Guess that`s ORF (Austria).

@@drdolby1585 Most likely yes. ORF didn't display a logo permanently until the channels were renamed ORF 1 and ORF 2 in something like 1992, prior to that they only inserted "ORF" in the top right corner from time to time.

Now I have this image in my head of you and your wife watching an hour long video of Colin investigating and repairing this rare piece of kit... If I will ever have someone to call my wife this would be all I'd wish for!

Either you have a world standard or you leave it

It is also true that the Japanese were technically great but half of their success was strong Japanese protectionism and state interventionism with the famous MITI and the Japanese TV cartel of the 1960s. Without this, even with lower labour costs, Japanese companies would have collapsed. Because they were cutting the price of RTV equipment and 30-40% below the cost of production. And the Japanese taxpayer was paying for it. European and American companies were not perfect but with higher labour costs and too little protection they had to collapse. And Western societies, enamoured with cheap goods, did not understand the need to protect their consumer electronics manufacturers and regulate the flow of Asian products as the Asians did at home. Grundig himself has said this repeatedly.

DUMPING IS RULED ON JAPANESE TV'S WASHINGTON, March 4- The Tariff Commission ruled today that Japanese television sets were being sold in the United States at less than fair value and should be subject to spe cial dumping duties. The com mission said that as a result of the dumping domestic tele vision makers were being in jured. The ruling was a result of a Treasury Department finding last Dec. 4 that Japanese‐made TV, receivers, both black and white and color, were likely to be sold at less than fair value as defined in the Antidump ing Act. The Treasury finding Was made after an investiga tion initiated nearly three years ago, following complaints made by the Electronic Industries As sociation. Under present laws and pro cedures it is up to the Treasury Department to assess the magnitude of the injury to the domestic industry and to de termine how much additional duty should be imposed on TV sets imported from Japan. There is no referral of the Tariff Commission's decision to the President for approval or disapproval as in the “escape clause” cases brought by do mestic interests seeking an ad justment in tariff rates under provisions of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act. The United States imported 3.3 million sets valued at $255 million from Japan in 1970. The Japanese sets accounted for about three‐fourths of total United States imports of TV receivers last year. The domestic industry pro duced 7.8 million TV sets last year. Although the dollar value of American‐made sets shipped from makers in 1970 is not yet available, the Tariff Commis sion noted that in 1969 the domestic industry sold 8.9 mil lion sets valued at $1.9‐billion. Japanese Trade Group's View A Japanese trade group said yesterday that the commission's ruling would mainly injure the American consumer. In a statement, the Elec tronics Industries Association of Japan also asserted that Japanese exports of TV re ceivers to this country had been of the smaller‐screen va riety, in which it said domestic producers had shown no inter est until four years ago. The statement, released here by the Japan Light Machinery Information Center, went on to stress that “the Japanese com panies created a separate mar ket and produced sets to meet a consumer demand unfulfilled by the domestic producers. Editors’ Picks March 5, 1971, The New York Times.

@@janmos5178 But GRUNDIG is not the best example of this being due solely to unfair competition. Even before the development of SVC recorders, it should have been clear that the trend was towards cassettes that would not be damaged by the recorder. Video tape is much thinner than Super 8 film, and therefore unsuitable for storage at an angle on straight reels. With Video 2000, an agreement should have been reached with PHILIPS on the positioning of the sound head. I do not know whether market research was carried out to find out whether customers wanted to use the good CrO2 tape for better picture resolution, as with SuperBetaPRO, or to save Tape costs by using reversible cassettes. Turning cassettes requires precise planning and documentation, which the Germans seem to be good at. But there are other countries too😉. I also think it was a mistake to develop a video system just for Europe. Not everything was perfect with televisions either. The Preh power switches were not spring contact switches, and the blackened soldering nails for the deflection coil connectors led to circuit board fires. The television chassis launched in 1993 were actually intended for TOSHIBA picture tubes. PHILIPS, as co-owner, wanted to sell its own super flat picture tubes, which did not withstand the extreme high voltage (34.5 KV) used by our customers for long. In my Panasonic with normal high voltage (31.5 KV), the 63 cm PHILIPS super flat picture tube from France (WITHOUT X-ray approval, as the chassis was only tested with a 72 cm Panasonic picture tube from the former NOKIA factory in Esslingen) did not last 4 years either. I had specifically called Panasonic before buying it to ask what kind of picture tube was in it, but they must have told me the nonsense from the the X-ray approval. When I told my boss that GRUNDIG could no longer test all the picture tubes, he asked the truck driver where he was taking the picture tubes. Answer: glass recycling company in Dortmund🤣 All my Opinion😉

