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psipsyRecently, I decided to check out my collection of VCRs, to see which ones still worked. Spoiler alert: None of them worked without working on them, and most of them are still out.
Going by in order of acquisition:
Front-loader 4-head from 1984 with analog tuner: This is one I got back in 1994, from a VCR shop that literally gave it to me. Originally I wanted something to use as parts to fix another VCR but this just needed some adjustments on it to get the sound right. I guess the owner didn't want it fixed so they let it go. For the longest time it worked great. It was a heavy tank of a machine, and had a great picture when it worked. Now? It doesn't want to play tapes. I got new belts but I need to install them and put in fresh grease. I also have a service manual on the way, which should assist me.
Status: Gonna have to revisit this one later now that I got a service manual for it.
Fancy 4-head stereo VCR from 1995: This one I got new and paid good money for, after getting an actual paying job. It was a workhorse in its day, has a lot of features with some neat editing tricks, and had a good picture. Of course it needed new belts, and on this model, getting to those belts requires splitting the mechanical chassis from the main circuit board. I got new belts on, and it'll load tapes, rewind, fast-forward. But there's no video when it plays and I'm afraid that I might have broken something. I also found a service manual for this so maybe that will help. If I can't save this I might actually mourn it. If I want another one exactly like it, I can get one, but they're about $90 used.
Status: Needs more troubleshooting.
Fancy 4-head stereo VCR from 1997: I also got this new. It's a little less fancy than the 1995 model with a few less fancy features, but had just as good playback. Internally, it's similar to the one I got in 1995. Of course, the belts were worn out on this too. New belts went in but it didn't want to load the tape properly, so I take it back apart. Oh, there's a little spring that's not fully connected, just dangling. Where does it go? To a plastic piece with a broken tab, and it's the kind of plastic (most likely polypropylene) that ignores almost every adhesive in existence. Ah shit. I was able to run a tiny screw into the part and hook the spring onto that. Now it works! Well, mostly. The rewind and fast forward are kinda slow. But it does load and play and eject. Will my fix last? Who knows.
Status: Works good enough for now, I'll take it.
Top-loader VCR from 1984: Got this at a yard sale in 2006. It caught my eye because the main steel cover has a fake woodgrain finish. Being a top-loader, that left enough room on the front for the buttons to be large enough that someone could use it while wearing boxing gloves. The price tag was $5 but since the owner was closing up the yard sale, he dropped the asking price to a dollar. This one, of course, needs belts. I'm hesitant to do that on this because my usual source for belts is asking $115 for them, and I can get whole working machines with more features for less. On top of that, I can't figure out how to disassemble the thing to even get to the belts. I feel like if I do get that far, Pinhead from Hellraiser is gonna appear. And it's the only 2-head VCR here.
Status: If this doesn't get fixed, I'll be fine. In fact, if someone wants it, I'll let it go for the low price of "get this out of my house". Maybe it's good for hipster decoration. I don't know.
S-VHS VCR from 1988 or 89: An S-VHS machine with all kinds of features and functions and buttons and dials. This was getting thrown out at work and was about to get put in with the rest of the electronic waste, which the company has to pay for to get rid of. Manager said get it out of here, so I did. Some of the belts had decomposed into tar and needed scraped off their pulleys. I got new belts on and it can play tapes but it doesn't want to rewind or fast-forward. Doesn't even try, just stops.
Status: Service manual acquired, so I'll use that to try to figure this out.
4-head stereo SQPB VCR from 1999: By this point in time, almost all VCRs were 4-heads with stereo, and they had become extremely compact and simplified compared to models from 10 years prior. In disassembly, I learned that a few screws are all that's holding it onto the plastic shell, which itself isn't necessary for operation. I got this a couple years ago from Goodwill for a whopping $5. It was remarkably clean inside, a good sign. It can play tapes, it has a good picture, but stalls out when rewinding. It has one belt, stretched, glazed, distorted from years of sitting. A new belt is on the way.
Status: I'm optimistic enough that it just needs a belt so I got a spare (used) remote to go with it.
There are Youtube channels of people who work on VCRs and they all run into the same problems. Brittle plastics that break as soon as there's any kind of stress on them, stretched belts, sub-par components that failed early, replacement parts made of unobtainium, simple abuse, and general design flaws that reduce device lifespans. If a model-specific part is broken? And there are no spare units to pull from? That's it, it's done, game over. The fact remains that nobody who built VCRs designed them to last this long.
And most of the features of these are obsolete. Recording something from over the air or cable? Forget it. The original analog NTSC signals that can be deciphered by these are no longer being broadcast, so the ability to pick up however many channels and the fancy event timers mean nothing now. The fancy editing features on high-end machines can be replicated on a computer, which has a strong advantage in being non-linear. The only real use these things have left is tape playback, so the differences between 2 head/4 head and mono/stereo still means something.
How am I checking the video output on these if I'm not near a TV? I got one of those cheap video capture dongles that plugs into a USB port. It's okay, I guess. It's really not great. If I want to capture video for the sake of archiving, I'd use the newer computer with the Blackmagic capture card. But for the sake of seeing if there is video coming from a VCR, the USB dongle is okay enough. I'm actively looking at other methods.
