fredriksam
Well-known member
Hi there my friends. I have recently gotten an old video recorder my family used to have. It broked down in 1991-92 and has been sitting in my parents basement collecting dust.
This video recorder is quite unique because its not VHS. Instead its a VCR, or rather SVR. These machines was made by Philips in Austria between 1971-1979. The model my parents had was the last one. Made in 1979.
Here i put some info about them:
"Video Cassette Recording (VCR) was an early domestic video format designed by Philips. It was the first successful home videocassette recorder system. Later variants included the VCR-LP and Super Video (SVR) formats.
The VCR format was introduced in 1972, just after the Sony U-matic format in 1971. Although at first glance the two might appear to have been competing formats, they were aimed at very different markets. U-matic was introduced as a professional format, whilst VCR was targeted particularly at educational but also domestic users.
Home video systems had previously been available, but they were open reel systems (most notably made by Sony) and were expensive to both buy and operate. They were also unreliable and often only recorded in black and white. The VCR system was easy to use and recorded in colour but was still expensive: the N1500 recorder cost nearly £600 in the United Kingdom when it was introduced in 1972, the equivalent of more than £4500 today.
The VCR format used large square cassettes with 2 co-axial reels, one on top of the other, containing half inch wide chrome dioxide magnetic tape. Three playing times were available: 30, 45 and 60 minutes. The 60-minute cassettes proved very unreliable, suffering numerous snags and breakages due to the very thin tape. The mechanically complicated recorders themselves also proved somewhat unreliable. One particularly common failing occurred should tape slack develop within the cassette; the tape from the top (takeup) spool may droop into the path of the bottom (supply) spool and become entangled in it if rewind was selected. The cassette would then completely jam and require dismantling to clear the problem, and the tape would then be creased and damaged.
The system predated the development of the slant azimuth technique to prevent crosstalk between adjacent video tracks, so had to use an unrecorded guard band between tracks. This required the system to run at a high tape speed of around 11.5 inches per second.
Despite its limitations, the Philips VCR system was groundbreaking and brought together many advances in video recording technology to produce the first truly practical home video cassette system.
VCR later evolved into a related format known as VCR-LP. This exploited slant azimuth to greatly increase the recording time. Although both formats used identical VCR cassettes, the recordings were incompatible between the two systems, and no dual-format recorders ever existed. Philips N1700, released in 1977, supported the VCR-LP format.
A later even longer-playing variant, Super Video (SVR) was manufactured by Grundig exclusively. SVR was designed to exclusively use BASF-manufactured chrome-dioxide tape in cassettes that were identical to the earlier Philips ones, with the exception of a small cut-out in the casing. This meant that only the BASF tapes would fit in SVR machines, but that such tapes could also be used in the older VCR and VCR-LP machines."
Now, the machine my parents had was a SVR and a few days ago when i was visiting them, they said they would throw away the machine.
I asked nicely if i could get it and they said yes. So i bringed it home and has been busy fixing it so it would work again. So far i havent been sucessfull, but i have taken some pics of it.
One very strange thing is that its written on germany on the controlls even if it was bought here in Sweden. Weird.
Anyway, here comes. The machine from above. The button in the middle is for picture sharpness.
This video recorder is quite unique because its not VHS. Instead its a VCR, or rather SVR. These machines was made by Philips in Austria between 1971-1979. The model my parents had was the last one. Made in 1979.
Here i put some info about them:
"Video Cassette Recording (VCR) was an early domestic video format designed by Philips. It was the first successful home videocassette recorder system. Later variants included the VCR-LP and Super Video (SVR) formats.
The VCR format was introduced in 1972, just after the Sony U-matic format in 1971. Although at first glance the two might appear to have been competing formats, they were aimed at very different markets. U-matic was introduced as a professional format, whilst VCR was targeted particularly at educational but also domestic users.
Home video systems had previously been available, but they were open reel systems (most notably made by Sony) and were expensive to both buy and operate. They were also unreliable and often only recorded in black and white. The VCR system was easy to use and recorded in colour but was still expensive: the N1500 recorder cost nearly £600 in the United Kingdom when it was introduced in 1972, the equivalent of more than £4500 today.
The VCR format used large square cassettes with 2 co-axial reels, one on top of the other, containing half inch wide chrome dioxide magnetic tape. Three playing times were available: 30, 45 and 60 minutes. The 60-minute cassettes proved very unreliable, suffering numerous snags and breakages due to the very thin tape. The mechanically complicated recorders themselves also proved somewhat unreliable. One particularly common failing occurred should tape slack develop within the cassette; the tape from the top (takeup) spool may droop into the path of the bottom (supply) spool and become entangled in it if rewind was selected. The cassette would then completely jam and require dismantling to clear the problem, and the tape would then be creased and damaged.
The system predated the development of the slant azimuth technique to prevent crosstalk between adjacent video tracks, so had to use an unrecorded guard band between tracks. This required the system to run at a high tape speed of around 11.5 inches per second.
Despite its limitations, the Philips VCR system was groundbreaking and brought together many advances in video recording technology to produce the first truly practical home video cassette system.
VCR later evolved into a related format known as VCR-LP. This exploited slant azimuth to greatly increase the recording time. Although both formats used identical VCR cassettes, the recordings were incompatible between the two systems, and no dual-format recorders ever existed. Philips N1700, released in 1977, supported the VCR-LP format.
A later even longer-playing variant, Super Video (SVR) was manufactured by Grundig exclusively. SVR was designed to exclusively use BASF-manufactured chrome-dioxide tape in cassettes that were identical to the earlier Philips ones, with the exception of a small cut-out in the casing. This meant that only the BASF tapes would fit in SVR machines, but that such tapes could also be used in the older VCR and VCR-LP machines."
Now, the machine my parents had was a SVR and a few days ago when i was visiting them, they said they would throw away the machine.
I asked nicely if i could get it and they said yes. So i bringed it home and has been busy fixing it so it would work again. So far i havent been sucessfull, but i have taken some pics of it.
One very strange thing is that its written on germany on the controlls even if it was bought here in Sweden. Weird.
Anyway, here comes. The machine from above. The button in the middle is for picture sharpness.