Really?! I didn't know that. I've just looked it up and seen some 'photos. It looks ghastly. I wonder if the recordings were interchangeable (at least in monochrome) with the SVR4004. Presumably they bought in at least some of the parts from Grundig, who possibly had too many spares.

@video99couk I have Spektr 205 in my collection. But it not working right now, one day may be. Its based on Spektr 203, which is just a VCR, a clone of Philips N1500. Spektr 205 is modification of 203 model with new motors and electronics. Its very not great. But i think it can play Grundig recordings, but in B/W.

​@@video99couk SVR can read recordings from Spektr-205, but there are some issues. At least PAL SVR is not compatible in terms of color-under frequency with SECAM SVR 4004 FR and Spektr (unlike the N1500 and Spektr-203, N1500 can read SECAM color, not ideally, but can). Also it is not clear if Y FM carrier on the tape is the same between SVR and Spektr. I've got weak picture from Spektr tape on PAL SVR without color. Will check with spectrum analyzer what is Y FM carrier frequency recorded on the Spektr's tape...

​@@video99couk also it is interesting, that Spektr has all the parts made in USSR, nothing was imported. Also it seems that it used heads with VCR-LP gap width (80um) instead of 50um.

I donated an N1481 to the Wireless Museum at Puckpool Park on the Isle Of Wight. Very rare machine.

@@video99couk Totally agree Colin, Very rare machines indeed. Grundig VCR-601 and VCR-621 and Philips LDL1100 are also very rare machines to keep in a collection of very rare VCRs, but they very hard to find. Seems that there are none around at all anymore. Thanks Colin...

Can barely hear the crispness between all those artifacts though.

I've been given some pointers regarding the audio fault, and weirdly, it might actually be a power supply problem.

Thank you for being an honest guy! 👍🤣

Doesn't N1700 (VCR-LP) use tilted azimuth heads? I'm pretty sure it does.

I think there may have been an unfortunate interaction with the capture device. Also the sharpness control got twiddled when the cabinet was re-assembled. But yes they can look better on a CRT too.

I also found it odd that two capacitors failed on the same line. Very odd. Somehow one may have taken out the other. I may go over the audio PCB and replace any capacitors that look at me with a bad attitude. I'm also wondering if the actual fault was not in the audio PCB but could be the MUTE signal. A bit difficult to trace now it's working. I've run the machine for about 5 hours with no further issues apart from a moment when the CPU seemed to go a little odd.

@@video99couk Keep up the good work. As you said, someone's got to look after these things. Hopefully your children will also learn to love this technology in time!

I got these two machines from very different locations, spaced about 15 years apart.

The problem with tantalum capacitors is they can't stand inrush current so shouldn't be used for decoupling.

That would be fantastic and would certainly help with working on my second of these machines. Please email me on colin@video99.co.uk and I'll provide postal address. I think all of these are German only.

Glad some people watch to the end. Yes I'm seriously considering it, especially since a kind viewer has sent me some higher resolution scans of the service manual, taking some of the guesswork out of it.

@@video99couk ...watched it till the end too 🙂

There is a £299 price sticker still on my machine too.

Maybe from the same offer then??

