Try to sell it for a while now. Is there no market in germany, or is something wrong with this version?

I couldnt test it on a Display yet. But it takes Power, the Winding works, and every Counter/Display works seemingly fine.

So got this SL-HF870D for about $30. It initially was broken because someone plugged it into 220V which blew the fuse and a capacitor which I easily replaced. Initially it didn't display anything so immediately i cleaned the video heads and the audio heads and it finally showed something. Though I'm worried about the lines, did i accidentally break the heads? Or is that normal for an old tape? The other tape I do have the bottom line though still has those "lines". But then when I stop the tape, sometimes instead of just static i get kind of like a weird "revving" sound. It stops when it plays a tape however.

Is there specific 'Betacam' tape deck cleaning cassettes, specifically designed for the Betacam family of systems, players, models & evolutions of the general Betacam format?
Do I need specific tapes for specific players/formats, or could I use an old 'Betamax' cleaning cassette? I know Betamax & Betacam are the same general loading mechanism/technology but different so far as the actual tapes & play back.

I have a massive archival project I'm soon to be inheriting of 800+ Betacam tapes & other similar video tape formats. Some of the tapes are in ruff condition, so I'll be attempting to demold later on (The sooner the better ofc), but before I do, whatever tape deck I can get my hands on, I would like to properly clean before I stick anything in it's 'slot'.

From photos I can find online, the 'cleaning' cassettes I can find all don't look like what I'm used to with VHS or Betamax. Which would have a loop of white cloth of some kind, wrapped around inside the cassette shell either on a never ending loop, or a set length. You add you cleaning compound, insert the tape, wait a bit, & it spits it out.
But from photos I can find for Betacam cleaning cassettes don't look like they have that?? They look just like a regular tape. So did Sony sell just blank cassette's as 'cleaning' cassettes for all the gunk on the heads to just get rubbed on & then once you reached the end of the tape people just threw it out..?

I've manually cleaned the heads on my VHS & Betamax VCR's before many a times, but being Betacam is such a different animal, I don't know if it's suggested & or even safe to use that same method with Betacam, or I would need these specific cleaning cassettes.

Any advise & or leads would be appreciated, thanks!

This was a deck that my late father had new and I got repaired and wasn’t sure if it could even record…and to my amazement it does!

Had an older Scotch tape lying around with nothing recorded on it to test - recorded at Beta II speed with Beta Hi-Fi. Recorded off my MacBook using a HDMI to composite/S-Video adapter, then composite to the Lexicon DC-1. Source is from the WeatherStar 4000+ app so this was actual weather data from the time I recorded this over the weekend.

The DC-1 is really flexible as you can then feed in the audio from either RCA or using the coaxial or optical in ports even if the audio is not coming from the video source, so I pulled appropriate music for the WeatherStar 4000+ and played it over a WiiM Pro streamer feeding into coax into the DC-1. Wound up sounding awesome in Hi-Fi, better than my older Panasonic Hi-Fi deck!

i working on a sanyo VCR7200 HiFi beta deck. i replaced the idler tires, and all 3 belts. the idler belt, the loading belt, and the spooling belt. yet when i stop a tape the right spool is not spinning or if it does it only spins a second to pull tape back in. i remove both spindles and lubricated with ptfe oil for the shafts. i also replaced the pinch roller and arm. still not pulling tape back in. any suggestions are welcome. below is 2 videos showing issue. the first of the 2 is embedded.

https://youtu.be/Dx2AUqWBEq8

https://youtu.be/ifbgkKS1UNk

According to a popular myth, Betamax lost out to VHS because of adult content - in reality, it was down to tape length, and licensing.

Only $1/each. Some even are sealed! Only 1 VHS in the lot.

As you can see by the numbers the Betamax archive is very small compared to VHS. If anyone is interested in contributing there are now multiple case type options and our scanning tool is top notch making it easier and faster than ever. Still totally free.

Push tape in and it won’t take it then makes this noise

Cross posting here since I think you guys might be able to help. Don't know what I should put in my case and where to have a full outfit. Don't even know what tape recorded I need but I think the case originally had a SL-2000 at some point since it has white/gray shoulder straps.

Hey all! Just joined this sub as I saw something at an estate sale that almost made me faint. A SuperBetamax VCR for only $10 bucks! I also got two sealed tapes for a dollar. I'm waiting to test it as I'm gonna see what's rattling around inside (the door perhaps), but I'm completely new to the format. I'm curious, is there anything I should do preemptively before even trying to plug it in to power?

Thanks!

Hello! I have a small project where I restore memories from people, homemade footage on tape and digitize it. I am aware that there was a Betamovie, a camcorder for Betamax.

However, whenever I receive like 15 VHS tapes, at least one of them is a TV show and the rest are home movies, same with Video 8, for example.

But whenever I get lots of Betamax, none of them are home movies. I am talking about 30 tapes from 5 different people, where all of them are TV shows and I actually had to look up if there actually were Betamax camcorders in first place.

But I don't know if this is just a coincidence or bias and people did make home movies on Betamax that often too.

I have a Sony SL-HF400 and noticed these horizontal lines during playback. I cleaned the head but they’re still there. Tried different tapes. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Paid 15 bucks for this at a little video store i a small town. Old stock in the back room. No idea if I got a good deal or not.

About a decade ago I came across a very nice looking SL-5800 that unfortunately didn’t work. Gorgeous piece of kit though. And a real beast of a machine. I figured it was just belt issues, ordered a belt kit (from Australia! More on this later) and it kinda sat in my basement as a project for a rainy day.

That came this week. I had a look at it and tore down the unit pretty far, following along with a guide on YouTube. I found that the belt kit I ordered did not include several of the belts I needed, and had several that didn’t seem to match anything in my unit at all - turns out the Australian belt kit may have been for a PAL variant of the machine.

Well anyway, I replaced what belts I could, but it didn’t seem to help much. Machine loads tape (occasionally a little sluggish) however play, fast forward, and rewind all do absolutely nothing. It seems as if the motor driving the capstan may be seized. I couldn’t detect any movement out of it. I honestly couldn’t tell any issues with the machine aside from that.

I think I’ve reached the limits of my abilities with the machine so I put it back together and put it away in the basement again. I’d really like to see it running again though - and possibly even tap it for archival RF capture of beta tapes, eventually.

Is there anyone you can recommend to have a look at this unit and see what may be up with it?

i feel like most people here know that beta in the end wasn't better than vhs since beta 2 became the standard BUT i think that video 8 could have won its so insanely small yet has quality comparable to vhs if they just made it a little bigger (120->140) it could have succeeded especially since it came out mid 80s.HI-8 too it came late but was mini s-vhs. id say digi-8 but dvd was too powerful. thoughts?

Hello everyone! Bit of a different request, but I acquired a large collection of vintage pornography tapes from the Leather Archives Museum in Chicago. I'm looking to transfer all these tapes to digital, however there are several beta tapes that I do not have a player for.

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If anyone has a Betamax deck I could borrow for a weekend, that would be an amazing help! Thank you :)

Anyone have any idea WHY some tapes use standard Phillips and others use these weird screw types.

Anyone know what these are called?? I have a 45 piece screwdriver set for opening up electronics and nothing matches

Thank you !