Technics SV-P100 - Digital Audio on VHS tapes - in 1981

[@AuroraMills]

Congratulations on a million subscribers Matt. If I may, you've done more over the years than simply review equipment; your videos have brought a sense of wonder back into the world. Heart felt thanks.

[@nikescar]

Totally agree. I'm not into the vast majority of products and tech on this channel but I still haven't missed a video.

[@annother3350]

Just checked it out and i had been unsubbed!! Luckily I was still getting the recommendations though

[@Martin_from_SC]

Absolutely agree. I've discovered a lot of cool, obscure technology from the past on this channel.

[@klaernie]

Second that. There's a million people watching because the content is so good!

[@Fluteboy]

Mat has done so well. The content is always phenomenal. Another commemorative Play Button on its way?

[@AndersEngerJensen]

Congratulations on reaching the big 1.000.000 mate! And to top it of with my starting brand of keyboards.. Technics, that's pretty neat! If I had known this earlier, I could have made a MIDI file version of the outro music for you to play on the MT-90S... maybe later! Let's get you to cool 10.000.000? ^_^

[@ross-carlson]

Yes, ABSOLUTELY! Been here since the early 100,000's - amazing my friend!!!

[@ainzul3545]

My PC Clock says 22:11, July 11 2020. Techmoan's video says July 11 2020. Your comment says 2 days ago... WTF?!?!

[@AndersEngerJensen]

Ainz ul Patreons get early access. :)

[@ainzul3545]

@@AndersEngerJensen Aaaah makes sense. I thought I was stuck in a reality shift.... Kinda disappointed now.

[@ziginox]

I have an old Technics SX-PR804, makes me sad that they exited the musical instrument market after it and the KN7000 :(

[@LMacNeill]

I used to use VHS Hi-Fi to record 6-hour-long music "mix-tapes" for parties, so no one would have to mess with my audio equipment during the party. Hide the amp and VCR in a locked room, and run the speaker wires out under the door into another room. Press play and you wouldn't have to touch it for another 6 hours. It was great! Oh -- and congratulations on hitting 1 Million Subscribers!

[@OneRoomShed]

Right on! I used to put audio on VCR tapes too. I would also record radio programs on them too (Howard Stern and local collage radio shows). It was a great option for long recordings back in the day.

[@RJDA.Dakota]

Did EXACTLY the same thing. Used a JVC HiFi VHS machine and used the HiFi recording section and had nearly 6 hours of music for a wedding party. Some asked for copies of the recordings which was easily available when I re-recorded this music onto cassette. And of course everything was awesome. And congratulations on your new milestone.

[@EtTubeBruTube]

Or when your buddy got the 4-disc Clapton Crossroads boxed set and you could record it on one tape. Of course on the 6 hour speed, tracking noise set it after a year or two.

[@donbest5024]

Before car CD players I put albums on vhs tapes and played on portable Panasonic vhs stereo vcr through car stereo for 6 to 8 hours continuous music.

[@professordetective807]

I wonder if any shops used it for the muzak?

[@jeanemar479]

I usually watch your videos to see entertaining pieces of technology and novelties. But I realized today you're in fact a proper historian, almost archeologist, documenting with every devices our modern electronic history. Thanks for all your work ! Future generations won't learn History in books, but here with you on KZbin.

[@michaeldeluca6331]

Calm down

[@e28forever30]

@@michaeldeluca6331 Be polite.

[@raykolcun752]

Loved this video. I actually have an experience with something similar. Back in the early 90's, the band i was in went into a makeshift studio to record a few songs for our second 7in single. The guy who recorded us, was all excited about "digitally" recording us. Much to our chagrin, he handed us a VHS tape. Now, being 20 years old our reaction was less than excited, mostly because we didnt know what to do with it or how to listen to it for that matter. That was our master tape. We were told it was CD quality. In the end, the record was not very good(due to massive beer consumption and having a rudimentary concept of writing and playing) but the quality of the recording was fantastic. somehow we sold all 500 copies we pressed. Thanks for jarring back that memory!

[@michptrs]

what was your band called?

[@JWD1992]

Is the record on Discogs? If not, you should add it! And if it is on Discogs, you should add your story. Very cool behind-the-scenes info.

[@raykolcun752]

@@JWD1992 it actually is on Discogs. The band name is Liverball and the ep title is Test Burn. Amateur-ish punk rock. The clarity of the digital recording exposed our lack of talent that the previous analog recordings we did hid under distortion and beer lol so It’s not very good, obviously. For the era and the low budget aspect of the recording the quality is actually reasonably good. But it was of a time and place and a fun experience.

[@sdstorm]

Digital audio actually has a noise floor and it is defined by the amount of bits. Fewer bits means more rounding errors and normally these would produce an audible artefact, but there is a trick that turns them into nice white noise: dithering. Basically, you round up or down randomly, and that removes repeating patterns that humans preserve as artifacting. But yeah, with with few bits, the noise is loud. Another way to look at it is that the number of bits tells you how loud can you play the audio with the noise remaining at the same volume.

[@Will-fn7bz]

This is a very interesting tidbit that I definitely didn't know. An example of a real contribution to the topic instead of all the noise from people who didn't get enough attention as a child. Thank you.

[@sdstorm]

@@Will-fn7bz I'm just glad someone read the comment. :) Usually commenting on KZbin feels like shouting in the wind.

[@Techmoan]

I’d imagine that any noise on something like this or a CD player it’s so low that whatever other pieces of audio equipment I have in the chain would drown it out.

It's worth watching this digital audio presentation from Monty Montgomery. It clears some misconceptions about digital audio, and it's very well presented. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mXq0anyOiLqtq68

[@luissantiago5163]

That's really interesting. Appreciate the info

[@-abacchus]

*I love Technics design from this era - looks fairly modern even now*

[@melskunk]

I guessed it was from the nineties at least, not 1981!

[@herrbonk3635]

What makes you feel HiFi or home electronics from the early 1980s would look old fashioned? (It's not equipment from WW2 we are talking about.) The basic designs patterns have been largely unchanged in mainstream products since around 1976, and in some cases much earlier, at least in Japan and Europe. It went pretty cheesy and plastic in the late 80s and 90s though, when the markets were saturated, but it has recoverered pretty good since then, in many areas.