The Japanese were more reliable not only but also thanks to strong Japanese protectionism greater than in the West which enabled them to dump. And not just because of a purely technical advantage.

Working machines in the UK are astonishingly rare. I wonder how many working ones there are now, anywhere in the world, even less so ones with video output.

I plan to take the audio board and and just replace them all, there's not too many.

Hi! I can confirm too that audio problems can be caused by Philips blue axial capacitors.

I know. I suspect some kind of interaction between the video noise and the capture system.

@@video99couk Can confirm my machine doesn't have these (you mentioned these are rare...)

I think it was a biasing problem. The noise insertion was so great that it amplified even when improperly biased. I will re-cap the audio board in due course.

More seriously, capacitors regenerated or re primed

@@bubullenoiraude That was normal at the time, 90% of the time it went well. Nobody could have imagined that someone would start the device again in 45 years. Grundig had a very big problem in that its devices were used longer than planned. I had a number of radios repaired in the 1990s that were from the 70s. Most of the time the switch contacts were eaten away.

No, the picture quality is similar to VHS. The head speed was much higher than that of VHS, but the signal processing was limited to 3Mhz.

I've never worked on U-matic portables. You will have to work through the schematics to investigate the problem closely.

If I had such a machine, I would certainly work on it.

The only PAL EIAJ video (from Swiss television) that I know of. If you want to search for pictures, you can only enter National NV-5110 without A (for PAL) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h6h1ncR_0d-9ZKs.html

I plan to replace all the capacitors on the TON board shortly.

@@video99couk damn, you might not going to believe me... but my 2 SVR audio boards failed too. and it's not due to bad philips capacitors. one is making more or less the same as your did, but sound didn't came back. now it just "pop" while play is engaged, and "pop" a second later. very likely it go into mute mode. the second one is totally silent, no pop or anything. i highly suspect the LM387 to be dead on this one.

just to let you know, i confirm the totally silent board was a dead LM387. very likely it died just because its time has come.

It's hard to know because some recordings had poor TV reception. I think it was probably similar to V2000.

It was similar to VHS or Beta. To their times. I had all 3 systems and the picture quality of all three systems was very similar. It depended more on the specific models than on the system.

Not wishing to give too much away, but the service manual issues are likley to be at least partly resolved in a YT video soon.

The tape I demonstrated was not the customer tape. But yes, the customer tape was also TV programming.

I think there's also an economy of scale at play. The volumes of VHS and Beta machines from the major players, were vast. So the unit costs fell and the quality improved as they perfected very large volume manufacture. It wasn't just in Japan either. Sanyo made the UK's number one selling video recorder in 1983, in their UK plant. It was a Beta, VTC5000, and stunningly well built.

But GRUNDIG is not the best example of this being due solely to unfair competition. Even before the development of SVC recorders, it should have been clear that the trend was towards cassettes that would not be damaged by the recorder. Video tape is much thinner than Super 8 film, and therefore unsuitable for storage at an angle on straight reels. With Video 2000, an agreement should have been reached with PHILIPS on the positioning of the sound head. I do not know whether market research was carried out to find out whether customers wanted to use the good CrO2 tape for better picture resolution, as with SuperBetaPRO, or to save Tape costs by using reversible cassettes. Turning cassettes requires precise planning and documentation, which the Germans seem to be good at. But there are other countries too😉. I also think it was a mistake to develop a video system just for Europe. Not everything was perfect with televisions either. The Preh power switches were not spring contact switches, and the blackened soldering nails for the deflection coil connectors led to circuit board fires. The television chassis launched in 1993 were actually intended for TOSHIBA picture tubes. PHILIPS, as co-owner, wanted to sell its own super flat picture tubes, which did not withstand the extreme high voltage (34.5 KV) used by our customers for long. In my Panasonic with normal high voltage (31.5 KV), the 63 cm PHILIPS super flat picture tube from France (WITHOUT X-ray approval, as the chassis was only tested with a 72 cm Panasonic picture tube from the former NOKIA factory in Esslingen) did not last 4 years either. I had specifically called Panasonic before buying it to ask what kind of picture tube was in it, but they must have told me the nonsense from the the X-ray approval. When I told my boss that GRUNDIG could no longer test all the picture tubes, he asked the truck driver where he was taking the picture tubes. Answer: glass recycling company in Dortmund🤣 All my Opinion😉

