The Impossible Feat inside Your VCR

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Technology Connections

Technology Connections

Күн бұрын

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These days a VCR seems more quaint than anything else. But in fact, there's a device inside every VCR that solved what seemed to be an unsolvable problem. The video head drum is a fascinating solution to the complex problem of tape speed, and therefore I think it deserves to be remembered. Plus, the video head drum shares some motor technologies with modern hard disk drives. So there's that.
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D-VHS demo video from Techmoan: • New York City in 1993 ...
Image credits!
VERA --www.vtoldboys.com/images/vera3...
Kinescope --tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T3...
Kinescope 2 --provideocoalition-moviola.netd...
Telecine, Rotary Transformer, Slip Ring Pickup-Wikimedia Commons
Quadruplex: --www.quadvideotapegroup.com/ima...
Quadruplex 2 --storage.googleapis.com/afs-pr...
Quadruplex Heads --arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/0...

Пікірлер: 4 100
@199NickYT
@199NickYT 4 жыл бұрын
I remember looking in a VCR in the 90's and seeing the wonky-leveled head drum. It's a weirdly fulfilling experience to understand why it's angled that way decades later.
@ericvosselmans5657
@ericvosselmans5657 Жыл бұрын
I feel the same!
@jakefriesenjake
@jakefriesenjake Жыл бұрын
Same here!
@denelson83
@denelson83 Жыл бұрын
BTW, that is actually how VHS got its name, originally standing for "vertical helical scanning".
@jamesslick4790
@jamesslick4790 Жыл бұрын
@@denelson83 Nope. VHS stands for "Video Home System". There were other PRIOR video tape formats that used helical scanning including Betamax, U-Matic...ETC. In fact helical scanning was the default on videotape for YEARS before "VHS".
@stephensnell5707
@stephensnell5707 Жыл бұрын
​@@denelson83 it actually stood for Video Home Service(VHS) not what you said
@nickmonks9563
@nickmonks9563 7 жыл бұрын
I did not expect this to hold my attention for 18 minutes. But it did. EXCELLENT video. Subscribed.
@bellvnv2000
@bellvnv2000 7 жыл бұрын
Nick Monks Yes, life has become just that banal for me too .
@REARTYPE
@REARTYPE 7 жыл бұрын
Nick Monks I only realised that this video is 18 minutes after i read you comment
@TheGunmanChannel
@TheGunmanChannel 7 жыл бұрын
Same here.
@frogz
@frogz 7 жыл бұрын
.....same as the other people, i didnt realize i've been watching for 17:22 now... good job host, good job
@CenterpointConnect
@CenterpointConnect 7 жыл бұрын
Yep, once I got over the background, I quite enjoyed it.
@grid45
@grid45 2 жыл бұрын
Nice video. I worked at a TV station in 1977. We had 3 Ampex 2 inch quadraplex videotape machines. Television stations lock the synchronization of all their sources so the picture doesn't roll when video is switched. Synchronization on the Ampex reel-to-reel machines was analog - so it took 7 1/2 seconds to synchronize the playback to station sync. As a result, videotapes had color bars at the beginning of the tape, and usually also had a countdown at the head of the tape. There was a cue channel on the tape, and that was used to record a tone on the tape to be able to find the beginning of the program. That allowed the videotape operator to find the beginning of the program. A 7 1/2 second tone was recorded, so the tape operator could quickly find the cue point. A Quad machine had 4 heads, and playback had 4 video amplifiers. Part of the process of setting up tape playback was to play color bars and set the controls for each of the 4 heads for similar gain, to prevent "banding" in the video. Commercials (spots) were recorded individually on small reels. A 2 minute commercial break had four thirty second spots. With 3 videotape machines, 1 machine was reserved for news segment playback, and 2 machines for commercials. In preparation for a commercial break, the operator pre-loaded 1 commercial on each of 2 machines. Mount reel; thread tape; set video gains; fast forward to cue tone, and stop. The first machine was started 7 1/2 seconds before the commercial, then the video was "taken" on the video switcher. 22 1/2 seconds into the first spot, the second player was started. As soon as the first spot ended, the operator then had 22 1/2 seconds to rewind the tape on the first machine, take it off, mount the tape for the third spot, set the video gains, and cue it. Then the same for the fourth spot. The news video tape was usually a 12 inch diameter 2 inch wide tape. They were heavy. Often there were multiple segments on the tape, so each segment had to be found by fast-forwarding the tape while listening for the cue tone beeps, then set up for the 7 1/2 second pre-roll. Often the newscast used recorded segments out of linear order, for example the 3rd segment, the seventh segment, the first segment, and the twelfth segment. Fast forward and rewind had powerful motors that spun very fast, so stopping took a few seconds. The news director had to plan the tape segments carefully to give the tape operator time to find and set up each videotape segment. The worst case situation was a videotape news segment, back to the news anchors for the handoff, then a 2 minute commercial break, during which the videotape operator is real busy, then back to the anchors, then another videotape news segment. After a 30 minute newscast, the tape operator was wound as tight as a spring. After I left that station, around 1980, Ampex came out with 2 inch quad cartridge video recorders. There was a large cartridge storage section. The machine automatically selected the cartridge and loaded it. Synchronization was digital, and only took .002 seconds to lock-up to station sync. You could program an entire newscast in advance, and the machine would play all of the tapes in sequence. They were amazing! One of the problems the video carts caused was if the technical director pressed start on the cart machine and "took" the video at the same time, there was a .002 second period of no video going into the transmitter. Video transmitters were analog at that time, and analog video was inverted, so no signal to the transmitter put it at 100% power for .002 seconds, which caused an alarm on the transmitter and an error message on the automatic log. So we had to train the technical directors to have a slight delay between pressing start and "taking" the video. We later built that into a digital timer to prevent the issue.
@KdubTraX
@KdubTraX Жыл бұрын
hell yeah
@addisonbowlsby4600
@addisonbowlsby4600 Жыл бұрын
Lol Noone cares
@favoritemustard3542
@favoritemustard3542 Жыл бұрын
@@addisonbowlsby4600 paragraphs are scary! "L0L'' ...why are you here? Signed ~ No'One* **I read it twice, thank you for that insight OP*
@xcitive
@xcitive Жыл бұрын
Amazing! Can’t believe how much work the operators did in the background to keep the broadcast running smoothly. After reading this those “sorry for technical difficulties” or “pardon for the interruption” cards seem much more forgivable. :)
@h.markhorton8188
@h.markhorton8188 Жыл бұрын
Great Stuff! Why do us “modernaires” find such human and artistic fun in this and Mr. Techmoan. Thanks!!!
@mgabrysSF
@mgabrysSF 5 жыл бұрын
The BBC also had one that used metal instead of tape because of the speed. It was in an armored room because if the 'tape' broke it was a literal fragmentation bomb.
@electricpalace4720
@electricpalace4720 5 жыл бұрын
That was the Blatnerphone, an audio recorder. It was used for a while in the 1930s but was later abandoned as the BBC went back to recording on discs.
@craigh5236
@craigh5236 4 жыл бұрын
Heavy metal
@justsomeperson5110
@justsomeperson5110 3 жыл бұрын
Mmmm. Engineer gibs.
@alex0589
@alex0589 3 жыл бұрын
Damn. Tv is metal af
@mz7315
@mz7315 3 жыл бұрын
@@alex0589 This deserves way more likes.
@nicolasrusso7516
@nicolasrusso7516 2 жыл бұрын
I’m a vhs enthusiast and I absolutely love how much attention to detail you put into your videos when it comes to discussing vhs and it’s different tape speeds.
@oldtimer2192
@oldtimer2192 Жыл бұрын
I couldn’t agree more, what an excellent description of relativly early A/V recording and playback systems. Always wondered why the reading head/drum was on an angle though. Brilliant video and thank you sir!
@EsotericBibleSecrets
@EsotericBibleSecrets Жыл бұрын
I remember buying VHS tapes of the anime "Macron One," from Saban entertainment. Saban was so cheap, that even though you only got two twenty minute episodes per tape, it was recorded in SLP on cassettes with very little tape. These were official tapes.
@BouchIsOnTheLoose702
@BouchIsOnTheLoose702 Жыл бұрын
Thanks for the advice on VCRs. You were talking with such intelligence and I was keeping up with you. But after all that was settled, you started using Imperial units, for example, inches, feet and miles? That is so 1960s. Did you consider other countries watching this VCR technology? They don't know how far 11 miles is. And neither do I.
@waynezeller
@waynezeller 7 жыл бұрын
The title caught my interest and made me click. When I realized what the video was going to talk about I figured I'd give it a minute or two. Eighteen minutes later I was still spellbound. You've done a GREAT job with this video!
@JanStrojil
@JanStrojil 6 жыл бұрын
Thank you for saving me typing that comment, I also did not expect to watch the whole clip! I am sure glad I did!