[@GoldSrc_]

@@melskunk As a rule of thumb, if the design has rounded edges, it's from the 90's. But if it has sharp and square edges, it's from the 80's.

[@melskunk]

@@GoldSrc_ that is a super good rule of thumb!

[@MrDuncl]

@@herrbonk3635 In the early 1980s they were only just moving away from silver brushed aluminium panels and fake woodgrain.

[@VCD-Channel]

Hi, Matt! I am glad to finally see this beautiful machine in your review. It's sad that you didn't mention my channel and the article on the habr.com which probably was used to create this video, however, I am glad you purchased it and as an owner of Technics SV-P100 I would like to comment a couple of things from the video: 1) First of all, yes, SV-P100 sounds really beautiful and you can't tell the difference between CD Audio and this 14-bit PCM. 2) This machine vulnerable of some problems, most notably the leaky Matsushita caps, especially in closed-case digital boards. Also, digital circuits in all of SV-P100 (I had two of them) are often unable to correct errors, so occasionally clicks can be heard. It's sad to say, but Sony with their PCM-F1 made way more robust to error correction machine. 3) And that's right, Digital In/Out is virtually the same as Video In/Out sockets in other PCM processors and can be used with another VTR. The unique feature of the SV-P100 is that it can be synchronized with an external video signal instead of any other (non-pro) PCM adapters, which theoretically can allow editing on these machines. This is why Technics initially planned to make them white-colored, since this is the color of the Panasonic's broadcast equipment in those years. But problems with error correction and very slow tape transport apparently did not allow this model to be anything more than a rare and expensive Hi-Fi equipment. 4) You can hear a weird analog sound from the linear audio channel, and it's not a mistake! If you connect your headphones to the SV-P100 and try to fast-forward or rewind the tape while hold "play" button, you will hear your music in accelerated playback. This can't be achieved by reading-and-decoding a video pattern (no PCM processor can do this), but instead it was using analog audio. Technics managed to do this trick of being able to hear what you recorded while rewinding. And again, along with the editing marks, that was another unique feature that no one has ever done. 5) Technics SV-P100 is rare and, of course, expensive machine. But not so rare as Hitachi PCM-V300 which I also have in my collection. For about 300 units of SV-P100 were produced while only 70 or 100 units of PCM-V300 were ever made. Hitachi made the similar to Technics machine, while using VT-6500 as a transport mecha that was shoved without any changes inside the case, even with the front panel that was stuck inside :D So, if you need some interesting information about this strange era of an early digital hardware, I can help you find it and also offer you part of my unique (and probably the world's largest) collection of PCM hardware. Cheers, your fan from Russia.

[@VCD-Channel]

@tan j maz No need to sub, man. I can barely make videos even in my native language.

[@bloqk16]

@Techmoan . . . this is off-topic from this YT subject, as I want to express my appreciation with how you *Title* the descriptions of your uploads in an honest and fair way with your YT posts. I say this as I've noticed the escalating amount of _click-bait_ among YT channels of late. I'm becoming much more selective with what I view on YT; with the *Title description* of the YT posts being a major part of that selective process. YT posters that use alarmist adverbs, or alarmist words in general; and with brightly colored large fonts with YT thumbnails wordings, I'm less inclined to click on it as compared to past years.

[@railgap]

^ THIS ^

[@godfreypoon5148]

^ yep, *this* ^ edit: !!! GONE SEXUAL POLICE CALLED !!! I NEARLY DIEDED !!!

[@sadesurbex2816]

HOLY SHIT THIS EXACTLY

[@Some_One_One]

LEARN THIS ONE TRICK THAT GETS PEOPLE TO CLICK YOUR VIDEOS

[@andyr8812]

This is quite impressive for that time. The electronics needed for A/D and D/A conversion was huge, not to mention the mechanics needed to to locate the beginning and end of the recordings on the tape. Those engineers did a great job!

[@ThomasTalbotMD]

Audio on HiFi VHS was so excellent. I routinely used it for 6 hour recordings from radio or for mixes to play for an entire party. Seemed indistinguishable from CD or was very close in quality. It was like an audio quality secret weapon of the 1980s.

[@minigolfkid]

Thomas Talbot oh cool.

[@dj1NM3]

I did a show on community radio in the early 2000's and they were using VHS audio for pre-recorded shows and the overnight/graveyard on longplay. They only replaced it less than a decade ago when the studio was moved to a different building.

[@telocho]

My vhs hifi produced some rattle in the sound when making pure audio recordings.

[@Hector_Malot]

The DAT sounded better than the CD, that's why they killed it.

[@rich1051414]

@@Hector_Malot Hilariously, a TON of masters were sent off to the CD press on DAT. DAT was very much not killed by CD, at least not in the professional field. CD was the consumer format, DAT was what the professionals used.

[@jtmichaelson]

Look at you with a million subscribers. Congratulations. Well done

[@connorstrothman7287]

I was wondering if anyone saw that!

[@zahariiliev]

Zzz zzz zzz

[@VauxhallViva1975]

Yes, quite a milestone!!! This video is very interesting. I remember being on an FM radio station back in the 90's, and they used a HiFi VCR on LP to record the live program for archive. LP gave six hours of HiFi stereo audio per E180 VHS cassette. The audio performance of the HiFi VCR's was exceptional, and better then any reel-to-reel recorder of the time, and could record for much longer then even the best R-2-R machine at the time. When EP came along, you could get up to NINE hours of crystal-clear audio on a standard 3-hour E180 VHS tape. Certainly the video was poor at EP on an E180, but if all you want was the audio.......

[@gtoger]

re the VHS HiFi, when I worked at a small radio station in the early-/mid-90's, we used 6 hour VHS tapes for automation. The plus side is we could put up to 6 hours of programming on a single tape. On the downside, of course you had to record 6 hours in real-time. So it wasn't like "real" automation, but it did allow us a cheap way to "time shift" what we put on the air.

[@deadmeat1240]

A lot of Radio stations used HIFi VHS for recording Air Checks of entire shifts. Particularly Talk radio. This was before digital was financially viable for most in the 80's and 90's. Easy to keep and catalog a huge library of shows and much cheaper than equivalent Reel to reel tape. Main advantages being the cost of the tape and recorder and the sheer length of each tape. A very cheap solution.