@@TTVEaGMXde Now ask yourself how much more refined this equipment would be if European companies had such protection. Technical issues are one thing, and I'm not saying that these companies were perfect, but they had no normal competition, only Japanese fierce dumping. Many of the failures you mention are not lack of competence but lack of normal market relations. ‘Shout a clear stop to the Japanese!’ SPIEGEL interview with Grundig boss Hermanus Koning on the trade duel between Europeans and Japanese * 22/09/1985, 13.00 - from DER SPIEGEL 39/1985 SPIEGEL: European companies are always proud to emphasise that the proportion of labour costs in their production is less than ten percent. So it can hardly be down to wages if the Far East competition has been able to achieve an almost monopoly position on the world market for some products - such as video recorders, hi-fi equipment, watches or cameras. KONING: The Japanese have not achieved these positions solely on the basis of their performance, but through substantial support from the Japanese government. I'm thinking in particular of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, better known as Miti. SPIEGEL: Miti can at best be held responsible for the initial successes of Japanese exporters. Japanese exporters. In the meantime, it is no longer possible to recognise a front for the Japanese electronics industry that was firmly established by the Miti. KONING: Of course, the Miti's efforts to support the manufacturers and bring them together have become much smaller. Once you are so firmly in the saddle, you can loosen the reins. But when it comes to new technologies, the support of Miti is still of enormous importance. SPIEGEL: What are you thinking about here? KONING: Fibre optic technology, for example. The Japanese electronics company NEC and other companies received huge orders for fibre optic cables from the government. The government paid five marks per metre of fibre optic cable, although the real price was probably more like PIEGEL: Do you think the Bonn government should also do more for domestic companies? KONING: It should at least develop a greater awareness of the problems of European-Japanese trade relations. When I spoke to an official in the Ministry of Economics about this issue some time ago, he said: ‘But look how difficult it is for the Japanese, who have to live so far away from their homeland in Düsseldorf. Such an attitude borders on masochism. SPIEGEL: What do you think the German government or the EC Commission should do? KONING: The politicians should shout a clear stop to the Japanese, to show that things can't go on like this. If the European governments were to talk to the Japanese a little more clearly and harshly, then the Japanese would become more reasonable. Free translate from german language.

@@TTVEaGMXde PIEGEL: The Japanese already operate a whole series of video recorder factories in Europe, some of them even in co-operation with European companies. KONING: These are not real factories. They just assemble the kits imported from Japan. SPIEGEL: So the Japanese should not only have their final assembly here, but also buy components from European suppliers? KONING: Exactly, and the European added value in these factories would have to be at least 60 per cent. SPIEGEL: That means that 600 marks of a product costing a thousand marks to manufacture, for example, should have been spent in some way in Europe? KONING: That is correct. SPIEGEL: How high do you think the added value of Japanese factories in Europe is today? KONING: Definitely less than 20 per cent. SPIEGEL: What would be the consequences of such a regulation? Would video recorders from Japanese brands become more expensive? KONING: If the Japanese are efficient, their devices would ultimately be no more expensive in the shops than they are today. When making a costing comparison, you have to take into account that the additional costs due to the 60 per cent value added in Europe are offset by the elimination of 14 per cent customs duty. That's about 100 marks, based on an average invoice price of around 750 marks. Then the market would be fair. Then the Japanese could fight for market share under the same conditions as we do. All online. You know it's very convenient to look only from the benefits of the consumer and not see that the manufacturer also bears the costs.

