The databits Time Machine - 1992/93 Philips VCR's

Finally, a time machine able to take us back to 1992/93. Let's explore Philips VCR's and DCC from this time period.
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[@WatchingDude]

In the early 90s Panasonic released a television that was in 16 9 format. It had an exceptionally heavy picture tube and was impossible to move without the assistance of another person.

[@DavidSusiloUnscripted]

Actually in Asia and UK all TV manufacturers made 16:9 CRT even the 20” option. I had a Sony 20” 16:9 TV. Max resolution was only 480i Other manufacturers includes ProScan, RCA, Samsung, JVC and Toshiba all had 16:9 CRT

[@firsteerr]

@@DavidSusiloUnscripted i had a sony portable wide screen CRT and it was still heavy but had a good picture for the times it was (i think ) 16 inch

[@MultiAnimationdude]

Happy 50th Anniversary month (June 2022) to the Home Video industry. From Cartrivision to the streaming wars and beyond, it's been a revolutionary journey and the world can't wait to see what comes next. Here's to a truly golden half-century, and may the next 50 years be just as innovative!

[@nickdiba7512]

First 16:9 tv I saw in a store was in 1991. It was a Thomson High Definition tv and costed 8.000.000 Italian Lira (about 17.000 USD today). The year before, 1990, six games of the soccer world cup were transmitted in HDTV and shown in selected locations. So widescreen and HDTV were already a thing in the very early 90s, but still far from being an affordable consumer product.

[@databits]

Very interesting!!

[@Ziggerzzz]

I was a repair technician for 30 years , always hated the Phillips brand , All cheap plastic gears that broke all the time

[@rarbiart]

and millions of screws, minimum double the amount what was actually neccesary. But at least they were torx (before they were sold off to funai and tpvision)

[@MrDanDan420]

Awesome video as always. Thanks for the wonderful content. Never a dull or boring upload yet. Thanks!!

[@jerryspann8713]

In '92 or '93, I was in Best Buy and they had 16:9 projection TVs on sale. They where $3000 more than regular 4:3 projection TVs. To me this was a scam, because these televisions had the same chassis as the 4:3 sets. The difference was just the cabinet had a 16:9 cut out for the screen.

[@video99couk]

I have a DCC900 here, and yes I did have to replace a heap of surface mount electrolytic capacitors and also pinch rollers.

[@KarlHamilton]

Get that V2000 machine sorted!

[@firsteerr]

my sister worked for Philips back in that time period and she got me one of these CDI machines for Christmas !! after the debacle of the DAT i decided that it wasn't going to be the future

[@chezsnailez]

We remember playing with one-a those CD interactive players at Sears whilst waiting for our next bus...

[@analogvideochannel4612]

At least when it came to VCRs, I don't think these philips-made decks were ever released in the US. From the early 90s and on Philips branded VCRs in the US were mostly funai decks I think, and a few high-end ones using a JVC design/mech. Funai bought the rights to the brand in the US at some point. Before that I think US philips vcrs may have been panasonic-made or something. Similar things with dvd players/recorders I think, with european and us models being completely different, at least to some extent. Silly thing about the turbo drive "demo" is that they used what looks like the VR813 SVHS deck demoed earlier which does not use the turbo drive mech, but instead the panasonic G mech which Philips/Grunding used in some models in the early 90s for whatever reason. I have some late 90s/early 2000s "turbo drive" decks, but not any of the first iteration. They were decently made, but the mech is a bit plasticky, and there is a loading gear that have a big tendency to crack causing loading issues. An interesting thing about this mech is that it does not use a mode encoder switch at all. Didn't use them in their hayday so can't say how they were when it came to usability otherwise. Starting in the early 2000s, they seems to have stopped making vcrs themselves and the decks sold in Europe were made by Funai instead instead like the US marked ones, with a massive drop in build quality (LG for some of the combos and JVC for a handful of high-end ones). Earlier on they also made vhs decks with the wacky "charlie" mechanism, which loaded the tape more like a betamax deck.

[@irtbmtind89]

North American Philips was mostly doing it's own thing with home video. They were selling rebadged Japanese VHS machines in the 70s (badged as Magnavox and Philco in the US, though I think they actually used the Philips name in Canada), when Phillips in Europe was pushing V2000. Though in Europe Philips had to deal with EEC import quotas on Japanese VCRs and even some VCR parts too I think.

[@Oldgamingfart]

Still have my VR813, based around the Panasonic G-Deck mechanism. It makes sense as Philips and Panasonic had a joint-venture at the time. The original box it came in mentions something about it being part of 'The Collection'. Also, it's one of only a handful of VCR's that could actually output RGB over SCART, and not just loop-thru! I don't recall it being marketed as 'Turbo Drive', so I'm not sure why they've used the 813 for the illustration! Perhaps they meant to use the VR512, as that was a Turbo, and had a similar design to the VR813. Depending on which country the machines were localised for, they'd either have NICAM or A2 Stereo (or perhaps even both in one or two European countries). The VPT (Video Programming via Teletext) function (aka 'StarText Programming' or 'TopText Programming'), relied on the machine's internal Fastext decoder. You could then call-up a TV listing page and use an on-screen cursor to select the program to record (much like an EPG). It seemed to work best on BBC Ceefax (page 601, 602 etc). The clock would also set itself from the Teletext signal, and you could also use the on-board Fastext decoder to recall Teletext pages and full subtitles from S-VHS recordings. Great for those whom were hard of hearing. Interestingly, JVC also had their own version of VPT which used a separate adapter module that clipped onto the rear of the machine, and was sold as an optional extra.

[@rarbiart]

these headphones are the most 1990ties thing seen since a long time.