[@elijahwatson8119]

Did you get a lot of vehicles towed when you worked at the radio station?

[@mikematerne4579]

In the mid 90s we would use hifi VCRs to record audio in our home studios, and then transfer them to cassette tape.

[@00Klingon]

I'm fairly certain my college radio station had one of these in the early 90's that they used to record all their radio shows. In fact I remember seeing it there and thinking it was odd when the guy who ran the program mentioned they used a digital recorder onto VHS. Audio quality was excellent from what I recall.

[@edgarwalk5637]

Just when you think that Techmoan has run out of audio formats...

[@TheLinuxChannel]

LOL. Cant deny that :)

[@appsjuragan7611]

I don't think he has reviewed punch card audio format

[@TheLinuxChannel]

@@appsjuragan7611 LOL

[@jetison333]

@@appsjuragan7611 do the old player pianos that play off of punch cards count?

[@Kylefassbinderful]

Why would you ever think he has run out of formats? lol

[@sadiqmohamed681]

Another great piece of history. I remember when the BBC started demoing Nicam Stereo on Radio 3. They used a Sony F1 processor and U-Matic combo to record the Proms. Normal FM showed no real difference apart from less tape noise, but the Nicam was a revelation. I attended a private demo at Broadcasting House (I had a friend in the Engineering Team who were supporting it) and listening to the digital recording with only two stages of analogue was amazing. Of course at the time there were no digital mixing desks, or amplifiers with digital input, but they did use a Quad setup with a pair of ESL-57s. At the time it was the clearest music recording I had ever heard. They used a piano concerto, and the quite sections with just the piano where so clear you could imagine you were in the same room. It would be interesting to compare the Sony PCM with Technics. One of the issues with digital audio or video until at least the late 90s was that coding and decoding at high quality pretty much required dedicated hardware. One of the weird things I discovered in the early 80s was that the cost of ADC had come down drastically because of Cruise Missiles! Apparently they needed a fast A to D and TRW bought a license to a BBC Research Department design that normally took up two large PCBs and made it into a rather large chip. The chip still cost as much as the two boards but it made the equipement much smaller and therefore cheaper. A strange bit of history. In the mid-90s I consulted on a project for MTV to use remote video servers for inserting ads into the downlinks. We digitised standard def PAL video using a SunSpark 10 workstation with a custom DSP that use 4 RISK processors. It cost £52K!

[@R33Racer]

Well deserved 1M Matt, amazed it didn't happen sooner with your level of quality uploads. Here's to 2M! 🍻

[@halcyondaystunes]

Had a friend who used to record music to S-VHS and always sounded amazing...Congrats on the 1m subs mate. so well deserved...One of the best channels on You Tube.

[@Linuxpunk81]

We used svhs tapes to record the sonar working tapes in the early 2000s when I was on the USS San Juan. It was called the AN/UNK-9 but we called it the junk 9 because it was terrible and had the worst GUI ever invented 😂

[@halcyondaystunes]

@@AlfaRomeoQ yeah I remember ADAT being in studios but never used them. Think they were Alesis machines...huge beastly things but did the job 😁

[@button-puncher]

That composite output...WOW. When I thought this was already an INCREDIBLE piece of equipment, then it has that functionality. A full blown composite video signal with the visual PCM data. SO COOL. That low bandwidth audio almost seems like a cue track. Maybe they had planned on using that as a high speed scanning function. The electronics at the time had no way of decoding an 8x speed PCM stream, so that cue track could be used instead. Thank you for the great video. If I win the lottery, I'm putting one of those next to a Nagra VPR-5.

[@SkyChaserCom]

This is amazing. Thanks for showing this piece of vintage tech. I remember the Sony PCM in 1990 a friend of mine used in his band. He "digitized" the audio to and from a separate Betamax unit via the video in / out. Cool stuff and quite costly in that era. Congrats on the 1M subscribers!

[@anakondase]

PLayed in a band in the early 90's and we recorded some events on a HIFI VHS recorder. Still have those tapes and they still sound great.

[@frankschneider6156]

Hope you digitized them for archival. Tapes tend to get stuck and become unreadable over the years. Just ask NASA how much data it cost them, until they found out that such a problem exists and that they had lots of it. It's quite similar to loosing magnetization of floppies over time. Different cause, but same effect: data loss.

[@anakondase]

@@frankschneider6156 Thought about that but haven't done anything yet. Also, have to do it anyway while I have a working VCR. Can't buy a new one these days.

[@frankschneider6156]

@@anakondase One tends to put such stuff off, because there is always something more important, I know, but if it is of emotional value to you, and loosing the recordings is an unpleasant thought, then create a more modern backup rather sooner than later, as the data WILL degrade. It's just a question how fast. Just a hint, but I'm pretty sure you already knew that yourself. ;-)

[@anakondase]

@@frankschneider6156 Yes, I know.

[@LRM12o8]

I thought tapes were gonna outlast modern society. All big online companies back up on tape for long-term data storage nowadays. Well, maybe tape technology has become more robust since the eighties?.. 💁‍♂️

[@springbay1]

Congrats on the 1M subs! And I hope this wonderful machine get a dedicated place in your Hi-Fi stack.

[@GuilleGarciaAlfonsin]

Congrats for the million subscribers!

[@timbalvanz1773]

I used to use VHS HiFi as an audio recorder, to get up to 6 hours of playback, back in 1984. I don't think I could have afforded the SV-P100. Cool video. Thanks for the flashback.

[@brpadington]

As a kid I was very impressed with the audio quality of VHS tapes that had Hi-Fi tracks. I actually made a tape of a few of my CD;'s with video from some games I was playing. I was blown away by how good it sounded.

[@leetay9132]

I'm pleased to discover that I wasn't alone in using a decent VHS as an audio only tape deck. It certainly had my bottom of the range Marantz SD220 tape deck from a decade earlier beaten. My old Akai from 1994ish weighs a tonne and has Dolby surround processing (added rear channels only) and a little 12 WPC amp designed to drive the rear channel speakers.

[@brpadington]

@@yorkemar That sucks. are you saying that the VHS tape generates tones on it that are damaging to certain speaker? I have large 4way speakers I used for play back but i only messed with it a few times. I guess it would depend on if your VCR or Stereo receiver has filtering to remove those damaging frequencies.