@hyenacub
@hyenacub 5 жыл бұрын
In all the years I watched VHS tapes, I never knew that it actually pulled the tape out of the casing in order to play it. O_o
@owl77
@owl77 4 жыл бұрын
I knew because it ate my tape.🙄
@eval_is_evil
@eval_is_evil 4 жыл бұрын
I figured that out when it got stuck once. Was pretty weird to behold :)
@eval_is_evil
@eval_is_evil 4 жыл бұрын
@@owl77 hear hear
@paulhetherington3854
@paulhetherington3854 4 жыл бұрын
It's an electro- mechanical- chem pulley. It deceives, only. NASA-- no oxygen in, space, and burn fuel. Atmosphere is, required. OS'= ocean in HAW! os= foundation in kaldean.
@circuit10
@circuit10 4 жыл бұрын
Paul Hetherington ???
@VincentStreak
@VincentStreak 4 жыл бұрын
14:15 Holy crap that buzz hit me right in the nostalgia
3 жыл бұрын
I really like the effort involved to deliberately damage the tape just at that part so the effect can be heard.
@StopChangingUsernamesYouTube
@StopChangingUsernamesYouTube 7 жыл бұрын
I just spent nearly 20 minutes watching a video about VCRs with a backdrop reminiscent of 80's/90's instructional videos. I don't regret a single second of it, either. Thank you. I had no idea that the one machine in my house that I didn't take apart and re-assemble (sans a few extra screws) was possibly the most interesting of the lot.
@davidstone921
@davidstone921 7 жыл бұрын
Brilliant! I am a semi- retired Broadcast TV engineer. I was involved with very early VTR's/VCR's. There were many other weird formats, including one by Panasonic, that used standard EIAJ 1/2 inch tape literally fired out of a single-spool cassette and was automatically laced up on to a normal tape spool in the machine! They were fun to work on! I wish you'd been a lecturer at some of our training courses (Time-travel permitting, - you're far too young), you would have made the various subjects much more interesting. An excellent & most interestingly compressed story of video tape recording. Dave.
@jetenginee.
@jetenginee. 4 жыл бұрын
I'm a 15 yo kid who still watches my vhs tapes about 2 to 3 times a week I have kept all of my videos and came here to find out about how one of my favourite machines works. Thank you
@jordanblackbird7223
@jordanblackbird7223 3 жыл бұрын
That's gangster to gangster I'm jammed out now kinda shook too
@RuminatingWizard
@RuminatingWizard 2 жыл бұрын
Where did you get the tapes?
@Ichibuns
@Ichibuns 2 жыл бұрын
I had a couple left to me by my Grandpa. Terminator and Top Gun are still in the plastic wrappers
@lIlIIlIllIIIllIIllIlIllIllI
@lIlIIlIllIIIllIIllIlIllIllI Жыл бұрын
@@Ichibuns i found jurassic park at the thrift store
@STARDRIVE
@STARDRIVE 3 жыл бұрын
A few sidenotes: The grooves on the drum are there to create a film of air. To reduce friction. Also, Philips had their own V2000 system, using tapes you could flip over for use on ¨both sides¨. The head used piezo electric actuators to track the tape. Benefit was not only tracking and storing more data, but also a perfect freeze frame and slow motion without divider lines in the picture.
@danek_hren
@danek_hren Жыл бұрын
Gonna switch to it
@Jlipnicki
@Jlipnicki Жыл бұрын
Phillips were such a clever company, devising the audio cassette. Seem to have been almost too idealistic.
@STARDRIVE
@STARDRIVE Жыл бұрын
@☆ Astro and Willy ☆ 2x1 hour? Nope. The tapes ranged up to 2x4 hours, even up to 2x8 in long play mode. They lost the war because the porn industry chose the more abundant VHS format. Philips VCC was far superior to both VHS and Betamax, but only shared their parents with Grundig as I recall. JVC shared its VHS patents with half the globe, hence it became more popular despite its shortcomings.
@STARDRIVE
@STARDRIVE Жыл бұрын
@☆ Astro and Willy ☆ Techmmoan is awesome! Love his peculiar devices and formats. As it happens, I started fixing TV's and VCR's as a kid, made a career in tech, and even owned a Philips VCC. When renting a movie I never needed to flip the tape. The only 1 hour tape I ever saw came as an extra with the recorder :) But perhaps your experience differs. Have a great day!
@Twit.Tw00
@Twit.Tw00 Жыл бұрын
That is truly incredible.... never knew any of that. So complicated yet so taken for granted .... What a waste of knowledge 😂
@joescott
@joescott 7 жыл бұрын
This makes me want to go dig up my old tapes where I recorded three movies on one tape.
@Richard-Freeman
@Richard-Freeman 6 жыл бұрын
Somewhere we have a box filled with every Tom Baker and Peter Davidson Dr. Who episode.
@Tresquall
@Tresquall 3 жыл бұрын
Huh. What a fun KZfaqr crossover... I watch both of your channels!
@roberth.5938
@roberth.5938 3 жыл бұрын
What a surprise, seeing you on the commentaries 😂... And I love watching your channel
@Galbex21
@Galbex21 3 жыл бұрын
I know your channel.
@toadguy3135
@toadguy3135 2 жыл бұрын
Did you find em?
@robertholtz
@robertholtz 6 жыл бұрын
Watching in 2018. Did you know that the engineer at Ampex that devised the flying head design and, for that matter, invented videotape, is none other than Ray Dolby, inventor of Dolby Noise Reduction and eventual founder of Dolby Labs?
@terranmarine7395
@terranmarine7395 5 жыл бұрын
Robert J. Holtz did not. In high fidelity audio, it seems a combination of Dolby and Dbx yields the best results. I knex Ampex was vital in multi track professional grade studio equipment.
@stevek8829
@stevek8829 5 жыл бұрын
He would have had to invent video tape when he was about 18. New York studios filmed television on magnetic tape since about 1950, the early days of television.
@Rogue_Leader
@Rogue_Leader 5 жыл бұрын
You don’t do heavy metal in Dobly.
@JSmithSS
@JSmithSS 5 жыл бұрын
​@@stevek8829 He was born in 1933, the Ampex VRX-1000 was the first commercially available video recorder and widely used by television studios (as the VR-1000 and later models). It was released in 1956, and used Quadruplex videotape (released the same year).
@allanrichardson1468
@allanrichardson1468 5 жыл бұрын
@@stevek8829 The video narration in the beginning makes clear that there were earlier experimental systems to record video tape, such as the one developed at BBC using the insanely high speed of 3 miles of tape in 15 minutes. Most likely, when the Ampex Quadraplex tape was introduced in 1956, those studios were happy to upgrade (if they hadn't given up and gone back to kinescopes before that). Stations in less populous (and less lucrative) markets didn't get videotape at all until after Ampex was available. Also, remember that studios in the major networks' "flagship" stations (New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles for the most part) provided most of the video signals for nationwide broadcast, so they had the incentive to be the first, or "bleeding edge" adopters of the newest technology.
@Tharkz
@Tharkz 4 жыл бұрын
Wow that switch back to digital HD is like a slap to the face - or the eyes - after slowly getting used to tye VHS qual. playback
@_unreel
@_unreel 5 жыл бұрын
I'm addicted to your videos. Your voice is really soothing. I usually just have your videos on autoplay while I do homework or am cooking something for a long time. I found your channel through The 8 Bit Guy!
@child_of_god_
@child_of_god_ 5 жыл бұрын
Your video is so jam packed with information, i have to reduce to 75% speed and still pausing now and then and even sometimes replaying some parts.
@apolloandwarrior_3229
@apolloandwarrior_3229 4 жыл бұрын
He couldn't afford to record on a longer VCR tape
@NoorquackerInd
@NoorquackerInd 4 жыл бұрын
I watch all KZfaq videos at 2x speed, it's only this and MinutePhysics where I have to rewind
@kipkipful
@kipkipful 4 жыл бұрын
Noorquacker no one ever asked you
@burzasardaukar
@burzasardaukar 4 жыл бұрын
@@NoorquackerInd have you tried science asylum? That s another channel you may end up watching at normal speed
@assistanttothetravelingsec8301
@assistanttothetravelingsec8301 3 жыл бұрын
Yep me too
@L0j1k
@L0j1k 6 жыл бұрын
When you went from VCR video back to normal KZfaq video, it was like I was hit in the face with a shovel.
@darkracer1252
@darkracer1252 5 жыл бұрын
you were not the only one. i was like holy shit. that's alot of extra wall
@S501Airborne
@S501Airborne 5 жыл бұрын
Bro my eyes couldn't process for a second. I got dizzy
@silkwesir1444
@silkwesir1444 3 жыл бұрын
For me it was like "Whoa, did something just happen? No, nothing happened, everything's the same. WAIT, something DID happen, the picture is back to full quality!" It was like my subconscious already knew but my conscious mind was puzzled.
@patton303
@patton303 2 жыл бұрын
I still have most of my dad’s Ampex machines from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. He ran an advertising production company and never sold or threw gear away. He kept it all in storage in a building on his property. After he passed, it all went to me. When Covid hit, I started restoration on a VR 1200 2”. I’ve been using a Tektronix PAL Vectorscope to see what the quadruplex heads are doing, analyze and retune it. It has surprisingly held up well over the years. I’m going to use it and perhaps lease it to commercial studios for “period” recordings. Digital still can’t quite replicate it. Great vid.
