Three video decks, part3: Sony BVW65P BetacamSP player with TBC and digital output... sort of.

[@snap_oversteer]

Thank you for showing the mechanism in action, I've just brought one home for next to nothing that had misadjusted mechanism and this helped me to get it working again perfectly. Even the DT works great!

[@frankowalker4662]

I love these studio machines, they are such workhorses. I worked in a small studio in the mid 80's, (mostly corporate videos with the occasional music vid for local bands), It was a lot of fun.

[@chillidogkev]

I just started working on a BVW-75P with exactly the same loading noise. Initially hard to pin point the source but it is the motor. A little spray grease into each end where the spindle shaft can be seen and the noise was no more. Dry bearing, that's all. Super videos you're producing, thanks!

[@video99couk]

I obviously didn't manage to grease the right spot, I'll try that again.

[@bananenbuurman]

​@@video99couk did this solve it? and where did you apply the grease exactly? thnx! :)

[@jasonhaman4670]

Wow that one's a beast. The impressiveness of the number of cards in it is second only to the many contacts on the top of the video drum shaft. And, I see Sony used (more or less) the early Betamax wrap for Betacam, going counter-clockwise with fixed guides on a ring rather than later-Betamax's clockwise with pop-up guides.

[@video99couk]

With professional decks, space is not such an issue so you can drop the tape down onto the larger ring guides.

[@zhaohaigaogu7821]

It looks like it was stored in a shed outside. 😊It was interesting. Wasn't there Spider-Man?🤔I learned a lot.👍

[@DrCassette]

The BVW-65 was the top of the line Betacam SP player Sony made for broadcast use (that's what the B in the model number stands for). The BVW-60 didn't have Dynamic Track Following, so no clean slow motion on that one. I think both models had the TBC though. I have the BVW-75 which is the top of the line recorder. Mine does not have the digital video output, and it has a broken tape end sensor which causes the logic to lock the fast forward and shuttle functions :( The hour meter contains a little button cell, I think it's an LR44. This can be replaced after disassembling the meter. There are instructions online on how to do this.

[@video99couk]

I suspect that digital output was a very rare aftermarket installation. I might just change the hours meter battery, but of course it will be zero now.

[@petersmith1972]

Hi i have joined and i also love video machines and thanks you so much for all these vids!..The BVW 65-75PS Range are great proper machines and that loading/lacing gear is always one of it's mechanical downfalls..belt is easy but hidden inside the two gears is a little shock rubber bush that just goes to glue then the gear just spins!. and the possible seized pinchwheel arm and the noise which is the cleaning arm hitting the drum because the foam has disintergrated..I have new kits for these and being boxed for 30 years they have disintergated too! Also check the right last angled arm which swings out is very slow to return and normally wrecks the tape..All easy simple repairs to get these lovely machines going...Anyone got any C Format machine tips??

[@video99couk]

I can't help with C format, not yet anyway. I have a C format machine awaiting a going over, but it's all a bit daunting. I could really use borrowing someone who is familiar with them.

[@timf-tinkering]

I have two BVW-75P machines, sadly neither of which work. One fails to lace the tape; the motor runs and the worm gear turns, but the two stacked gears don't rotate - I suspect this is down to the disintegrated rubber bush you refer to. The other machine has a fully working mechanism, and gives an excellent off-tape RF meter reading, but for some reason the video output is very dark, and mis-synchronised, and if I turn on Dynamic Tracking, the RF reading drops and the meter needle trembles, and I get noise on the FM audio channels (turning off DT gets rid of the FM audio noise and restores full RF reading). I love video recorders and I find them fascinating, but I don't have the expertise to diagnose the fault properly. I'm hoping I can swap boards between machines to at least narrow down the faulty board.

[@oriole8789]

Neat machine. My first instinct about the jarring noise was that perhaps the plastic gear that drives the tape wrapping mechanism is slipping, and you're hearing the teeth grind against each other? In which case prolonged threading operations will damage both sets of teeth even further. As that plastic wears down, I'd expect this exact problem to eventually happen (intermittent contact). The "directionality" makes sense as well, since the amount of mechanical play between gears would change slightly with turning direction. If this isn't the case, my next guess would be dry motor bearing but I'd expect that noise to be a lot quieter since the surface area that generates it would be small. Small metal motor components wouldn't be as resonant as the C-shaped wrapping mechanism either. Could be wrong though. My job is at the forefront of modern digital tech but I have a lot of appreciation for this type of old analog gear. Marvels of system engineering.