[@yorkemar]

@@brpadington Just watch the volume when playing it if you have smaller speakers. It shows with excessive cone movement.

[@xaverlustig3581]

@@JPX64Channel VHS Hifi was initially marketed as a a high quality audio recorder. The early machines had audiophile features like manual recording level, RCA in/out, simulcast, MPX filter etc. This all waned in later years.

[@SuperSy99]

We have eric clapton unpluged and bryan adams concert both in cd and vhs hi f. same title.the vhs deliver fat and uncompresed sound than the audio cd.

[@Retaile23]

I remember when dat was such a threat to the record industry and that their biggest fear of having unlimited digital masters all from a copy. After all the copyright concessions were made, the cost was hardly worth it except for the novelty of owning one. Then it was the cd burner and eventually mp3. Thanks for again for that trip down memory lane!

[@jimbotron70]

After the DAT and before the cd burners there were the DCC (digital compact cassette) and the Minidisc...

[@todogenial119]

@@jimbotron70 the MD most likely failed to compete with MP3 players for all its anti-piracy and copy protect features

[@ACBMemphis]

VHS Hifi was great! A friend of mine had a scheme that involved a parallel port video capture device, some custom programming, and VHS Hifi audio. By taking periodic JPG "screen shots" of his favorite Digital Satellite Music channel and recording the audio, at the end of the day he had a list of songs and when they were played, convenient to locate and dub off to cassette. Great video and congratulations on 1 million subscribers. I hope KZbin sends you a golden MiniDisc or something...

[@jonahmcgarva]

My brother also had a HiFi VHS deck and would make 6 hr mixtapes of his favourite artists. The sound was great. :-)

[@aftereando]

"In the long distant future" Somehow I pictured Mr. Techmoan's head in a jar, Futurama Style, still teaching us, simple mortals, the wonders of technology in theyear 3020...

[@lokedhs]

I think it's likely that the player will still be working nicely when KZbin is decommissioned.

[@andljoy]

And using robot nixons body!

[@andrewgwilliam4831]

"Welcome to the world of tomorrow!"

[@aftereando]

@@andljoy and people will finally stop complaining about his fingernails hangnails when he zooms the camera.

[@TheOnjLouis]

Today is 2 Apr 2022 and I rewatched this video, because it came up after Techmoan’s most recent video, and I was as captivated by this wonderful piece of hardware as I was the first time I heard about it, right here. I want to really look inside one, see how it works, how they got DSP’s to do what they did back then, given the technology and just so many things. I’m forever curious about things like this, so it was great to rewatch it and still feel the same wonder I did the first time around.

[@friguy4444]

Excellent video as always! I see others have mentioned the ADAT machines and "SuperVHS" formats that were used for a short time in recording studios. I actually have a session on 16 track digital audio on Super VHS still. I have had it converted of course to Wav. files. I had it converted by as far as I could find "The only person left in my Small Canadian City" whom owned a working ADAT machine. I may have some of the details mixed up as far as the machine and what I recall but basically it was a 16 track digital multi tracking studio and my band were very leery of using it for our music at the time as we had been used to working with 2" tape in the studio and full analog everything up until then. As well the industry was by that time talking about the lack of warmth and how digital wasn't "As pleasant to the human ear" as Analog was. Now we have actual noise adding VST3 units or other types of ways of making it sound like the "Good Old days" LOL.

[@edwarddore7617]

I still have a SVHS VCR, I used it to transfer Hi8 footage from my camcorder. I had no idea people used the format for audio, but it does make sense.

[@ivarstart]

I worked with a Alesis ADAT, multitrack recorder (8 tracks on a VHS tape)

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

@Plastic Icon 2 - Freewheeling Gunslinger Edition That's the DTRS format isn't it?

[@klaatubob]

Correction, a SuperVHS tape for the ADAT.

[@klaatubob]

@@crashbandicoot4everr No, F1

[@klaatubob]

@@crashbandicoot4everr and the ADAT wasn't DTRS, that was the DA-88.

[@jacksonsneed7689]

This comment & replies made me smile. 😁📼📼LOVED my ADATs!!📼📼 Had 3 Alexis XT20s chained together in one of my very first (semi) serious home studio setups. Loved that SuperVHS was an inexpensive media at the time, and of course you can't forget the ol' 'death-by-patchbay!' Ah, the memories of tangled D-SUB to XLR snake cable insanity definitely makes my grateful for my Pro Tools rig. I kinda miss the madness though, but definitely not the troubleshooting!

[@alifnajwan6834]

Well 1 million subs is right now! Congrats to Techmoan, one of me and my brother's favourite KZbinr. Greetings from Malaysia

[@id513128]

24:30 I've seen VHS for digital storage in the 90s (LGR did a review for Danmere Backer a while ago) but never seen this kind of PCM machine like this before. It's a really cool product but it's too ahead of its time. (And wrong customers too, I guess.) Thanks for the video and congratulation for 1M subscribers. I can't wait to see the muppet unboxing your gold button soon. (But, please, don't be too rough like the blower one)

[@meetoo594]

I had an add-on for my Amiga that connected a video recorder to the computer for backup storage. It wasnt by Danmere but was pretty much the same system. It actually worked flawlessly, never had a problem with it apart from the slow speed. You could fit an almost unheard of amount of data on a tape compared to the hard disks of the time (over 500mb on a 3 hour tape iirc).

[@lutello3012]

I want that damn Danmere Backer! Software equivelent might be possible but a huge pain in the ass.

[@Tomsonic41]

@@meetoo594 I saw an add-on card for PC that had a composite video output, and allowed you to back up your entire system to a VHS tape in case of disaster. Always curious to see what the picture recorded on the tape looked like; probably similar to this.

[@meetoo594]

@@Tomsonic41 That would be the Danmere vhs Backer, Clint at LGR has a great video on it including what the output looks like on a TV.

[@anthonyblore1651]

I had a system for the Amiga which allowed you to backup floppies to VHS. It was hit and miss if you didn't use specific brands of tape.

[@Constantinus213421]

While listening to the end music, I was thinking about the people who thought up this device, the ones who engineered it, designed it, built it, tested it, sold it, used it. Most of them are probably still alive, although retired. However, whenever someone watches this video, maybe they will be remembered. Like the people behind many beautiful things that came and went away. Nice closure.