@danielmireles6295
@danielmireles6295 4 жыл бұрын
The fact that you converted digital video files to VHS to demonstrate is absolutely mind blowing. The poor sound quality as it is worsened (and Hi-Fi Stereo) is music to my ears.
@AshtonCoolman
@AshtonCoolman 6 жыл бұрын
It's 2017. I was born in 1982 and am 35 years old....before this video, I only had a rudimentary understanding of how a VCR worked. I knew that it was magnetic and that the information was striped diagonally because I used to take them apart as a kid for fun and was always puzzled by the slanted head. This video blew my mind. We tossed decades of engineering away and now ridicule it. In another 20 or 30 years I wonder if young folks will ridicule us for watching youtube on a 2D screen compared to how they experience things first hand with their brain implants.
@studiopapa5874
@studiopapa5874 6 жыл бұрын
"You had to use your hands?? That's like a baby's toy!"
@davidbrenner5806
@davidbrenner5806 6 жыл бұрын
JohnnyNismo "ha ha, he doesn't know how to use the sea shells" -Demolition man
@BillAnt
@BillAnt 6 жыл бұрын
You guys had to actually charge those smartphones?? lol
@elerian9702
@elerian9702 6 жыл бұрын
The general form factor (sitting in front and viewing TV screen or computer screen) has not changed since then, you don't have mechanical player and CRT screen, but what we use today like LCD screen and content being stored on thumb drive or is downloaded via computer network does not change whole a lot about the thing.
@InsideOfMyOwnMind
@InsideOfMyOwnMind 6 жыл бұрын
No, they will ridicule us for watching KZfaq at all.
@MrPacMan36
@MrPacMan36 6 жыл бұрын
I wish KZfaq would have a "VHS" button and perfectly mimicked the different types of tape formats...
@BigOlSmellyFlashlight
@BigOlSmellyFlashlight 6 жыл бұрын
it did on one of the april fools days
@danagibbs3265
@danagibbs3265 6 жыл бұрын
Not this time unfortunately
@InsideOfMyOwnMind
@InsideOfMyOwnMind 6 жыл бұрын
That would have been completely gangster. Or "gangsta" as they put it.
@christoneymotionpictures8847
@christoneymotionpictures8847 6 жыл бұрын
Red Giant's Universe plugin has them. They're totally excellent.
@Zero_Ninety
@Zero_Ninety 5 жыл бұрын
They could call it 'hipster mode'.
@OfMoachAndMayhem
@OfMoachAndMayhem 10 ай бұрын
as a 90's kid, I think you've just earned the coveted Trophy for Making Me Go "That's what THAT was!" the Most Times in One Single Video! also, how on earth do you keep digging up hardware that's the exact same make and model that my grandpa gave me and my brother to play with when we were 10yo?! (as it had been broken for about 10 years by then) man, ppl say all kinds of things about childhood nostalgia, but having been through it I'll just own up and say it: Video quality really was totally shit back then, I'm glad we've evolved into the civilized internet-dwellers of today! Post 2000 kids, you haven't missed much.
@billlco
@billlco 5 жыл бұрын
Who still remembers the loud gray static screen ?
@ThePhantomSafetyPin
@ThePhantomSafetyPin 5 жыл бұрын
and the beep of doom.
@Joel-vx7hz
@Joel-vx7hz 5 жыл бұрын
That is the QUICK STOP REWIND moment lol
@rogehmarbi
@rogehmarbi 5 жыл бұрын
The memory still lingers. That static was like 50% louder than the normal sound, and the sound was unnerving at least
@darkracer1252
@darkracer1252 5 жыл бұрын
i do remember waking up a couple times at night when programming ended. ofcourse somewhere in the late 90's and early 2000's that time was filled up with nothing but back to back ads for 0906 numbers. (titty ads. for adult phone numbers)
@nyccollin
@nyccollin 5 жыл бұрын
billlco white noise?
@allissondiego1989
@allissondiego1989 7 жыл бұрын
this video is soooo well made
@wayge
@wayge 7 жыл бұрын
agreed, its not often that i subscribe to someone after viewing a portion of one of their videos
@dannycarbona
@dannycarbona 7 жыл бұрын
we'll played sir.
@fingtechnology2222
@fingtechnology2222 7 жыл бұрын
@wayge, I concur...
@syok4929
@syok4929 7 жыл бұрын
Are we watching the same video?
@MarkNESStarFox
@MarkNESStarFox 7 жыл бұрын
Sarcastic, but clever.
@buckrogers5331
@buckrogers5331 6 жыл бұрын
I used to teach service heads how to service RCA and Thomson VCRs back in the mid-90s. One other thing of marvel in the VCR machine is the amount of tape speed control for quick rewinds, precise stops, etc. - all using just a two-bit control signal. I believe the guy in Germany who came up with the control algorithm was given a internal technical award. Truly a solid engineering feat!
@InsideOfMyOwnMind
@InsideOfMyOwnMind 6 жыл бұрын
Buck Rogers much of the tech developed for vcrs is still with us today including the multiple methods for connecting a large array of buttons to the cpu with only 4 wires as well as the general robotics that made all the later mechanical formats possible.
@johndododoe1411
@johndododoe1411 4 жыл бұрын
Was that the I2C or Inter IC protocol still used for various low speed chips like configuration flash memory and motherboard temperature sensors?
@wb5648
@wb5648 4 жыл бұрын
Its crazy just how complicated out dated tech can actually be 😂
@InflatablePlane
@InflatablePlane 3 жыл бұрын
A necessity in the days before microprocessors and digital technology.
@stephensnell1379
@stephensnell1379 3 жыл бұрын
@@InflatablePlane digital media is also prone to degradation but this happens over a longer period of time
@electrictroy2010
@electrictroy2010 2 жыл бұрын
Digital media degrades faster. Minor damage can erase wholr scenes (black screen of nothing). Analog media just plows straight through, while still producing an imagez
@andrewmd10
@andrewmd10 Жыл бұрын
@@electrictroy2010 that's not how it works. digital media has autocorrection
@euvo_sound
@euvo_sound Жыл бұрын
@@andrewmd10 yeah
@MIO9_sh
@MIO9_sh 4 жыл бұрын
14:20 that sudden increment in video quality is actually more uncomfortable than i expected
@nikkiofthevalley
@nikkiofthevalley 3 жыл бұрын
14:20? Lol
@melissahalle8398
@melissahalle8398 3 жыл бұрын
It made me jump when it changed
@handlesrtwitterdontbelivethem
@handlesrtwitterdontbelivethem 3 жыл бұрын
delete ur comment dum anime girl IM WITH WITH SCIENCE TEAM
@bwhog
@bwhog 2 жыл бұрын
Seeing the moire was what surprised me.
@TimeSurfer206
@TimeSurfer206 2 жыл бұрын
Boomer here. We are spoiled. I suffered through the first two seasons of Star Trek on a Black & White set. And for sound? I get Bluetooth Speakers nowadays, with quality that would have cost a Single Soldier a few month's pay, back in the 70's-80's, for Dirt Cheap.
@KastaRules
@KastaRules 7 жыл бұрын
Old tech is *fascinating.*
@JediWitness2
@JediWitness2 6 жыл бұрын
Yes it is. I still have my older mini VHS camcorder that still produces a hell of a picture, about 5 VCRS with three hooked up to TV's still for when the DVR fails or is out of space, or when i want to keep something. I have CB and HAM radios which can be very useful if things ever get really insane in the country and the grid goes down, I also have older digital cameras from Kodak and Canon that work great too. People are finding out that digital stuff is not all that it was made out to be. That is why records and record players are making a Huge comeback because people would rather use something physical than all this digital stuff. ALso it's FAR easier to just put a record on with 8-10 songs and know exactly what you're getting an having an IPOD or your phone with 20,000 songs and have to make play lists, folders and stuff to organize it and still have to scroll to find what you want or search. Even Flip Phones are making a comeback as many people are turning in their smart phones for the ever reliable flip phones as many people don't need or want to be online with their phones. As long as you can make a call easy, send some text messages and take a decent picture when needed, that's all many people want. All the old tech that a lot of the younger generations now mock, is the FOUNDATION for what they're using today. The tech actually DID exist decades ago, it was just TOO expensive to bring to the market until now. But it was actually invented long before most people were born.
@radellaf
@radellaf 6 жыл бұрын
My firewire miniDV cam from ~20 years ago is still better than a "webcam" of today. Not 720, but the optics are so much better. Why all digital camcorders (& still cams) don't have a webcam mode is beyond me.
@Waccoon
@Waccoon 6 жыл бұрын
Complex enough to look like awesome magic, but simple enough so you can understand how it works by reverse-engineering the circuitry. Bonus points for circuit bending! I still use my Amiga on a regular basis -- minus the circuit bending, of course. 8)
@thatonethattalksalot7656
@thatonethattalksalot7656 6 жыл бұрын
KastaRules yes it is, even though im like 18, looking back at what my parents used just fascinates me, the old fashion ways of media is more interesting because most of them ( correct me if im wrong ) needed to be manually done with patients and care, it was like an artist who needed to paint a picture if he wanted to remember the moment that he knew never will happen. Old technology is soo much better that todays piece of plastic sheet with wires to display pictures and produce noise! I can tell by being amused just sitting in silence for hours straight literally just looking at all the parts in a vcr or a crt tv.
