 for a tape recorder to record TV shows and watch movies was out of reach for a good percentage of the population.
In order to sell VCRs to everyone, the companies started contracting out assembly of their machines away from Japan, where wages were high to countries where labour costs were much cheaper, and that 2000.00 VCR quickly dropped to 500.00 and kept falling. This was from using plastic parts instead of metal, and moving to robotic assembly where parts are just stamped out, and clipped together. The PC Boards were contracted out to other companies for parts placement.
The result is what you asked for. A low quality cheap machine that will last long enough for the warranty, and anything else is a bonus.
I'd bet early 3/4 VCR's were even better?
Dead Christmas
3/4 were never a consumer format so there was no pressure to cut costs. They were industrial and broadcast and those users paid the price no matter what it was. It's like the early HD cameras. I have one sitting it it's case I I paid over 6 grand for. For that matter I have an SD professional camera sitting on an old wheelie tripod that I paid even more for back in 2000. About 10 grand and today it is a room decoration.
This one appears to be from 1981. That's what my HR-7300 service manual says. Could be from 1980 too but not sure. Btw, I have a HR-7700 which is the first front loading VHS machine! It uses a CHAIN in the carriage to load the god damn tape in! Amazing machines...built to last...
I got that machine in 82, but it was an old stock unit at the time. I googled the model and google said 79 so... Yup built to last for sure.
First advert I see was from Sept. 1981, states it's a "new" item and sold for $999US. also in this ad is the JVC HR-6700U, which sold for $799.95US. In July 1981, I see an advert for the new HR-7700 for $1499AUD. It would be cool to see the chain drive!
The 6700 was released in 1979. the 7700 in 1980 and the 7200/7300 in 1981. :)
A tube radio manufactured 100 years ago will last at least 200 years. A VCR manufactured 50 years ago will only last 100 years. There are too many plastic parts in it. Pity...
A VCR manufactured 40 years ago won't last another 40 years because the plastic will deteriorate. I bet if I were to start using this machine it wouldn't be long before the loading gear would split that happened on my old 1979 Panasonic machine. very well still be working in 100 years if it doesn't get used. it's had the paper capacitors replaced with mylar so they're not going to fail, it's had the rubber insulated wires replaced with plastic insulated wires because the rubber installation fell off and everything was ready to Short. but if that 100-year-old radio is played on a regular basis the four totally obsolete tubes that it contains will wear out and then it will no longer play. I have quite a few vintage tube radios that I do not run for that reason. That's the same reason I don't run my Macintosh receiver because the four output tubes have not been available since about 1980. Sure it can be modified to use an el34 or a 6l6 but changing the circuitry to use modern tubes one will change the sound and two will make it not authentic and therefore it's lost its value. Since my unit has all original tubes I won't run it because I don't want to wear the tubes down. Plus it was my dad's and for sentimental reasons I want to try to keep it in working state unfortunately the cabinet looks like crap because when my dad bought this receiver new in the late sixties let's just say my mother was not too happy with him spending that kind of money on a stereo and she told him to take it back, whoever the store wouldn't take it so he put it in the crawl space and it sat there until I found it in the 90s. By that time rats mice had gotten into the box chewed the power cord chewed the wooden cabinet and made a real mess of the unit they didn't get inside electronics but they did make a real mess of the wooden cabinet which would all need to be redone and restored.
This one is actually a 1982 model.
I enjoy your videos about the old video machines. I have a number of old Sony Betamax machines and a Sony VTR that desperately need service. Do you know anyone in the NH, VT, MA area that does this? Unfortunately, you are too far away...
I don't know of anyone even local that still works on video gear. I get stuff from all over the country shipped in. Everyone i knew has long retired from service. I did too , 20 years ago and then about 10 started working on a few pieces a week to keep the mind sharp. I do it now just to teach practical repairs to viewers for those interested in this old stuff. Nothing makes my day more than someone sending me a message telling me their fault was the same as one i demoed and they got their unit working. Of course when that thanks comes with a "tip" of appretion it really makes my day.
@@12voltvids Many thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I haven't the ability to do the repairs myself. I wish I could for all the old AV equipment I have had over the years.
That's interesting, i've done intense research about the history of videotape recorders, vhs and betamax, and i have never read that Sony invented the original M loading system. You were a repair man for Sony, isn't that right? So it might just some information that never surfaced in the web, not that i have seen.
Sony, when they finally did make the change to VHS even advertised that they were the co-developer of the format. There is lots of info out there. I just found this: "In September 1976, JVC announced the VHS-format VCR to compete head to head against Betamax. With this announcement, the VCR format battle began. The JVC product boasted two hours of recording time twice that of Betamax. The year before the Betamax release, Sony had approached Matsushita and JVC, its two partners for the U Format, about unifying product specifications. At that time, Sony had disclosed information regarding the Betamax specifications and technology to the two companies. In response, Matsushita and JVC delayed any decisions about unifying standards for a year. After Sony announced the advent of the video age and followed this with an aggressive sales drive, JVC began its own highly effective advertising campaign.
Sony took a closer look at the VHS format and everyone was aghast. The technology and know-how that Sony had willingly disclosed when it proposed the unification of the U and Beta formats was incorporated in the VHS format. Although Sony had freely given the two companies access to its basic, patented technology, it was impossible for Sony to hide its shock and surprise."Basically what JVC did was take the design, and change it just enough so that it was not infringing on patents. They couldn't use the U loading system, so they basically turned it sideways and used 2 threading arms to achieve the same thing.Incidentally, the original 8mm cameras used the U loading, and then later cameras changed to the M system as it was more compact. Sony would NEVER have been permitted to use the M loading design on their 8mm cameras if JVC had a patent to it, but they didn't because it was the first design before Sony settled on the U loading system for Betamax. The reason they went with the U system was it had fewer moving parts. Basically 1 loading ring as opposed to 2 that turned in opposite directions, which the M system initially had.
JVC: "We didn't invent porn, but without it, we would have never survived." 😂
Buena máquina
nice machine just shame no hifi stereo.
Rubber bands will eventually crack, or turn into a nasty gooey like substance, as the years go by. Hopefully that is a temporary fix. Nice videos nonetheless!!!
I put new belts in before I sold this old beast.
I really like your videos and your work but the rubber belt maybe not the best idea. I think it will degrade over time and crumble into your machine.
This is not a machine going back into service. I just wanted to get it running for the video. I did explain that this was a temporary solution to get a machine back up and running for a short term fix. This is done quite often in the broadcast world say when a turn table broke a belt, or a cart machine belt started slipping and the engineer didn't have a replacement on hand. That is where I learned this trick when I was in broadcast, and we were out of a remote shoot and a belt started slipping, or broke. The field engineer would whip out his box of rubbers (pun intended) and make a quick fix to get the production in the can, and then once we got the production truck back to the studio would pull the machine into the shop and do it right.Since I am not planning on using this machine any time soon I am not about to spend 20.00 or more on a belt that will just sit there. If it was a machine that I was planning to use regularly then yes I would, but this was more to look at the old unit, and see if it would work after sitting unused for many years. This unit probably hasn't seen power since the mid 80's as I upgraded to hi-fi decks when they first came out. I only hang on to this old unit because I like to collect old pieces of technology, for nostalgia. Who knows some day it might be worth something. I once rented out one of my old Betamax units to a film company that needed one to use as a prop for a film that the period was early 80's. It was actually the SL8600 that I recently fixed, screws missing and all. They just wanted it to sit on a shelf plugged in with the clock light up.
Bet Sony kicked themselves after that one.