[@AlexandruTataru]

Matt, most importantly these videos will keep a record on you and your enthusiasm for us to watch over and over again for tens of years. With you any review or showcase turn into a story. Keep up the good job!

[@sw2442]

Congratulations on 1M subscribers...I've been watching, and anticipating, new videos from you for about four years now, and it's always a worthwhile treat. Great job.

[@JohnnyTheCache]

80s and 90s hifi was soooo cool. missing the soul today of some solid hardware

[@enilenis]

The reason I'm in love with retro electronics is that a lot of it still works or can be serviced. My synthesizers from the 80's will probably outlive me. Good luck trying to revive any of the modern gadgets in 10 years. Especially all the ones with sealed batteries.

[@enilenis]

@Eric Belinc My father has Akai GX-635D reel to reel machine and Sony TC-U5 tape deck, both from 1979. Still operational and looking brand new. 2 of my favourite tape machines, because I grew up playing with them.

[@RJRC_105]

That's because modern smartphones and suchlike are designed with planned obsolescence. Apple didn't make so much money by intending you to still be using a 5 year old iPhone today. Nope, gotta get you on that upgrade path. Don't ask questions. Consoome product, then get excited for next product.

[@enilenis]

@@RJRC_105 Same thing with electric cars. Since the battery is half the car's cost and has a limited lifespan, the assumption is that no one is going to pay, say $10K to revitalize an 8 year old vehicle, when the range becomes an issue. It's an attempt at making disposable transportation. They think people have infinitely deep pockets.

[@pault151]

"...or can be serviced." Computers, and probably hi-fi from the period, will often be on the path to destruction from leaking capacitors, in addition to the batteries.

[@petromaxskavholm9779]

I love you! I was thinking the whole time; "What happens when you play a tape recorded in the SV-P100 in a standard VCR?!?" ...Then you did! Thanx for putting my mind at rest.

[@possomatic]

11:28 The counter stops at index mark 1337. Coincidence? I think not, this is a confession that Mr Techmoan is indeed a geek :)

[@darkcoeficient]

Synchronicity

[@philreed1605]

22:20 “You night not have given them a second thought.” Mat, I spent the last twenty minutes waiting for you to explain the digital in/out ports and wondering what protocol they used! V pleased you obliged ;-)

[@edmund-osborne]

I was nervous throughout the whole video that he wasn't going to play the tape on a television. Glad he did

[@nickwallette6201]

I was wondering too! I saw digital I/O and thought - that can’t be SPDIF. Can it?

[@tenchuu007]

It would match a Porsche 928 of the same year almost perfectly.

[@martinoYTchannel]

Even better use it as the car radio on a Porsche 928.

[@onesixfive]

The feeling when you binge watch a show and you are sad when you’re done- that’s the feel I get from the full outro. Always loved it and missed it. Knowing where the audio came from makes it 1000x better. Then history of BBC and NHK developing PCM was riveting. This is the top notch, top shelf techmoan content id pay to sit in a theatre to watch. Congrats on 1M- I will always support you in any endevour. Thank you for so much content, it’s a special thing to sit down and watch, better than any cinema or TV. Just......thank you.

[@dontcheckmychannel-NJ17]

Loll

[@Gadgetonomy]

I know what you mean! I love the little digital sound right at the very end of these videos, I sit through the credits just to hear it. Then you know it's going to be another week at least for the next video :(

[@eliza5421]

thanks satan

[@ergosteur]

Congrats on hitting the 1 million! What better way to celebrate than with an informative video about a piece of very rare HiFi tech!

[@RAM-cj1hr]

I know it's a bit late to say this but congrats for 1 Million! This channel got me into retro and hifi tech and I've been a subscriber for years since then. Thanks Matt. ♥

[@aryanzirak2378]

Congratulations on reaching 1m subscribers mate! I've been enjoying your contents for quite a few years, some videos I watch again every now and then and yet the enthusiasm that you have and the how informative and interesting your contents are make it worthwhile. Appreciate your time and effort immensely, and wish you the best. 👏😇

[@mpuppet1975]

This actually reminds me of the later ADAT system from Alesis. 8 tracks of digital audio on SVHS

[@andoletube]

Yep, I used them back in 1991, when the studio I was working in changed out the Reel to Reel 16 track tape machine. To be honest, I preferred the analog machine - it sounded great and looked very cool in operation. But the ADATs gave very accurate and clean recordings, I must admit.

[@agentvx8320]

My first thought after seeing the Technics device in the video was that it would potentially be a lot more useful for musicians than any kind of HiFi type use. But only having two tracks, having no real facility for editing (unless you bought TWO insanely expensive recorders), and probably not being able to submit the tapes to anyone for consideration/publishing still would have doomed it.

[@robin_holden]

GOD I hated using ADATs! If you wanted to use more than one machine, they would never sync up properly once they got warm. Forget trying to punch in on the 3rd machine, you’d be lucky if they locked in with each other by the 2nd chorus! Always had to make a sub-mix down to the last two tracks. Some great albums were made on them though!

[@prodigalretrod]

And in another quirk of history, ADAT's I/O format remains the standard protocol for digital multitrack interoperability, even though the physical tape format itself is essentially obsolete.

[@TheVintageApplianceEmporium]

Absolutely amazing, you've blown my mind with this one. I want that machine SO bad. And to take it apart! Congrats on the million! Definitely deserved :D

[@demonsbutterfly]

I recorded audio onto my VHS HiFi with great results from 1988 But i had no idea the machines were even made in 1981 What a Superb piece of equipment

[@jean-lucd3846]

I wanted this recorder in 1983 when I was 15. I was fascinated by it. Never got it though. Happy to see this.

[@fhwolthuis]

Amazing device, it looks so modern, lovely display too. Imagine if they build one around 1990 with less metal and cheaper components for around the price of a VCR!

[@lelluc]

The Techmoan Rule: If it doesn’t have a visualiser or a VU meter its not worth it.

[@vxidastronaut]

"whoops I bought another visualizer" Everybody take a shot for the drinking game

[@fargeeks]

Everything he reviews is everything i have never ever heard of, and i was born in 87

[@tarmaque]

Yeah? Explain the wire recorder then. (That thing is so cool, I honestly want one. I saw one you eBay a while back for under $100 and only force of will kept me from buying it.)