@MegaBojangles99
@MegaBojangles99 6 жыл бұрын
F A S C I N A T I N G
@233kosta
@233kosta 6 жыл бұрын
The engineering involved in this old school stuff is just marvellous! Though conceptually simpler, these machines are much more mechanically and electronically complex (at the component level) than their modern counterparts with all the hard work being done at the hardware level rather than via software through microcontrollers. Absolutely wonderful!
@oofingberg
@oofingberg 2 жыл бұрын
That’s exactly why i love old hardware. My hifi system is from 95 and my VCR and CRT is as well.
@233kosta
@233kosta Жыл бұрын
@Alexander Ratisbona I think I may have been a little unclear in what I meant by "conceptually", which is that fundamentally all this machine does is take a raw analogue signal and convert it into analogue magnetic pulses which rearrange particles on a tape (and vice versa). At the top level, that's a lot fewer steps than say an MP3 player, which has to read a file, decode it, apply DSP (itself a complex process), then convert to an analogue signal and amplify. Modern miniaturisation has abstracted most of that complexity away into the ASIC (which we all recognise as the ubiquitous "blob" on the circuit board) which runs everything, so it appears deceptively simple when it is, in fact, not. That technology wasn't available back then, so all the beautiful engineering, the complexity of the implementation, is on display for all to see 😁
@233kosta
@233kosta Жыл бұрын
@Alexander Ratisbona It's the implementation that's complicated, not the concept. And if you knew what went into these integrated circuits you'd understand why they _are_ so much more complex, conceptually. But manufacturing processes of ICs lend themselves VERY well to automation (in fact, many are impossible without it), so the huge volumes possible reduce the unit cost of a single IC to pennies. On the flip side, a mechanical system which, at the conceptual level, does something much simpler, is nevertheless significantly more complicated to implement as it requires that all actions and coordination in the system be mechanical. All the "thinking", so to speak, has to be done by the mechanics. Whereas a microcontroller abstracts all that away and all the mechanical parts have to do is activate when signalled by the μc. Macromechanically - much simpler, but the μc is in fact a lot more complex electronically. I mostly agree on programmers though, these days they're like administrators - available everywhere and at the full range of costs, but really good ones are hard to find. The work culture is different, much more emphasis on quantity and prototyping than creating a finished product, which then gets misemplemented, spilling over into consumer electronics, resulting in the release and sale of half-developed products. Video games are a GREAT example - day 1 patches and DLCs (which should have been part of the game on release). Frankly it's disgusting, but all the gray beards have retired, so there's no one left to put the brakes on ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Management is to blame too, I hear the gaming industry in particular works on impossible schedules imposed by retarded directors. I'm sure that spills over into consumer electronics too. You mention quality dropping... that's a function of inflation. People don't like to see increased prices, even though their currency devalues significantly each day. Something's got to give and it's usually quality.
@Bob-1802
@Bob-1802 Жыл бұрын
@@233kosta Exactly! More the science is advanced, more invisible it is. It becomes like magic.
@Anuj_Tomar
@Anuj_Tomar Жыл бұрын
Also they could last decades and were easy to fix then, still have some things working just find , bought in 80s , just need some cleaning and batteries
@chillmonkey6782
@chillmonkey6782 Жыл бұрын
That’s fascinating that the tape speed of some VHS tapes meant that high frequency sounds didn’t get recorded at all. I’ve heard those SLP audio clips before, and I wondered if everyone just had sinus problems in the 70s. Now I know why they sounded like that!
@High-Tech-Geek
@High-Tech-Geek Жыл бұрын
This was great. I'm an early 80s kid and lived through VHS formats. This stuff was not common knowledge for consumers. Thank you for a simple, yet powerful explanation.
@vwestlife
@vwestlife 7 жыл бұрын
In later years, Panasonic introduced an even slower VP speed, with the tape running at only 0.262 ips (1/5th the speed of SP), providing 10 hours of recording time on a T-120 tape.
@KRAFTWERK2K6
@KRAFTWERK2K6 7 жыл бұрын
Oh hey VWestlife! Nice to see you here :) Yeah, the later years of VHS were quite interesting. I remember my LG VHS deck had some nice features like a video doctor, that warned you about dirty heads and cleaned them for you. Didn't really work that well thou and as much as i hate VHS cleaning tapes because of the possible damage they can cause… they still solved the problem better than the built in solution. However… some Panasonic Decks can be permanently ruined with using such cleaning tapes, rendering the tapeheads completely useless in an instant.
@Natalie-ez1zc
@Natalie-ez1zc 6 жыл бұрын
Now add Hi-fi to that, now you have 10 hour youtube videos in 1989.
@studiopapa5874
@studiopapa5874 6 жыл бұрын
KRAFTWERK2K6 All of the tech channels like to talk to each other. So far I've seen a band of uxwbill, bbishoppcm, and VWestlife. There are still more that talk to each other
@electrictroy2010
@electrictroy2010 2 жыл бұрын
Panasonic’s VP speed is non standard. It was introduced in the late 2000s after VHS was effectively a dead format (replaced by DVD and Bluray).
@electrictroy2010
@electrictroy2010 2 жыл бұрын
The longest tape I own is a T-240 (four hours). That’s 12 hours using VHS slowest speed. Or 40 hours using JVC’s Digital VHS. (The nonstandard VP would put 20 hours of analog video on a tape.). It also looked like crap.
@islandaerial3414
@islandaerial3414 5 жыл бұрын
I remember when getting a 26" TV was a BIG deal!
@blackbeard6861
@blackbeard6861 4 жыл бұрын
Now they have 26" computer monitors
@Jaymac720
@Jaymac720 3 жыл бұрын
Nowadays, 55 inches is the standard for “BIG” screens
@friedchicken1
@friedchicken1 3 жыл бұрын
yeah you had helicopter bring, now it's delivered by pizza boy
@seamusmckeon9109
@seamusmckeon9109 3 жыл бұрын
Now we have 98”
@TechTokOffical
@TechTokOffical 3 жыл бұрын
My family had one 19" TV in the livingroom(80's-90) and when I was like 11 we got another 15" in the basement for the Nintendo
@CocoTheMii
@CocoTheMii 3 жыл бұрын
Every VHS tape ever: Please do not touch the tape. VCRs: Nah.
@stephensnell1379
@stephensnell1379 3 жыл бұрын
That's only the world that's on the tape itself
@LittleDancerByGrace
@LittleDancerByGrace Жыл бұрын
This was so cool. For some reason or another we always took the cover off our VCR when I was a kid, so I definitely watched the tape get pulled out and settled up against the drum. I knew about the erase head and guessed (correctly) at the capstan, but I could never figure out how exactly the drum was reading and writing information. I had never noticed that little crack in the middle before. So thanks for clarifying some of ten-year-old me's niggling questions.
@golf-freq
@golf-freq 6 жыл бұрын
My brother shoved a reuben sandwich into our VCR the very first week we got it. Dad took it apart and cleaned it out and it still works to this day. Remember to feed your electronics tasty, dripping sandwiches and they will treat you right for years!
@shahram72
@shahram72 5 жыл бұрын
At least he had good taste in sandwiches.
@harveywallbanger3123
@harveywallbanger3123 5 жыл бұрын
terrible waste of a reuben
@timhuggins1993
@timhuggins1993 5 жыл бұрын
Should stop the VCR eating your best video tapes instead haha
@jasongreek2342
@jasongreek2342 5 жыл бұрын
just pulled a bunch of garbage out of ours so we could watch Mickey's once upon a Christmas on, what my seven-year-old called, "one of those old time DVDs". they couldn't fathom having to rewind a movie.
@SacrificedSin87
@SacrificedSin87 5 жыл бұрын
Apparently I liked to feed our VCR with marbles, toast and jam, Lego and various other small toys. I was 2 at the time. Then at the age of 6, I developed a habit of ejecting the tape and sticking my finger in the slot and pulling it out, until I got my finger caught in between a recorded from TV copy of "the little shop of horrors" (got the proper VHS when I was 8 and still have it 23 years later) and the slot top. My mum remembers the screaming vividly. We had a top loader for a long time after that.
@PsalmFourteenOne
@PsalmFourteenOne 6 жыл бұрын
VHS Hi-fi was pretty awesome at the time. I actually used it to record my own songs (guitar, drum machine etc) as it really didn't loose quality like going back and forth with regular analog tape.
@coreyjones9183
@coreyjones9183 4 жыл бұрын
I’m actually doing that right now just for fun and I’m honestly blown away by the quality!
@VauxhallViva1975
@VauxhallViva1975 3 жыл бұрын
I was trained as a VHS video machine technician. I have not serviced a VCR in about 20 years. ;) Removing and replacing slide-plates, and sometimes annoyingly placed mode-switches, pinch-rollers, back-tension bands, belts and heads - ahhhh, memories of my youthful apprenticeship.... :p HiFi Stereo VCR's used to be used to record live FM radio-shows here before computers and HDD space got so cheap. A E180 tape would hold 3-hours of live radio show at standard speed, or 6-hours in long-play. As mentioned in this video, the audio performance was excellent on just about any brand of HiFi VCR - far better then using normal cassette tapes, but also far cheaper then using an expensive professional reel-to-reel machine. They would often re-transmit from the archive tape so the DJ only needed to do the show once, but it would air at least twice.