@@TTVEaGMXde SPIEGEL: We don't have that impression. What problems does the entrepreneur Grundig have? GRUNDIG: The costs, for example. SPIEGEL: In your opinion, they are too high? GRUNDIG: Absolutely. We have a clear cost disadvantage compared to our Japanese competitors: including non-wage labour costs, we have to pay two and a half times as much as the Japanese for an hour's work. In addition, the Japanese receive considerable, sometimes well-hidden state subsidies. SPIEGEL: But you have been able to hold your own ... GRUNDIG: I haven't finished enumerating the competitive advantages. While the Europeans, and Germany in particular, are opening up their market to competitors from all over the world, the Japanese are largely closing themselves off. After all, we are talking about a market of almost 120 million people that is blocked for us. SPIEGEL: Why, you could export to Japan? GRUNDIG: Try that. There are so many trade barriers built in, so many import difficulties, that the business is hardly worthwhile. SPIEGEL: You could, for example, buy a factory in Japan and manufacture your appliances for the Japanese market there. GRUNDIG: That's not possible either: We wouldn't even get the necessary foreign exchange licence. Germany is gradually becoming the only country that is really liberal in its import policy. Even European countries such as France, Italy and England are blocking imports.PIEGEL: Do you think the German government's liberal stance is wrong? GRUNDIG: Definitely dangerous. We simply have to realise that the competitive situation is deteriorating more and more to our disadvantage. SPIEGEL: So you are in favour of import restrictions? GRUNDIG: This formulation goes too far for me. I just wonder whether we are doing well with our liberal commitment if our most important competitors are gradually closing off their markets. I believe that the European Community should occasionally review its position and revise it on certain points. If we carry on as we are, I cannot rule out that one day the number of unemployed will continue to rise. SPIEGEL: Do you think that your sector is also in danger, like the photographic industry before you? GRUNDIG: I'm afraid that can't be ruled out. Even today, apart from colour televisions, almost all cassette recorders and portable radios are manufactured in the Far East and sold under the German brand. Only Philips and we still build most of our products in Europe. SPIEGEL: The well-known manufacturers such as Blaupunkt and Telefunken or Nordmende also build their branded radios in the Far East? GRUNDIG: I don't want to gossip about my competitors. The fact is that the majority of competitors in Germany now almost exclusively produce colour televisions. We are now gradually coming to terms with the fact that many European companies from GRUNDIG: Ich will mich nicht über meine Konkurrenten verbreiten. GRUNDIG: I don't want to gossip about my competitors. The fact is that the majority of our competitors in Germany now almost exclusively produce colour televisions. We are now gradually coming to terms with the fact that many European companies are no longer able to produce in their own country for cost reasons. SPIEGEL: Your complaints sound rather snivelling: on the one hand you are announcing impressive growth rates for your own company. on the other hand you are worried about foreign competition, especially from Japan. GRUNDIG: That's not snivelling, you're wrong. If we didn't have the power of the Japanese competition against us, we wouldn't be under the cost pressure that we have seen for years. We could spend more money on research and development and on a range of other projects. Don't you think that a television retailer might need a better return on investment? SPIEGEL: He will probably want that. GRUNDIG: But that's not possible because of the competition, at least not for us. We build 1.5 million colour televisions a year, which are sold through thousands of dealers. More than meagre returns are not possible. SPIEGEL: Because the demand for colour televisions is gradually becoming saturated? GRUNDIG: GRUNDIG: Market saturation is one of those things. Shortly after the end of the war, I once met an acquaintance and asked what he was doing. He had produced defence equipment during the war. He told me that he had produced 5,000 saucepans a day after the end of the war. However, I said to myself: That's enough. Once everyone has their pot. But this friend's business is still going strong. ‘Perhaps I have worked harder’ 14.05.1978, 13.00 - from DER SPIEGEL 20/1978