[@TreyWait]

I was surprised he wasn't salivating at the giant rack mount vu meter in the catalog he referenced. That thing was enormous.

[@therealpbristow]

Le LLuc : And so say we all! =:o}

[@EduardoBattaglia]

Wow, by the title I thought it was ADAT, but.. 1981!! Congrats on 1M!

[@johncollins158]

You are the best in explaining everything in details, I like the way you introduce things with knowledge and intelligence, I've been watching you for 4 years, keep it up, everyone supports your efforts and likes your content.

[@cellsplicer2008]

Still rocking my perfectly working 1987 Technics SL-P770 CD player. These dinosaurs were built to last with no planned obsolescence in mind.

[@AxelPironio]

VHS is underrated for audio. A decent 90's Hi Fi VHS recorder was far better than the cassette decks of the time.

[@uvoikimovundutrauerblume3302]

Alesis Adat was the answer on this with super vhs tapes .

[@davidharkins8880]

A thing of beauty!

[@ET2carbon]

@@uvoikimovundutrauerblume3302 but it's digital

[@jimbotron70]

VHS Hi Fi was better than compact cassette, its only downside was the FM modulation used for recording it, which introduced some "color" to the sound.

[@RichardFeist]

a fair amt of dbx companding was involved too, because the native SNR of the fm stereo subcarrier wasn't that great

[@kennylauderdale_en]

I'm kind of shocked I've never heard of this.

[@robertclemente8548]

Me too!

[@epithalamia]

i love your channel kenny!!

[@zarrg5611]

Titans collide!

[@aegisofhonor]

it's really really rare, I can only find 3 examples of them selling anywhere in the world over the last year to give you an idea of how uncommon they are. And because it's so complicated to work on, any malfunction, you're going to have a really hard time fixing this disaster of a repair project. I am kind of shocked that Techmoan as able to find one in fully working order that wasn't insanely expensive.

[@ssks1979]

Yes, same for me. I was in my early 20's, very interested in stereo equipment but this at its price was obviously beyond any HiFi dreams of mine. Thank you for finding one!

[@superapple4ever]

What a beautiful, complex and modern machine for its time.

[@jgrlima1]

What historic moment for us, who are with you since the early begining. 1.000.000 subscribers. And I am part of this! We all are... Outstanding. Congratulations, You deserve this sucess and more.

[@stevec00ps]

Congratulations and here's to the next 1 million :) The data stored on the tape will be like the Danmere Backer VHS Hard Drive Backup System. It's amazing that composite video is sharp enough for the data stream really considering the quality of some of the old VCRs I've owned decades ago! I wonder if the distorted analogue is some artefact of the method of the digital data being stored and recovered in the analogue world and not actually being recorded to the audio bit of the tape.

[@erlendse]

You really underestimate the data-volume for uncompressed video! a VHS casette has many MHz of bandwidth at normal playback, and it should be somewhat trivial to fit uncompressed audio in the same space. For normal video, you have a horizontal interval of around 15 kHz, and if you can fit two samples on ONE line, you would have around 30/32 kHz samping rate. As in generally good enough, but you can naturally fit in even more. If you mix in digitally done modern RF modulation techniques the data-rate can get quite high!

[@AaronSmart.online]

You've got about 3 MHz of FM bandwidth with standard VHS at SP speed, which is poor compared to an NTSC broadcast which is (was!) 6 MHz (incl. audio subcarrier). But 3 MHz is loads of bandwidth for good quality audio, and with digital encoding you can use some of the bandwidth for error correction for very reliable and accurate playback (as with CDs and other digital formats). Normal VHS video playback can only compensate for errors (e.g. dropout compensation to make them look less bad), it can't "correct" anything. Another comparison: FM stereo radio uses about 53 kHz bandwidth (not including data services).

[@f.andersen3824]

29:00 "to give up the ghost", it's the same phrase in German: "den Geist aufgeben".

[@organfairy]

And in Danish "at opgive ånden" - to give up the spirit.

[@rzuf6071]

and in Polish as well: *"oddać ducha" / "wyzionąć ducha"* = to give up the ghost... though in Polish this phrase is not used for describing 'dead' inanimate objects, it's reserved for living beings (unless one is personificating an object, and so on ... )

[@ornleifs]

Once again you've surprised me with an equipment I've never heard about. Those US TV's from the 80's were hillarious - one would have thought that style like that had gonne out of fashion in the early 60's.

[@Pasi123]

I've heard that console TV's were still sold in mid 90's

[@MetallicBlade]

In retrospect, some of those console TVs look almost beautiful in comparison to our modern utilitarian, flat-looking slabs of cheap electronic plastic.

[@Wallyworld30]

@@Pasi123 I owned a 37" RCA Console TV built into an Oak Cabinet. It was on wheels so moving it around the home was pretty easy but it weighed over 400LBS!!! I kept it as long as I could but in my last move I listed it on Craigslist for Free to pickup and it was gone that night. The TV was built in 1993.

[@rexsexson5349]

Nah most of these TVs ended up phasing out in 86. Due to price and weight. But i guess some were still around when I was in high school, but not in any store in my town in the early 90s.

[@westelaudio943]

In Europe they did... Though there were some later ones aswell (Grundig Amalienburg for example). In America they were around for far longer because almost everyone had a ground-level house so a heavier TV was less of a problem. Still TV cabinets were made out of wood in Europe until well into the 80s because people wanted their TV to have an aesthetic value and blend in with the furniture, instead of just being a chunk of plastic.

[@r00s.]

Congrats, sir. My favorite retro tech reviewer. Appreciate you! Cool 14-bit outro...

[@jdekong3945]

A big well done Mat on hitting one million subscribers, very well deserved, my colleague & I who are avid fans still have no idea how you are able to get as much info as you do on these obscure products, either way its much appreciated by us tech geeks :o) looking forward to the next installment as always

[@jinky0u812]

THAT was bad ass!! I never knew such a thing existed.

[@valley_robot]

DAT tape was a thing that was so important in the 90s for bands

[@middleagelimbo3630]

In 1986 I purchased an Emerson VHS Hi-Fi Stereo VCR. It actually featured the option to use it as an audio recording deck. While analog, the sound was absolutely clean with virtually no background noise or hiss, as with conventional audio cassettes. And fidelity was incredible.