@PsalmFourteenOne
@PsalmFourteenOne 3 жыл бұрын
@@VauxhallViva1975 Indeed it was. If used Frequency Modulation to store the audio from what I remember. I worked on a repair shop for a while in 1990. I also remember the pinch rollers and the crappy take up reels that would start to slip and then the machine ate the tapes. They did later come up with better tech for the take up reel. The slipping rubber wheel idea was doomed to fail
@VauxhallViva1975
@VauxhallViva1975 3 жыл бұрын
@@PsalmFourteenOne Ahhhh, yes! The good 'ole "Idler tire" replacement! ;) I remember replacing quite a few of those that had either perished or become rock-hard, and so then just slipped and did not drive the take-up spool at all. Munchy munch munchy on that lovely tape! ;)
@joeblankenship377
@joeblankenship377 3 жыл бұрын
For a while, it was the best thing ever that you could go rent 3 movies and record all of them onto one tape with a 2nd VCR. We had a ton of home bootlegged movies back in the early 90s.
@marty5300
@marty5300 3 жыл бұрын
I love the flashing 12:00 on your vcr.. very authentic lol. I was always amazed by how robust tapes were, they could withstand hundreds or thousands of replays. It always amazed me how the tape physically contacting the rollers and capstans, and the head drum continuously and yet not suffer any ill effects until years down the road.
@jamesfrench7299
@jamesfrench7299 Жыл бұрын
Probably because so much tape passes through resulting in a given spot of tape not contacting four long. Now we understand why pausing too long is bad for the tape.
@stephensnell5707
@stephensnell5707 Жыл бұрын
​@@jamesfrench7299 you mean for long
@maniakkid25
@maniakkid25 6 жыл бұрын
"If you're not watching full screen, you should be; it's awful!" I giggled.
@allanrichardson1468
@allanrichardson1468 5 жыл бұрын
I backspaced and replayed it in full screen just to see how awful it was. I'm watching on a 15 inch wide laptop screen.
@HunterRodrigez
@HunterRodrigez 7 жыл бұрын
its 2017... and iam learning how a vcr works...
@oiyabastard5360
@oiyabastard5360 6 жыл бұрын
Hunter Rodrigez. DEVO....WE MUST REPEAT
@loudogthefrog
@loudogthefrog 6 жыл бұрын
oiyabastard D E V O we are DEVO!!
@tionstav5799
@tionstav5799 6 жыл бұрын
I still use VHS tapes.
@ledzeppelinsucks
@ledzeppelinsucks 6 жыл бұрын
Louis Gomez Are we not men?
@David-gk4kw
@David-gk4kw 6 жыл бұрын
Yea that is frustrating, engineers design the VCR's, the company markets them, and the television company producers hire writers and actors to make useless delusional movies to make money and they get the most views, instead of videos the engineers made about the television equipment, so truly useful and educational shows were hard to find back then. The educational networks never did a good job, they would lump some intellectual material together and show it, and things you didn't understand would get skipped over, and the rest of the show is cryptic, assuming you the viewer knows what they are talking about. Video hosting sites where anyone can upload and anyone can search keywords they want to learn about are more valuable.
@donsinai2554
@donsinai2554 Жыл бұрын
Memories. What a great presentation. Your explanation is concise and clearly explains some of the more technical elements of the machines. I was an electronic apprentice who cut his teeth on the earliest Mitsubishi VHS machines in Australia. They were awesome pieces of tech at that time and I was lucky to be chosen to repair and align them. After my apprenticeship I moved from home VCR to commercial and professional VCRs like SVHS and Sony Betacam SP, another 1/2” type format. If you thought A home VHS machine was impressive the Professional end equipment were staggering. VHS and Betacam formats died when 1/4”DVC came along for home use and DVCPro and DVCam was used in the Pro side. The plethora of 1/2”broadcast formats was crazy around this time too. Then tape died when the solid state Professional/Broadcast recorders were introduced by Sony, Panasonic and JVC and here we are today. I’ve now retired from the electronics game but it was one hell of a ride and the stuff they can do today still amazes me.
@truckinman86
@truckinman86 3 жыл бұрын
11:55. I just got thrown back into elementary school, watching Bill Nye The Science Guy on a (back then) couple year old CRT TV, which sat on a roll away cart.
@InflatablePlane
@InflatablePlane 3 жыл бұрын
I always knew it was going to be a good day in class when we came back from recess and that TV was rolled out in front of the classroom.
@MrTeknotronic
@MrTeknotronic 7 жыл бұрын
8hrs of MacGuyver on a single tape. Those were the days.
@josephcontreras8930
@josephcontreras8930 3 жыл бұрын
I still got my next generation episodes on sony& tdk vid tape and they still viewable today. Also most real ghostbusters toons too. It's a wonder vcrs worked so well due to all those mechanical parts moving and rarely had any tape eating issues. Vhs and vcr good old days.
@adampeden168
@adampeden168 7 жыл бұрын
this video was exceptional I couldn't have possibly found a more descriptive presentation I hope you go far with your videos awesome job bro
@RedSaint83
@RedSaint83 Жыл бұрын
It's so cool what existed in the age just before full digitalisation. The VHS is a mechanical marvel, and I enjoyed many a movie with my brother and our friends back in the 90s.
@Fightre_Flighte
@Fightre_Flighte 3 жыл бұрын
I'm gonna watch this again in another five or so years when KZfaq recommends this again. If not only for the nostalgia slapping me in the face for the little VHS recorded bits, then for the reminder of how we got into the digital era of video.
@WAQWBrentwood
@WAQWBrentwood 7 жыл бұрын
It was the amazing complexity of VCRs that had me pissed that early DVD players were so damned expensive. They were mechanically no more complex than a CD player and couldn't even record. I literally didn't go to DVD untill recorders became available. DVD did have a better picture quality than VHS, but without recording ability, it was not much use to me. Fortunately that changed, but I still respect the sheer genius of videotape recorders. It's amazing that they could make them so good and yet relatively cheap as consumer devices.
@gfox9295
@gfox9295 7 жыл бұрын
The early VCRs were crazy expensive. And there were VHS players (with no recording possible) available during the VCR era. For those who couldn't afford or just didn't want/need the recording variety. Not that surprising that DVD players / DVD recorders followed similar patterns decades later.
@JeremyMcCracken
@JeremyMcCracken 7 жыл бұрын
16:08 "SVHS never really went anywhere" It got some use in the low-end professional market. I was in high school audio/visual (late 90s/early 2000s) and we used SVHS for the stuff that ran on the community cable channel. (Using a linear editing system complete with Video Toaster on a 15 year old Amiga.)I still remember people making VHS copies on the SVHS machine and forgetting to flip the switch back- someone wouldn't notice and would start editing, but the teacher could tell the difference just from watching the screen. He'd point to the monitor and say "that looks like the difference between VHS and SVHS..." And we'd check, and he was always right, and we'd have to start the entire real-time editing all over again.Awesome presentation throughout- subscribed
@WhoWouldWantThisName
@WhoWouldWantThisName 6 жыл бұрын
I believe I still own my SVHS camcorder from `89. When that format came out I remember it looking like 4k UHD today on the good screens of the time. Almost too rich and saturated. I'm sure it just looked that good compared to VHS and such of the time, but wow. You could make something that could be shown on broadcast TV with your home camera. It was good enough. Now our phones can do the same I suppose.
@arricammarques1955
@arricammarques1955 6 жыл бұрын
Panasonic released Proscan Hi FI Stereo VHS SP late 90's TV monitors. Commercial advance, clunky but it worked.
@MrROTD
@MrROTD 6 жыл бұрын
LOL we had Amigas and video toasters and that was cool but then we got a nonlinear set up which had a whopping 8 Gigabytes of storage LOL my favorite thing about the toaster was Lightwave 3d
@DFX4509B
@DFX4509B 8 ай бұрын
ED-Beta meanwhile might as well have not even existed with how little market share it got even in the semi-pro and low-end pro segments.
@toddmiller5322
@toddmiller5322 3 жыл бұрын
I'm old enough to remember when my eyes and ears sampled the world at a higher fidelity than electronic media did.
@benjaminmarks8765
@benjaminmarks8765 2 жыл бұрын
Lol
@shivorath
@shivorath 2 жыл бұрын
So... today? Even the best cameras and microphones in the world don't come anywhere close to our natural senses. Our best displays lag even further behind.
@Azmythometre
@Azmythometre 2 жыл бұрын
@@shivorath Every pixel of perfect raw 12k video is about 0.006° which is a bit better than 20/20 vision. I still wouldn't swap my eyes out with cameras just yet.
@shivorath
@shivorath 2 жыл бұрын
@@Azmythometre Sure... because resolution is everything. Color gamut especially, Digital Cinema standards only cover about 53% of the human eye's capability. Most cameras get a lot less than that. Not to mention dynamic range, low-light performance, etc.