[@video99couk]

I did worry it was the loading ring teeth, but they are robust and in good shape. It's just the motor. Unlike the previous video in this series, a Panasonic deck which makes a horrible noise and turns out to have serious gear problems.

[@oriole8789]

@@video99couk That's good to hear then! A slightly better problem to have. Good luck and thank you for making your videos.

[@ritterss1983]

21,15 - you can always use the capture card like AJA Kona and ask the card to receive video signal from SDI and take audio from analogue one. For example, I own a Panasonic AJ-D750E DVCPRO VTR, and it allows to record video through SDI and audio from analogue XLR sockets. You may try that.

[@video99couk]

I use an old version of Pinnacle Studio for video capture, but all KZbin material which is 4k, I use DaVinci Resolve.

[@thebreretons]

Absolutely brilliant videos and narration. I used to work extensively on SL-C9 and SL-F1's (my favourite consumer machines) when I worked for Sony in the 80's and DMR-4000's and the like used for Pro audio purposes, I currently have 2 SL-C9's, both needing loading gear kits at the very least. I have 2 brand new video heads (the original type with blue/white leads) if I need to replace them. Can anyone help with the gear kits? Any other problems that come to light I can probably work around.

[@olnnn]

The dub connector could be the larger betacam dub connectors. Some Betacam VCRs have both a betacam one and an umatic one.

[@video99couk]

Ah, well spotted. It's not a Umatic Dub connector, my mistake.

[@mspysu79]

@@video99couk The Betacam Dub connector is component video, just made more convenient with just one cable. and good for simple editing or component dubbing.

[@video99couk]

@@mspysu79 I'm sure I am not the only one to get those two confused. Sony should have called the Betacam Dub something else. BetaDub sounds nice!

[@mspysu79]

@@video99couk Yes I liked BetaDub. I have a sony BVE-600(i believe) that has Betacam DUB I/O connectors. so 2 for A/B players and 1 for the recorder.

[@mspysu79]

I ordered a BVW-60 off of eBay once when it was received it would not load cassette, I opened the top and find that the entire frame of the deck was cracked and the mechanism had shifted,, we can imagine what kind of a sock the machine had to have taken (and not from the shipping company as the box was in great condition). I would not mind that deck in my playback stable, the video only SDI is OK with me as my capture setup will allow SDI video and either AES/EBU or analog audio capture. I f sony Licensed DT from Philips, it was earlier than this machine by quite a while, my 1979 BVH-1100A 1" machine has DT.

[@Kosh31100]

10 years of my life,I set in front of those machines,when I worked at Sport Channel/Sport 5 (a cable tv sport channel at my country).I mainly used the PVW-2800 models VTR'S-they have only linear audio, and they threaded the tape in M-LOAD wrap like VHS,unlike the older BVW models,which had C/U wrap like U-MATIC/Betamax.later I also worked with BVW series-mainly the BVW-70&BVW-75.I used to do an old style video editing on them- "cut to cut"(that was my main job)and dubs of tapes.and ofcourse,every TV station archive worker familiar with this - recording black bursts video on the tapes.I did it at days,and they had a special worker that did it at night. when I first started to work there,I was amazed by the picture quality that format produced compared to the other analog formats.but later in years,into the mid 2000,the format really started to show it's age,and also the VTR maintence at this channel was terrible at that era (for money issues and just careless..) so many recorded items at the prime show of this channel "the sport news" were suffered from bad picture quality and drop outs.and mostly big bossess(the CEO's than) there didn't care much..only in 2010 they moved to a new facilites,with only tapeless workout from than.