[@jimadams7765]

Having owned a couple of Matchline VCRs and TV (all shown) I can tell you that they were crap. Usability was unnecessarily awkward and recording was a real pain. They looked good - that's it. (btw NICAM is a 12-bit Stereo Sound TV transmission standard used in UK). These machines, while nice sound reproduction quality, didn't use digital sound recording - just three linear tracks on the edges of the tape. They were still way better than Compact Cassette. And I created many 8 hour HiFi music tapes.

[@terrancelopez9631]

My time at e*, their sat receivers were named similar , 813 being the latest with a 110; and 922, 722, 322, 321, 211, 211k. The second number meant it had 2 receivers, and the last 2 was for 2 HDDs; they looked nothing like this, were around the 2005-9ish. I remember there being rebranded ones for different markets, like Canada and Mexico, under their respective satellite providers.

[@sterlinsilver]

Are you going to show all the other gadgets on the disc at some point? I'd love to see some of those TV sets...

[@databits]

No plans yet.

[@DavidSusiloUnscripted]

16:9 definitely a thing in the early ‘90s. Was big in Japan and UK. Even LaserDisc have 16:9 discs (Squeeze LD)

[@zarathustra20]

NICAM was a lossy audio codec designed in the 1970s. Input was 14-bits, but only 10-bits were ever actually sent - it did this by truncating LSBs of samples containing larger signals (in other words, audio quality of louder sounds was degraded to save bandwidth). The NICAM audio was sent digitally alongside the analogue PAL TV signal, but the actual recording on a NICAM VCR was the standard analogue VHS Hi-Fi system - stereo audio on two FM carriers recorded onto the tape using helical scan, plus the older mono linear audio track for compatibility with mono VCRs.

[@databits]

Thanks for the explanation. I did not see NICAM in the specifications until I was making the video. Did not expect to see it there.

[@GaryKeepItSimple]

i6:9 was a big thing when it came out. Cost a fortune for the sets. over £2500 for a 32 inch

[@GaryKeepItSimple]

In the UK Stereo Broadcast TV was only ever NICAM. The normal sound was FM on the transmission and was only mono. But good quality. Philips was a strange product line. It was very good whilst being irritatingly bad at the same time. Good pictures and sound , bit fiddly to repair and not very reliable. However the faults mostly appeared more than once so the sets were easy after the range settled in.

[@Labruskie]

If you haven't already, have a look at Wikipedia about NICAM. In a nutshell, it was added to PAL as a way to get better sound than the standard mono offering. On a VHS recorder the stereo tracks were recorded post D-A conversion in HiFi VHS, so not like the PCM tracks of Video 8. Back in the nineties, I found myself at a very dodgy looking auction while on holiday in Blackpool. High technology goods for impressively low prices! Yeah, right... There was a boombox with 'Nicam' as it's brand name. "Oooh, I know that name from somewhere. I'll get one for my grandson." is what I think they were hoping some poor sucker to think.

[@databits]

Thanks for the explanation!

[@ttheone3518]

NICAM was a eurpoean broadcasting standard for stereo broadcasts in the 90-2000s, where the US had Simulcast FM broadcasts As far as i know, i have a few tapes recorded using NICAM, mostly some ESCs from the 90s

[@50shadesofbeige88]

That stock music is wonderful

[@databits]

Agreed.

[@ttheone3518]

I bought a VR723 that was actually really fast at inserting and ejecting the tape. Unfortunately the fuse blew so it’s not working anymore

[@byronlaw6491]

They would make a big deal out of Nicam Stereo here in the U.K. in the 90s. Certain tv shows were in it. I never got to hear it however.

[@squirrelarch]

Nicam was pretty good. The BBC used it to transmit FM radio between relay stations as well. Thought it was a 14 bit technology. Obviously the VHS record recorders with it just recorded it as analogue HiFi. The upright CD player in the catalogue is similar to the one they made for Apple (Apple Power CD) that connected to Macs via SCSI fir data as well as being standalone CD and Photo CD players. Never cared for Philips designs back in the day. Hindsight has changed my mind.

[@davidbjork5063]

Many say about bad quality and so on. I agree as it comes to VHS. But theot Video2000 was different story. More recording time, funtions as index in standard (This was only in premium VHS and newer vhs machines), better picturequality than vhs or beta.

[@MiamiMillionaire]

I have the exact same portable VCR 8:36

Nice beard!

[@databits]

Thanks bud, yours as well!

[@solarr2]

👍👍👌👍

[@williamwilliam9993]

Can PAL CD-I players/game console will play US (NTSC) CD-I disc

[@databits]

Yes.

[@williamwilliam9993]

Are philips cdi sold in the united states?

[@databits]

They were yes. Now only on eBay.

[@MrFlyboy1972]

Wasn’t Philips marketed as Norelco in the USA?

[@pgtmr2713]

Magnavox

[@databits]

Yes we had Philips/Norelco razors.

[@AmaroqStarwind]

Ever heard of CD-ROM XA? (Compact Disc - Read-Only Memory: Extended Architecture). Basically, it is meant to be a sort of bridge between CD-ROM and CD-i. Well, apparently it wasn’t enough of a bridge between the two formats… because not long afterwards, CD-i Bridge was produced which meant to be a bridge between CD-i and CD-ROM XA (which as I previously said, was itself already meant to be a bridge between CD-ROM and CD-i.)

[@databits]

I think I’ve heard of this, but never explored it. I had a brief interest in Sony MMCD.

[@theshadowman1398]

Philips is unfortunately no longer Philips but low quality brandless Chinese items with Philips printed on it.. I reside in the Netherlands and it’s sad to see this icon going this route.

[@ajaybahl8057]

First