@GogiRegion
@GogiRegion 2 жыл бұрын
@@shivorath True. In fact, a lot of ultra high resolution screens are trying to solve that problem by having more pixels than the eye can see and then by averaging out different pixels you can get more colors than the number LEDs in the screen can display. The difference between 4k and 1080p isn’t resolution, because at a reasonable viewing distance you’re not telling the difference, but instead it’s that the 4k has more displayable colors for you to see. When you look at a 4k screen for the first time, you probably won’t be able to see it as sharper, but it’ll look _way_ more colorful and vibrant assuming 4k video.
@shawnerz98
@shawnerz98 3 жыл бұрын
I am continually amazed at the information you pack in to each video! Great work!
@JoePinball2006
@JoePinball2006 6 жыл бұрын
When I saw the video title I was very keen to watch this, only to find no mention of the impossible feat I was aware of, going on inside the VCR! This feat is that in order to get the really best possible recording and playback, the video tape to head gap had to be absolutely nil: merely having the video heads be completely flush with the video head drum would NOT guarantee this! This is why video heads actually project a small distance AWAY from the drum's outer diameter. (this is easy to test using a piece of paper held against a spinning video head: if the heads were flush there would be no regular noise when you did this. Instead you can hear the "beat" as the heads go whizzing past). The head actually STRETCHES the video tape as it rotates, in order guarantee the tape had perfect intimate contact to guarantee that precise recording/playback. As the head continued to rotate the tape would shrink back again. Obviously the precise amount of tape stretch you could get away with repeatedly had to be carefully computed to remain inside the "elastic" region of tape stretching or else the tape would never recover from even a single playing. So, in my eyes, the true miracle inside every VCR was that it physically stretched the tape and let it shrink back again every time it was played or recorded, with no apparent reduction in tape quality or longevity!
@XX-121
@XX-121 5 жыл бұрын
+joe pinball - idk eventually i'm sure quality suffered.
@chriscarroll9076
@chriscarroll9076 5 жыл бұрын
That's Ok, the tapes are guaranteed for life. Just return them to RCA (or Memorex or whoever manufactured them) and they should send you a new one!
@memyname1771
@memyname1771 5 жыл бұрын
That is one of the best ways to destroy the tape heads! Paper is both abrasive and hard when struck by anything moving as fast as the tape heads. I learned the hard way even before the early days of VCRs. Before VCRs, I had a Sony video tape recorder (VTR) that was an open reel recorder. The tape heads were exposed and had to be replaced three times as something got too close while they were spinning. As I taught myself how to repair VCRs, the saw the same vulnerability existed while working on a powered VCR with the case open. As the years went by, the metal components were replaced with plastic components and the VCRs became such junk that it was no longer worth the effort to repair stripped plastic gears or somehow get the plastic loading mechanism to work without flexing. The majority of VCRs I owned were Beta. This was due to a demonstration I watched on Okinawa where an electronics store had a Beta and a VHS VCR side-by-side playing the same program/movies. The Beta clearly had better quality picture.
@memyname1771
@memyname1771 5 жыл бұрын
Tapes recorded in the 70s and 80s still play back with no loss of quality.
@electrictroy2010
@electrictroy2010 2 жыл бұрын
Heads touching the tape should not be a surprise. Audio heads in cassettes and 8-tracks also touch the head.
@wisteela
@wisteela 7 жыл бұрын
Excellent, and yes, Techmoan is great.
@philrod1
@philrod1 7 жыл бұрын
Paul Potter - absolutely. TechMoan is fantastic. Anyone who watched this video through should definitely check out TechMoan's channel.
@RichTheNoun
@RichTheNoun 3 жыл бұрын
Great stuff! I would have liked to see an explanation of what is actually happening (and why it happens) when a VHS machine “eats” a tape. You touched on it briefly, but it also would have been neat to see a comparison of the “pause quality” between machines with different numbers of heads. Would also have been interesting to get a little more in depth with “tracking”, how it started out with the need for manual adjustment and how it evolved to automatic.
@flat_stickproductions209
@flat_stickproductions209 Жыл бұрын
As always, for those of us interested in learning how things work, you make great content.
@DeanandLisa1803
@DeanandLisa1803 7 жыл бұрын
Be kind please rewind 😃
@leifvejby8023
@leifvejby8023 7 жыл бұрын
You made me think of a dvd rewinder I saw somewhere! X-)
@0Myles0
@0Myles0 7 жыл бұрын
Do millennials even know what "Rewind" even means? lol
@PsylomeAlpha
@PsylomeAlpha 7 жыл бұрын
0Myles0 yes. millennials are people who were born in the 80s and 90s. people who came of age in the 00s.
@MaryStewart
@MaryStewart 7 жыл бұрын
to err is human, to rewind is divine
@dennisneo1608
@dennisneo1608 7 жыл бұрын
NO! >:(
@DECCAS8
@DECCAS8 7 жыл бұрын
Always wondered why the drum in a VCR was on a slant like that, no idea it had so much engineering behind it!
@stephensnell5707
@stephensnell5707 5 ай бұрын
Well you now know why
@edinfific2576
@edinfific2576 Жыл бұрын
Loved the transition to actual VHS tape quality and the shot of this video on a classic TV. You really make your videos a slight work of art.
@ItsaRomethingeveryday
@ItsaRomethingeveryday 4 жыл бұрын
I really like how precise and clear that you did a break down on this, I've been fixing and restoring this wonderful machines for decades and still have numerous units still in use to this day, my friend's and co workers always bring me these things to repair for them, Big Like on your vid!!!
@tjnickles4782
@tjnickles4782 6 жыл бұрын
I still use my vcr to this day
@enzoperruccio
@enzoperruccio 6 жыл бұрын
Tj Nickles X2. Black and white movies and a 40 tape stack of home made recordings of tv programmes i found in the trash is my go to media. Usually a family video also shows up to the party. VHS is an awesome format that sadly isnt appreciated as it should today, if people just knew the ammount of engineering that went to create the format and the machines. Have you ever worked on a vcr? I did, and let me tell ya, having to sync an entire mechanism from zero is not fun at all. Take care of your vcr, theyre time bombs that could fail at any moment. As i always say, never talk about how good a vcr is still working, it can be the last time you say it.
@danagibbs3265
@danagibbs3265 6 жыл бұрын
I still have VCRs and a bunch of tapes
@tjnickles4782
@tjnickles4782 6 жыл бұрын
Dana Gibbs What brands of tapas do you by I like Kodak and Polaroid and there’s a couple other brand I like to buy and use
@coydog7902
@coydog7902 6 жыл бұрын
Same
@autogolazzojr7950
@autogolazzojr7950 6 жыл бұрын
I have lots of tapes but no vcr. Every year we get lots of vhs players donated for kids to take apart. Maybe I'll get one working and rip video off the tapes.
@altoticket
@altoticket 6 жыл бұрын
This is an AMAZING video, congratulations for the awesome research and superb storyline on the video itself. Thanks.
@charlie_nolan
@charlie_nolan 3 жыл бұрын
I love the sound of spinning VCR heads. It’s so calming and cool.
@matthewalexander9343
@matthewalexander9343 Жыл бұрын
Reminds me of my childhood growing up.. I’m only 15 but it brings back so much because it amazed me when I was like 5
@magdalenazivkovic4173
@magdalenazivkovic4173 2 жыл бұрын
im amazed at the consistent high quality of your videos. they're interesting, informative and enjoyable.
@MsMadLemon
@MsMadLemon 7 жыл бұрын
Fantastic video, I learned a lot about VHS, I've been binge watching your videos, they are excellent!
@estherp4867
@estherp4867 5 жыл бұрын
Thanks for this! I'm doing research on VCRs for a creative project, and this was a perfect explanation on how the technology works, and why it was so revolutionary for the time.
@DIY-valvular
@DIY-valvular 3 жыл бұрын
This lecture remembers me the very first lesson of the VHS repair training course that I take at the legendary Ce.Ar.Tel (Centro Argentino de Televisión) in the early 1990's. I was an engineering student in my early 20's in that times. I repaired thousends of those machines along over fifteen years. Years of near poorness and hapiness.
@user-fz3xt7el3p
@user-fz3xt7el3p 4 жыл бұрын
I admire and appreciate how well researched and how well thought your videos are. Thank you.
@PhilipStephens007
@PhilipStephens007 7 жыл бұрын
EXCELLENT!!!!. I am so glad there are people from a younger generation who realize the amazingness of older technology. Today us dinosaurs (and I am only 55) are considered technologically ignorant , until one starts to try and explain some of the old technology to some kid, and then our intelligence shines. I have a friend of only a few years older than me who edited video by literally physically cutting and splicing the tape. I graduated a couple years later to having 1 second editing accuracy but tape to tape, then studied TV production and had computer controlled tape editing, to 4 frames accuracy. I worked in a TV station with Uband tapes and then finally went digital. I just did a VHS transfer for a friend a week or two ago. The tape was from the early 90s, wouldn't work...but with a finger placed in just the right place (for a couple hours without moving it) and we rescued history.!
