Thanks for the comment. Yeah the 3300 was the first one that was available in the UK. The pause is mechanical on those ones so you can't have it remote operated. I had the ferguson equivalent, the 3292, years ago but got rid of it when it developed a fault, I didn't know anything about repairing them at that time. The head switching point was half way up the screen. It would play its own tapes ok but prerecorded ones and ones recorded on it before the fault had the problem and ones it had recorded had that problem when played on other machines. I'm not sure what the proper term is for that phenomenon, I've not heard bearding before but it makes sense. Another term I've heard is spaghetti because it looks like picture has been dipped in a bowl of black spaghetti.

I've just had a look at the back of the HR3300 and there's no remote socket on that earlier model. The one I remember for the DER rental set was just a two position switch with REC/PLAY for one position and PAUSE for the other. I wonder how many of those original remote controls have survived but being a simple switch it should be easy to make something up that would work. I should get the HR3300 out and see if it's still working. I did try it out a few years ago and it played a pre-recorded tape, but there was a bit of slight ghosting and noise on the edges of objects. It might be the RF modulator not being very compatible with a modern LCD TV. I need to find my old adapters so I can try the direct video output.

Is the cassette lamp on? A little light in the cassette compartment, it's used to detect the start and end of the tape. If it blows the machine won't do anything at all.

@@nowt1002 yes bud the cassette light is on it was playing with a bit of tracking problem at bottom of screen then it just wouldn’t do anything when I changed tapes could it be belts broken or slipped off as it was moved on a long journey before it reached me I was going to open I up and have a look ? Was going to ask if you do servicing on them I’d gladly pay and bring it to you as I really want it back to its former glory as it was my parents first video so it’s from my childhood

@@nowt1002 right I took casing off bottom and the head belt was off so put it back on and working again but the tracking is bad picture quality looks not to bad put it’s got the tracking lines at the bottom of screen no matter which way you turn the tracking knob also picture jumps a bit and when you record it’s got picture roll it’s obviously worth saving so was wondering if you could services properly for me to get it working at least so it’s watchable now that would be awesome Il pay of course 👍

Yeah definitely worth saving, they were the deluxe model at the time, better than the 3V22. It could be something simple like a bit of dirt on the tape path. I would try giving the tape path a clean and see if that improves things. You can do most of it with a cotton bud dipped in isopropyl alcohol. Just be careful of the heads, they are in the rectangular gaps in the upper rotating part of the head drum cylinder. Avoid those with the cotton bud as the fibres can get caught in them. If that doesn't solve the problem or if you're not confident to work on it I can have a look at it for you. You can email me nowt100video@gmail.com to discuss it.

@@nowt1002 thanks bud I really appreciate that il try the cotton bud cleaning first see if that sorts it if not il defo message you either way Il update you on situation