[@wib451]

Congratulations on 1M subs, excellent as ever. I wonder if the distorted sound track when played on a normal VHS machine is to help the user cue the tape for duplication purposes.

[@daniel2005pub]

Congratulations on a million Matt! Well deserved.

[@grrrumble]

Congratulations Matt. I discovered your channel a few years ago and quickly watched through your back catalog of quirky and vintage audio equipment, and loved every minute. Your videos are top quality and your collection of interesting hifi gear is envious. I wish I had it, but if anyone *should* have it, it's you.

[@t0nito]

That tape loading mechanism is the sexiest thing ever :P

[@neshbro]

I dunno. Those metal buttons and oh so satisfying metal round turner (I can't bring myself to say knob 🤣) are pretty damn attractive!

[@thegearknob7161]

I was about to comment at how slickly engineered it looks. Typical technics. I have a low end Technics cd deck from the late 80s. It still works as smoothly and quickly as it would have done new.

[@ianmckenzieanderson3857]

I just watched this fascinating video, and realised that this device must have been the forerunner of a piece of equipment I used in my recording studio for many years called the "Alesis ADAT". It was an 8-track multitrack recorder, using SVHS tape, and the first affordable digital multitrack. "ADAT" then became the name of the digital multitrack audio standard, which is still in use for some home studio equipment, having now updated to include a 96KHz/24-bit standard. I still have one of the second generation "XT" 48K/16b machines now, and it still gets used for its ins & outs, along with its matching PCI card whenever I need a few extra ADAC channels in and out of my editing PC, although I haven't used it as an actual tape deck for years. The ADACs are still remarkably good and transparent for a machine manufactured in the mid-90's. I know you normally tend to concentrate solely on consumer gear, but if you could get your hands on an Alesis ADAT machine, I'd be interested to see a video about that format.

[@anthonyhegedus7948]

Bloody brilliant!! You don’t just go through the functions, you go right down all the rabbit-holes you can think of...! I knew right at the beginning that I was curious what would happen if you played the tape on a VCR, and you pandered to my inner nerd and did it. And you didn’t just do it, you tried it on a vcr with no hifi sound feature. Fantastic! Your videos really are excellent!

[@kevinjokipii4260]

This would have been the perfect topic to partner with Technology Connections.

[@nthgth]

I like TC too, but I'm not sure what Alec could've added from across the pond

[@Dullbedsitblogger]

I remember hearing that some of the prerecorded pirate radio stations used to record audio on to a video tape, due to the fact it would play for longer uninterrupted.

[@TooNDeMentIa]

It was common for smaller radio stations to archive transmissions on VHS due to the long playtime. I remember the guy who ran the local radio station where I grew up saying that he'd just pop in a 4h tape and then go out to shop, eat or whatever.

[@queegfivehundred8197]

Congrats Mat. Maybe in the next video we can hear the muppets' thoughts on your milestone ;-)

[@ndaniel80]

Hi. This is another outstanding material I've just watched on your channel. Thanks to your hard work and efforts I can jump into a time capsule and move into the 70's and 80's to see how the masterpiece electronic devices worked back then. And this for me would be never possible as I was born exacltly in 1980, in Poland at the peak of cold war times. And when finaly the iron curtain was down and we could finaly see these brands on the shelves of our shops then such a devices like this one were already not produced anymore. But as said, thanks to you I can finaly satisfy my cutting edge but vintage technology curiosity. Congrats on 1M subs!

[@MaxxUrban]

Congratulations on a million subscribers. This is the best technology channel on KZbin. Incredibly interesting to watch and listen. Thank you for your efforts.

[@ppallino10]

you might try to feed the composite video of a "digital audio VHS" using a standard VHS player into the "digital in" of the machine and see if it accepts it :-)

[@nilswegner2881]

That would be awesome

[@e8root]

Low bit depth in PCM audio does not sound metalic. It is however audible as specific type of noise and in reduced dynamic range. It can be heard when comparing 16/44 audio to dense formats. CD-Audio quality is however for all intents and purposes just fine. It is good they decided on 16bit do CD.

[@olmostgudinaf8100]

Also, it can be heard more in some music genres than others.

[@hikari_no_yume]

> It is however audible as specific type of noise and in reduced dynamic range. It can be heard when comparing 16/44 audio to dense formats. PCM that is properly dithered should have inaudible noise at 16-bit, but unfortunately not all recordings are dirthered.

[@e8root]

@@hikari_no_yume Undithered analog recording (or 24/32bit to 16bit conversion) sounds different and there is not so much noise as rather strange sounding artifacts. Very similar to how sound is like when converting to 8bit. When you do that conversion everything is just much more audible. Dithering kinda smooth things out but adds noise. Conversion of 16bit 44KHz to something like 8bit 88KHz with dithering moves most of the noise in to inaudible range but there is still some remaining in the audible range... at least in the converter I used. Maybe there are better dithering methods. For 44.1KHz range there is not that much inaudible "extension" to use. Thankfully these noise artifacts are rather quiet.

[@Richard-bq3ni]

@@e8root 8 bit 88kHz. Never heard of that. Does that mean that you dither with a shaped noise that sits above 22kHz and thus inaudible?

[@markjamesmeli2520]

Just wonderful sir. I do remember, perhaps late 1980s to very early 1990s, I might have just heard of DAT. A friend of mine was doing some work in a recording studio in our region. When he returned, he told me that the studio was the closest thing you could get to recording directly to a CD, which was the audio portion of a stereo VHS machine. The chief studio engineer was doing mixdowns and backups on VHS tapes. Very cool to see now that there already was such a deck designed well in advance. Thank you.

[@AlexBarnDavis]

Congratulations on 1M! Love this channel ❤

[@lmntcrnstn4970]

"... encrypt phone lines that went from London to the Pentagon at the end of World War II ..." This description of PCM reminded me that The Start of the Digital Revolution: SIGSALY Secure Digital Voice Communication in World War II was mentioned in the book How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop (The Machine Speaks). Will you ever do a vocoder video?