@cyansius3950
@cyansius3950 5 жыл бұрын
I mean, to be fair the majority of people who are over 40 do not understand newer technology at anywhere near the levels of the younger generation. That being said, there is a major difference from a user's perspective and an engineers perspective. While I am not saying VHS is unimpressive in terms of technology, especially considering that for more than 5,000 years nobody had the ability to record network television; but if we look at today's HDD the head can differentiate on such a small scale that quantum effects start to mess with it. Then we have computing and understanding how the data-path works in the respective processor, how instructions are stored in hex, and much much more than that and more than I am willing to get into for this comment; and I will point out that as a CSE major, nothing he said in this video remotely tripped me up or was foreign to me and I understood all the technical terms, but keep in mind that I am an engineer and the average user isn't going to have the knowledge to talk on an engineering level so its probably going to sound more impressive and advanced to them because they don't really have a grasp on how much more advanced the systems that go into today's technology are. What I am trying to say is this; you sound like someone who has a technical background, and for that reason you know how much more impressive the technology from yesterday is than the average person prior to watching this video. I also have a technical background, and I know that older technology is impressive in its own right, but when you tried to argue that the newer generation sees your generation as technologically illiterate and claim that obviously isn't the case because engineers and technicians existed back then, it doesn't make sense because most of the time the older generation is completely lost when it comes to newer technology from a user standpoint and engineers and technicians are a unique case. I could not count the amount of times older people ask me to help them on something on a user level, and this is where that stereo type of older generations not being as good with technology comes from, but I can still bury people from my own generation with my technical knowledge, and I would suspect an engineer from the 80s or 90s could do the same, but it isn't talking about the same thing; the younger generation is on average, much better at using technology than the older generation, and just because an engineer managed to wrap miles of tape into something doesn't change the fact that from a user level the older generation often is less capable when it comes to tech than the younger generation. Newer tech is more impressive in terms of how much we can pack into it, which is to be expected, but none the less, I enjoy looking at older solutions to problems, even though we are now years ahead of those solutions. I get irked when people act like nobody from an older generation can understand newer technology, but I also get irked by people from an older generation acting like what was achieved back then is still the greatest thing ever and that newer technology isn't more impressive because of x, y or z. There is no reason for the young to insult the intelligence of the old, and there is no reason for the old to insult the intelligence of the young.
@Kaiwala
@Kaiwala 5 жыл бұрын
I was born only in 2002 yet i clearly and vividly remember owning a VCR with multiple VHS tapes, one of our most prized tapes being the original star wars trilogy. Sadly these have been lost to time, which is upsetting since i actually want to watch the originals again in all their glory.
@danyf3116
@danyf3116 5 жыл бұрын
Now to be fair, there is the other older crowd who continues to evolve with the technology. I am of that generation. What I don't like of today's technology is the fragility of it compared to say, PhilipStephens007's time (which is mine also.) Take a car radio of my time when I was 12 years old, and these things were tanks. Ok, they just played music and if you had the money, you could get FM as well. We didn't. We had a good old AC Delco AM only. But the distance it could pull stations compared to my car radio today, what a joke. Reason? Today's technology is getting smaller and smaller and by doing so, what makes the magic happen is lost. In this case, traces on boards and components. Minimal voltage required means we can't supply to much amplification in circuits. Open the AC Delco and some traces are as wide as 1/4 inch and the thickness of it is high as well. Another thing that is sad about today's technology is that it may advance too quickly. Why not fix and make sure something is dully working and safe before releasing it out to the open? In this case, software. Don't charge me money on a product that I have to buy and beta test for you when you release patch after patch in the same month. Also my generation compared to yours differs as things were built to last. We didn't have to learn how to operate what replaced what had just broken cause it would be a few years if not decades, between them. That's why mom and pop didn't want to upgrade to the next best thing. They were happy with what they had. In this case, I'm talking about TV's. Again, I have always been on the forefront of technology thanks to parents that liked the weird and wonderful gadgets as they came out. TV's were one of them. I have seen the slow build of sizes while at my parents so the above line didn't apply to them. I bought my first HDTV 15 years ago. It was so new then that I had a resolution that nobody even knew then. 576i. Talk about primitive!!! 15 years later, we are now with 4K TV's, 8K are already out-phased, yet we can't even have an OTA from ALL TV stations to send 1080p signal. Even cable is lacking in that department. Let alone 4K, don't think 8K OTA is for tomorrow. By then, PhilipStephens007 and I will be long gone and you will be the new older generation and your kids will make fun of you with their holographs when you talk to them about 1080p!!!! The generation I actually blame is the one below yours. They have NO clue whatsoever of how things got to where we are today. I know as I worked in a school for over 12 years. If I showed them something that they used to day that started in a totally different form from my time, they made fun of it. Rude as if during my tech time, they hadn't invented it, it might have skipped their generation. So as you can see, we are all new techies that slowly turn into dinosaurs. Your turn will come and get it. We all go through it. ;) LOL
@TheRealColBosch
@TheRealColBosch 5 жыл бұрын
@@Kaiwala Look for a good LaserDisc player. The best-quality, original-cut Star Wars films are on LaserDisc, and really aren't that expensive. I've seen New Old Stock, in the shrinkwrap, standard-speed (CAV: the one you want, with the best picture quality and perfect freeze frames) copies going for $30-$45 per film. If you're okay with CLV "extended play," then you can find them MUCH cheaper, perhaps $10/film, but you'll lose out on the nifty LaserDisc trick play features. There is also a THX-remastered Definitive Edition boxed set, which goes for about $100-$150 and is fully CAV speed. Just be careful, as the Special Editions were also released on LaserDisc, and you'll want to avoid the Japanese releases unless you want hard-coded subtitles. Personally, and this may be nostalgia talking, I think the Original Trilogy films look best in standard definition. Modern Blu-Ray pressings - besides being of the godawful Special Editions - look strange, thanks to whatever method was used to convert the 35mm film to HD.
@Kaiwala
@Kaiwala 5 жыл бұрын
Hmm sounds interesting. I don't really mind the video quality of the films though, so i'd much rather get it digitally or a CD at least because i don't really have access to laser disc players or the like. OR i could just try and find my old tapes and pull out the VCR but i doubt i'd have much luck lol.
@KhazWolf
@KhazWolf 5 жыл бұрын
I really appreciate this explanation, I remember being confused by the slanted head but never really gave it much thought. I'm astounded by the brilliant engineering that went into designing this machine.
@wmilberry
@wmilberry 5 жыл бұрын
I grew up with and feel pretty nostalgic about many of the analog things you do such a great job explaining and presenting. Thank you for this channel and your excellent, excellent videos!
@lospoutsos8719
@lospoutsos8719 Жыл бұрын
I realize this is an older video but I think your presentation was A+. We may have better video quality today but, overall, the quality of the content is suffering greatly. It really makes you wonder what we've accomplished.
@stephensnell5707
@stephensnell5707 5 ай бұрын
You mean realise
@joeb2588
@joeb2588 6 жыл бұрын
The VCR was...is the greatest. I thought Matsushita made VCR's were the most reliable and built really well.
@robertwhite6203
@robertwhite6203 4 жыл бұрын
joe b Matsushita electric owned Panasonic & Techincs stereo equipment & quasar . They one of Japan’s largest electrincs firms . Panasonic built some of vcrs & very reliable . & you can google Matsushita electric on line !
@TARDIB
@TARDIB 4 жыл бұрын
Robert White well that makes sense why the Panasonic made cdrs my friend was getting in the mid 90s said Panasonic but came up as the company name you mentioned. I sure wish we would have waited just a few years later as prices heavily dropped when CD burners came mainstream in America.
@airborne2876
@airborne2876 5 жыл бұрын
I remember when I was a kid, I always looked into my VCR, and thought that the video head was broken, but the VCR still worked, so I never did anything; but when the VCR would mess up, I always hit the top of the VCR, thinking it would bump the head back into place lol.
@spvillano
@spvillano 3 жыл бұрын
And to think, I used to fix those damned things for a living. And LaserDisc and DVD players and CD players... Then, the price started dropping and I saw the handwriting on the wall, jumped to computers and networked systems, the rest is history. Still comes in handy for when something breaks on a holiday weekend, as I know how to repair switch mode power supplies to component level, still have a solder station, meter and oscilloscope. Although, after replacing a probe, I had to remember how to properly tune the replacement probes...
@abpsd73
@abpsd73 3 жыл бұрын
@@spvillano A friend of mine did electronic repairs for a while. As electronic things approached the "throw away" stage, he got out of the business. When parts/labor cost more than a new replacement, it's hard to justify keeping the old outdated one.
@tlaroche38
@tlaroche38 3 жыл бұрын
@@spvillano laserdisc repair eh?? Funnily enough I just bought a pair of Philips VLP 600s which (unsurprisingly) don't work and am going to attempt to fix them!! Don't suppose you'd fancy giving me some pointers? Never worked on one before so don't even know where to begin really!!