And so, I put them all back together with the express purpose of clearing off my workbench, so that I may work on other projects.
Going by in order of acquisition:
Front-loader 4-head from 1984 with analog tuner: This is one I got back in 1994, from a VCR shop that literally gave it to me. Originally I wanted something to use as parts to fix another VCR but this just needed some adjustments on it to get the sound right. I guess the owner didn't want it fixed so they let it go. For the longest time it worked great. It was a heavy tank of a machine, and had a great picture when it worked. Now? It doesn't want to play tapes. I got new belts but I need to install them and put in fresh grease. I also have a service manual on the way, which should assist me.
Status: Gonna have to revisit this one later now that I got a service manual for it.
Fancy 4-head stereo VCR from 1995: This one I got new and paid good money for, after getting an actual paying job. It was a workhorse in its day, has a lot of features with some neat editing tricks, and had a good picture. Of course it needed new belts, and on this model, getting to those belts requires splitting the mechanical chassis from the main circuit board. I got new belts on, and it'll load tapes, rewind, fast-forward. But there's no video when it plays and I'm afraid that I might have broken something. I also found a service manual for this so maybe that will help. If I can't save this I might actually mourn it. If I want another one exactly like it, I can get one, but they're about $90 used.
Status: Needs more troubleshooting.
Fancy 4-head stereo VCR from 1997: I also got this new. It's a little less fancy than the 1995 model with a few less fancy features, but had just as good playback. Internally, it's similar to the one I got in 1995. Of course, the belts were worn out on this too. New belts went in but it didn't want to load the tape properly, so I take it back apart. Oh, there's a little spring that's not fully connected, just dangling. Where does it go? To a plastic piece with a broken tab, and it's the kind of plastic (most likely polypropylene) that ignores almost every adhesive in existence. Ah shit. I was able to run a tiny screw into the part and hook the spring onto that. Now it works! Well, mostly. The rewind and fast forward are kinda slow. But it does load and play and eject. Will my fix last? Who knows.
Status: Works good enough for now, I'll take it.
Top-loader VCR from 1984: Got this at a yard sale in 2006. It caught my eye because the main steel cover has a fake woodgrain finish. Being a top-loader, that left enough room on the front for the buttons to be large enough that someone could use it while wearing boxing gloves. The price tag was $5 but since the owner was closing up the yard sale, he dropped the asking price to a dollar. This one, of course, needs belts. I'm hesitant to do that on this because my usual source for belts is asking $115 for them, and I can get whole working machines with more features for less. On top of that, I can't figure out how to disassemble the thing to even get to the belts. I feel like if I do get that far, Pinhead from Hellraiser is gonna appear. And it's the only 2-head VCR here.
Status: If this doesn't get fixed, I'll be fine. In fact, if someone wants it, I'll let it go for the low price of "get this out of my house". Maybe it's good for hipster decoration. I don't know.
S-VHS VCR from 1988 or 89: An S-VHS machine with all kinds of features and functions and buttons and dials. This was getting thrown out at work and was about to get put in with the rest of the electronic waste, which the company has to pay for to get rid of. Manager said get it out of here, so I did. Some of the belts had decomposed into tar and needed scraped off their pulleys. I got new belts on and it can play tapes but it doesn't want to rewind or fast-forward. Doesn't even try, just stops.
Status: Service manual acquired, so I'll use that to try to figure this out.
4-head stereo SQPB VCR from 1999: By this point in time, almost all VCRs were 4-heads with stereo, and they had become extremely compact and simplified compared to models from 10 years prior. In disassembly, I learned that a few screws are all that's holding it onto the plastic shell, which itself isn't necessary for operation. I got this a couple years ago from Goodwill for a whopping $5. It was remarkably clean inside, a good sign. It can play tapes, it has a good picture, but stalls out when rewinding. It has one belt, stretched, glazed, distorted from years of sitting. A new belt is on the way.
Status: I'm optimistic enough that it just needs a belt so I got a spare (used) remote to go with it.
There are Youtube channels of people who work on VCRs and they all run into the same problems. Brittle plastics that break as soon as there's any kind of stress on them, stretched belts, sub-par components that failed early, replacement parts made of unobtainium, simple abuse, and general design flaws that reduce device lifespans. If a model-specific part is broken? And there are no spare units to pull from? That's it, it's done, game over. The fact remains that nobody who built VCRs designed them to last this long.
And most of the features of these are obsolete. Recording something from over the air or cable? Forget it. The original analog NTSC signals that can be deciphered by these are no longer being broadcast, so the ability to pick up however many channels and the fancy event timers mean nothing now. The fancy editing features on high-end machines can be replicated on a computer, which has a strong advantage in being non-linear. The only real use these things have left is tape playback, so the differences between 2 head/4 head and mono/stereo still means something.
How am I checking the video output on these if I'm not near a TV? I got one of those cheap video capture dongles that plugs into a USB port. It's okay, I guess. It's really not great. If I want to capture video for the sake of archiving, I'd use the newer computer with the Blackmagic capture card. But for the sake of seeing if there is video coming from a VCR, the USB dongle is okay enough. I'm actively looking at other methods.
And so, I put them all back together with the express purpose of clearing off my workbench, so that I may work on other projects.
