Tony Duell skrev:
>> >Do you have an N1500. I remember seeing one in a London shop in 1972-ish
>> >and dreaming of getting one. Now, 28 years later, I have a couple of
>> >them, working (of course), and the service manual. It's actually quite an
>> >interesting design both mechanically and electronically.
>>
>> Is this a "VCR" system?
>That depends on what you mean by 'VCR system' (and Philips themselves
>changed the meaning a few times).
Pre-Video2000 arcane square cassette home video system.
Of course, Philips quickly discarded the PV2KASCHVS acronym for the catchier
VCR, or so my sources claim.
>The N1500 casssette is almost square, and has the 2 spools stacked one on
>top of the other, with a concentric drive spindle in the machine to turn
>them separately. One result of this is that the head disk is almost
>parallel to the deck, since the tape is naturally slanted to go between
>the 2 spools.
I find the ?eta cassette very elegant, due to its size, as well as the one
large window.
>Later Philips machines (the Video 2000 series) also had a 'VCR' logo on
>them.
I didn't know that. I think I'll have to look closer the next time I find such
a machine, then.
>The tapes for these are little larger than VHS cassettes, and have
>2 spools side by side. The cassettes can be inserted either way up, like
>an audio compact cassette. And like an audio compact cassette, you record
>on one side, flip the tape over and record on the other side.
Yes, that's really handy. 480 minutes on one cassette in SP, I'd like that
very much, thank you. OTOH, I've got a Sony Betacam cassette sporting the
numbers 500 here (I haven't got a recorder to test it, it's just for pre-
emptive pruposes). Could it really hold 500 minutes on such a single-sided,
miniscule cassette?
>The electronics, though is rather complicated. Part of this is due to the
>fact that the machines are old enough that there weren't single-chip
>ASICs for many functions -- there are a lot of fairly simple chips and a
>couple of microcontrollers inside. The electronics is all plug-in cards,
>with functions like IF strip, audio, luminance, chrominance, tape servo,
>head servo, timer, tuner control, etc. Yes I do have the service manual.
Ooh, I love plug-in architectures in home electronics. Once disassembled a 70s
TV with such an architecture (How my grandmother let me, I wouldn't know. High
currents, vacuum and an 11 year-old boy can cause a lot of trouble).
But wasn't V2000 a tad late in the race? IIRC, it came in '82, when home video
was rapidly becoming popular, and there was already an established user base
and infrastructure for other systems, primarily VHS. Certainly, it seems to
have been technologically superior, but it should have been released earlier.
>> I wouldn't be able to collect old videos as well, they don't lend
>> themselves very well to stacking, what with the cassette entry at the top.
>Well, you can stack them when you're not using them :-)
Does anyone manufacture modern V2k systems? =)
BTW, when I bought my record player (a year ago), the old man in the shop
still had unopened VCR cassette for sale. Good to know when you get a
recorder.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6.
"Real life is full of idiots, and tons of ads. I don't see how IRC is any
different, other than a lot more people want to have sex with you."
-- m3000
Received on Wed Dec 13 2000 - 17:42:52 GMT