[@BubbafromSapperton]

When those came out I would have traded my wife for one, in retrospect I'm kicking-myself now that I didn't.... 😆

[@xtremejay2000]

Congrats on hitting 1 Million! You deserve it man. i discovered you a year ago and I try to spread the word as much as I can. CHEERS!

[@tolentarpay5464]

You're the man! Well deserved, & I found your outro very touching. Congrats!

[@addrakettp]

I love that the history you are saving here should be available in perpetuity for future Generations. I'm sure there will come a time when people argue about when digital music first became available and now you have provided concrete evidence of machine that predates most anything anyone knew about.

[@tomstickland]

A brilliant piece of equipment that landed at the wrong moment relative to the CD player. Great to see one still working.

[@neilloughran4437]

I'd love to know more about digital recorders of this era. I always wondered what the SoundStream Inc setup was about (about to google that now) as it was mentioned on some records of the late 70s particularly Giorgio Moroder's E=MC2 from 1979. Just seen that it supported 37 kHz, 16-bit recording.

[@neilloughran4437]

Actually read it supported 50Khz!

[@billmankin6204]

Congrats on 1M Subscribers! For a long time you have "ticked all the boxes" on showing my favorite things - audio components great and not so great, old technology, repair and tinkering, and explanations of the science and tech behind gadgets. Also love your thoughts on how the markets and consumer behavior have affected the tech evolution. Please keep it up, I have appreciated the entertainment immensely. This video was a nice tribute to your accomplishment. Cheers!

[@grahammartin8568]

Congratulations on the million mark, I have watched a lot of your videos, but the outro shows me I have missed a lot of interesting stuff, keep 'em coming, I'll try to catch up

[@SyedAli-qz1cp]

Whenever I watch techmoan I say “yesterday when I was young”.

[@sellmeyoursoul6601]

matsushita is the best and always will be :) the stuff that I have from them is ages old and it simply doesnt break down, there is no "low end", it just works

[@tribalskyes4838]

I still have cases of VHS tapes loaded with timed recordings from late night ad-free FM shows. Obviously not digital but, it made for long analog recordings which I could listen to later. Thanks so much for this glimpse at a very rare and cool technology.

[@LuukvdHoogen]

I would imagine that 14 bit audio has the same quality as a 16bit recording recorded with the volume turned down to 25%

[@ababab28]

But the digital audio is transferred back to analog by your DAC playback before you apply volume, so no, not quite

[@olmostgudinaf8100]

Not really. The number of bits does not determine the absolute volume but the dynamic range - the difference between the loudest and quietest bits the recording can determine. 14 bits give 78 dB (decibels), 16 bits give 90 dB. Put very simply, dynamic range = 20 x log(2^(n-1)), where n = number of bits (assuming a linear digitization). 78 dB is perfectly adequate for most music genres: rock, pop, jazz... but not for some classical music.

[@LuukvdHoogen]

Thank you! of course I didn't think the volume would be lower, but the amount of relevant information in a 25% volume recorded 16bit would be the same, would it not be?

[@olmostgudinaf8100]

@@LuukvdHoogen Yes. That's the job of the calibration at the beginning. You adjust the recording volume so that the peaks of the loudest passages reach the 0 mark in the VU meter. The number of bits determines the "resolution" of the digitized signal. You can think of it like the pixel count in digital photography. The same picture fills the frame, but more pixels show finer details.

[@LuukvdHoogen]

@@olmostgudinaf8100 So if I can use your methaphor: if I would record a song at 25% on a 16 bit recording.. it would be like using only the first quarter of the image space, which accidentally is the exact image space of a 14bit recording. The amount relevant information is theoretically the same..(but the absolute volume level would be different in this example).

[@romulusnr]

This also reminds me a lot of a short-lived attempt to repurpose VHS tapes as computer drive backup tapes in the mid 90s. YOu could play the tapes back on a TV and see a similar B/W representation of the data on the video image space. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArVid (also LGR did a video on it)

[@cokecl]

2GB per tape was a lot, imagine having to restore one of those tapes today tho.

[@dankline9162]

I saw that one! The other guy I follow, hehe.

[@orinokonx01]

And thank you so very very much for providing us countless hours of amazing video footage (and commentary!) of our beloved electronic gadgets from yesteryear :)

[@AfferbeckBeats]

I have some 70s Japanese records that were championing newfangled digital recording. They include photos of the recording setup using what looked a big bank of servers. Incredible that in just a few years they managed to get that technology into a consumer device.

[@Crush777]

11:31 - So 1337. Oh and big congratulations on 1 million subscriber

[@98081]

25:07 very odd effect with the audio ending up on the cassette in analogue form. Maybe somehow the mark record head picking up internal cross talk from the ADC?

[@mfbfreak]

It may have something to do with soft samples being coded as 0000 and louder ones as 1111 (but with more bits and such). If the highest bit is recorded physically close to the 'audio' track and it has some crosstalk to it (i know the video buzz all too well in lower quality vhs recorders), it might work like an extremely crude 1 bit DAC. Digitally duplicated cassette tapes directly send the digital signal to the recording head, and rely on the lowpass filtering effect of the head to do the DAC'ing. But they use a far higher sampling rate, and 1 bit bit-depth IIRC.

[@98081]

@@mfbfreak however the video track is recorded in a helical pattern and the audio track is parallel to the tape, so if you were getting digital interfering with the audio you'd only get a small regular chunk of the digital signal getting close to the audio. I'd suspect that'd remove any possibility for getting anything meaningful out. I suppose the only that could be happening is if helical stripe length happened to be an exact multiple of the PCM sample size the you might end up with something like the MSB of the sample happening to always be placed on the tape along the edge near where the audio track is.

[@erlendse]

The audio may have been recorded there for easier identification, while still being processed to allow the markers. Just for some backward compatibility!

[@svenschwingel8632]

There are other options as well. VHS tape material never had the magnetic parameters of high quality cassette, R2R or DAT tape. So there might have been some print-through or seeping of magnetic energy into the index track that gets past a capacitor or bandpass that is a bit out of spec in the playback device. A capacitor is the most simple DAC you can imagine, after all. Also, with the Technics recorder being 40 years old, there is a possibility of itself being a tad out of its original specs. And the playback device doesn't really look like a high quality VCR as well.

[@erlendse]

Actually, it is recorded in analog form too, the connection can be seen in the service manual!