@chrissavage5966
@chrissavage5966 4 жыл бұрын
Just came across this. Thank you for doing such a good job of explaining the format for the uninitiated! I started work as a broadcast engineer back in 1981 and spent a large part of my time working in VT. When I joined, we had a mix of Ampex VR-2000 quad machines and VPR-2 helical scan machines. We used a lot of the 'domestic' and non-broadcast cassette formats too, U-matic, high-band U-matic, that sort of thing. One machine that always made my day when I had to work on it was the Ampex VPR-20. Those clever chaps managed to cram all the necessary bits into a small enough package to make a portable 1" C format machine. I spent many, many hours nursing those machines. The quad machines in particular required constant tending.
@hrnekbezucha
@hrnekbezucha 5 жыл бұрын
And you never get a clean picture when the tape is paused because the whole image isn't available to both the heads.
@Ballowax
@Ballowax 4 жыл бұрын
That's becuase every frame of video on VHS is an interlaced feild since VHS is an anoluge home video format that runs in 480i
@catonthemoon2084
@catonthemoon2084 4 жыл бұрын
With a 4 head player you could
@nexusxe
@nexusxe 3 жыл бұрын
@@catonthemoon2084 A frame buffer would also do the trick
@Thegonagle
@Thegonagle 3 жыл бұрын
@@nexusxe When talking about what was possible at an affordable price in a consumer machine in the 80's, putting 4 heads in the spinny part was a much more practical solution.
@stephensnell1379
@stephensnell1379 3 жыл бұрын
@@Ballowax you mean Analogue
@volljoseph
@volljoseph 7 жыл бұрын
You sir deserve FAR MORE subs than currently have. I've added my count and I encourage all others to do the same. Well done and best of luck with the channel!
@joshuacook275
@joshuacook275 7 жыл бұрын
You taught me something in an interesting and understandable way. Subscribed
@PushingThroughThePain
@PushingThroughThePain 3 жыл бұрын
Oh! My! Goodness!!! THANK YOU for making this video!!! As a Xennial, having grown up in the 80's and 90's, and having been a HUGE A/V geek, I have to say that I have always wondered about this! You answered SO MANY lingering questions I have had... I was especially blown away by the idea of DIGITAL VHS! Oh how I wish I had known... Thank you again for this vid and your channel! I'm hooked 😁👍👍
@soylentpie
@soylentpie 4 жыл бұрын
fascinating info and incredibly thorough! thanks so much. i recently acquired a vcr and discovered the tape head drum to be curiously mounted diagonally. i had no idea such an interesting story was behind its design.
@HistoryandFacts
@HistoryandFacts 5 жыл бұрын
Excellent, amazing video. I used to repair VCRs for more than 10 years in my workshop
@MrDehicka
@MrDehicka 7 жыл бұрын
Kudos for wearing anti VHS jacket!
@DanHarkless_Halloween_YTPs_etc
@DanHarkless_Halloween_YTPs_etc 6 жыл бұрын
Moiré city! 😵
@ilnicco
@ilnicco 6 жыл бұрын
MrDehick
@willmich1
@willmich1 6 жыл бұрын
Looks like his jacket is aliasing
@Canabees1090
@Canabees1090 6 жыл бұрын
explain_?
@sindrehansen9647
@sindrehansen9647 6 жыл бұрын
Alvaro Rodriguez The pattern on his jacket works horrible with VHS quality
@cequiestbon3676
@cequiestbon3676 4 жыл бұрын
I honestly learn a lot from you, from your old content to your new I’ve never subbed I’m sorry I just finally realized you were worth, I truly love your voice and the soothing ness from your tone while explaining such a complicated subject
@Vgp-rp4iu
@Vgp-rp4iu 5 жыл бұрын
Man I remember our first our vcr when I was a kid. It must have been a late 70s or early 80s model because one thing I do remember about it was the "remote". Well not really a remote but actually just a switch that said "pause" and "rec" and it was attached to a 20ft cord that plugged into the vcr so when you are recording a show off tv you would have to switch the little switch to "pause" during commercials then back to rec when the show came back on. I always wanted to control the switch but my dad wouldn't let me lol.
@rafasimsim
@rafasimsim Жыл бұрын
+1!!😂 😂 😂 😂
@coffeestainedwreck
@coffeestainedwreck 5 жыл бұрын
11:54 Nostalgia at the snap of the fingers.
@shootmcrunfast
@shootmcrunfast 7 жыл бұрын
Excellent video, really enjoyed that. I always wondered why the drum was at such a funky angle.
@terenceokane
@terenceokane Жыл бұрын
WOW to that segment where you displayed the levels of VHS quality. Such incredible attention to detail! Thanks!
@MrWeedWacky
@MrWeedWacky Жыл бұрын
I am an electronics mechanic, and even though I know much of what you say, there are always details beyond my own knowledge base. I love your content, you have an excellent way of presenting information and I am gripped every time, thank you!
@glaceRaven
@glaceRaven 3 жыл бұрын
Watching in late 2020, and this was quite the nostalgia trip. It brought back a flood of memories of watching VHS tapes from my childhood. It also tells me how much of those memories of it were nostalgia. It's really interesting to see the inner workings of something I'd never even thought about. Amazing as usual! ^.^ also is it weird to find the VHS sound quality almost relaxing?
@ricknelsonm
@ricknelsonm 7 жыл бұрын
You are Brilliant, this is one of your talents
@lordkayx
@lordkayx 4 жыл бұрын
Its amazing how many people have viewed this video. Still shows people are endlessly curious. That goes for me as well. Thanks!!!
@victorrice4549
@victorrice4549 3 жыл бұрын
Just started following your channel, all your episodes are amazing!
@video99couk
@video99couk 6 жыл бұрын
Don't forget Beta also went digital. The professional version of Betamax was Betacam, and the digital version of that, Digital Betacam, was a huge hit with every TV studio in the world. Professional versions of VHS hardly got off the ground. It's fair to say that Sony made more money from Beta than anyone ever did from VHS.
@LinearBob
@LinearBob 6 жыл бұрын
The Betacart was THE "money machine" in most TV stations because it played all of the commercials and news stories, and used the same Beta cassette as the home Beta machines did, although the tape format was much different and the tape moved through the transport much faster so true broadcast quality video came from those machines. The average Beta cassette was only good for 20 minutes in the broadcast format, but I can assure you that Sony sold a lot of Betacart machines to TV stations around the world (once they made machines that could handle those 3 mutually incompatible color encoding systems; NTSC, PAL, and SECAM).
@SteveM1998
@SteveM1998 5 жыл бұрын
Digital Betacam is still alive and well as the best physical archival format for SD television. It’s successor, HDCam and HDCamSR use the almost same cartridge as DigiBeta (the larger variant) and is still the professional delivery method of 1080p programming on tape. Some of their decks, which only recently ceased production, are backwards compatible with DigiBeta.
@NUCLEARARMAMENT
@NUCLEARARMAMENT 5 жыл бұрын
@@SteveM1998 I'm very poor and all I can afford to shoot on is the old standard definition, professional VCR formats made by Sony, such as Betacam (1982), Betacam SP (1986), Digital Betacam (1993), Betacam SX (1996), and MPEG IMX (2001). I bought an HDCAM SR (2003) portable VCR recently and some tapes, but I have no camera that can record to it as I only possess standard definition cameras.
@londislagerhound
@londislagerhound 5 жыл бұрын
Digital Betacam was a revelation. Suddenly we could use multiple passes at an edit without quality loss. Before then the only digital device available to me as an editor was an Abekas A66 with just 30 seconds of record time.
@tomcal25
@tomcal25 5 жыл бұрын
@@londislagerhound D-1 would have given you multiple passes and longer recording time. It was around before Digi-Beta and was also a component recorder vs composite. Expensive machine but well worth it for editing and graphics.
@sjogosPT
@sjogosPT 7 жыл бұрын
Wow....when you record on VHS, the video appears to be recorded in 80s for real, and with your clothes better!. Very nice.
@MrNateSPF
@MrNateSPF 7 жыл бұрын
You trolling or did you actually think reality was in a lower definition in the 80s?
@Dream0Asylum
@Dream0Asylum 7 жыл бұрын
Of course the '80s were in a lower resolution, but at least it wasn't the '50s. Those poor bastards had to walk around in black&white.
@MrNateSPF
@MrNateSPF 7 жыл бұрын
Well they were b&w for a while, but switched to color after having a good orgasm (or whatever tf Pleasentville was about).
@Rusty_B_And_The_Gang
@Rusty_B_And_The_Gang 7 күн бұрын
Thank you for explaining how analog video is recorded. Fascinating stuff.
@ronnieaux5290
@ronnieaux5290 5 жыл бұрын
Best technology channel on KZfaq, hands down. And I've seen almost all of them. Keep up the great work!
@stragulus
@stragulus 5 жыл бұрын
Great video! I never thought about the signal transfer between the rotating heads and the stationary drum. Very inventive solution. I have the same RCA VCR, I love that clunky beast. Sadly on mine, the tape tension mechanism is broken. I have another similar model that I restored which does fully work and has a like-new set of video heads. The picture quality on a CRT is still surprisingly enjoyable to watch.
@phobos2k2
@phobos2k2 5 жыл бұрын
I remember learning about this in a video production class I took in school in the 90's. God I'm getting old.
@ponyrescue663
@ponyrescue663 3 жыл бұрын
Very well spoken in this video. You had no repeats of what you already explained and you continued moving forward after each piece of information covered
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