[@ET2carbon]

Audio master tape quality help please? can you please put up a video of absolute prescribe audio fidelity dynamics and response like incorporating professional hi8 VIDEO8 digital 8 beta max superbeta hihi S-VHS HiFi betacam SP SX (but all non-PCM or bitstream encoding) analog with AFM linear magnetic or depth multiplexing please?!

[@Kosh31100]

@@ET2carbon I think you meant to respond to video99uk and not me..

[@bobsbits5357]

over the last 10 month i have worked on alot of betacam sp range decks they are very good if service right i think they are better than the home decks i did get some new seal betacam tape not the sp one the one's that cam out in 1984 about they used in the usa first WOW the sound on them is ace 4o year old tapes

[@KylesDigitalLab]

I have a BVW-75 that I got for free, it has a problem when you rewind large tapes, it will throw up an Error-02. Which is a reel trouble error that it detects tape breaking, according to the service manual. I noticed it doesn't do it with small sized tapes at all. I only have one large sized tape so I don't know if it's just that one tape. Could it be the mechanism that moves the tape reels in and out for playing small and large cassettes?

[@jonathanpickering1457]

Those machines are good in a hfi system I use them all the time music sounds great

[@MyPOLYSTAR]

O laceamento da fita é parecido ao sistema Betamax.

[@joenest2122]

Something that makes you know it's a broadcast machine is the clicking noises as it goes into play/rew/shuttle etc., as you can clearly hear at 7:33 onwards. What is it that actually makes that noise?

[@martinmannik]

These clicking sounds come from electro-mechanical solenoids that are part of tape mechanism. Solenoids move pinch rollers and other mechanical details when pressing tape control buttons.

[@nickcharles1241]

Just bought a BVW 75 Betacam SP but it didn't come with any of the cords necessary to connect it to a tv/monitor. I only came with the electrical cord. Do you know which cords I need to make this machine fully functional? Thanks for help on this issue.

[@chuckpenn8082]

Can I get some tapes converted?

[@video99couk]

Yes, see my web site www.video99.co.uk and/or email me [e-mail]

[@bobjerome5390]

hi ihave worked on 4 unit's lthe same as this you see the motor and belt need's oil grease in the gear there a rubber inside one of the turning parts that goe's funny i had a pallet of recorder's of betacam sp dropped of for me to fix if you had a corner in a room you could have a tower of them i got a bigger work shop in my pad i to see what people think

[@northernplacecorporation]

Uhh... Colin, can I have a Sony DVW-A500P Digital Betacam recorder and some Betacam SP and Digital Betacam tapes?

[@video99couk]

They turn up on eBay for almost nothing these days, sometimes free to collect as this one was.

[@northernplacecorporation]

@@video99couk But my parents do not have that amount of money to pay for a Digital Betacam deck I mentioned. It's professional broadcast. Not domestic consumer home entertainment.

[@XxmattitudexX]

I own a pvw 2800 beta sp deck can you tell me what sort of time based corrector is in these

[@video99couk]

Sorry, I don't have one of those. The service manual would be the best place to look, probably available online.

[@merejo21]

Hello, I just bought the bmw-60 sp and ERROR 14 appears, does anyone know its meaning?

[@video99couk]

You will need to find the correct service manual. It may just be a bad fan motor, but check it.

[@merejo21]

@@video99couk I was just seeing that one of the fan motors does not start.

[@lonestartotti06pre-ecnl10]

What does Error-01 mean on this deck?

[@MRHERBSANDROOTS]

you must stop the tape before you eject the tape. respect.

[@zx8401ztv]

I could hear your muscles screaming, What a beast of a machine :-D And i thought my old jvc piano key was a gut buster to lift. That noise did sound like a worn and dry fast motor shaft, 'Give me a dot of oil please!!.' :-D. Wiggle that shaft laterally, i bet it's a bit sloppy. The plastic gearbox is slow in comparison, but a washout and relube might make the tape wrapping speed more constant. When you slowly said that sony must have licence to use .., i jumped in and said phillips 2000 (Like you could hear me through my acer laptop screen, and in the future.) lol. I'm rather daft at times :-D.

[@DrCassette]

All the Betacam SP machines I have seen so far wrapped the tape like the machine does in this video. The process starts slow and gets progressively fast. I too thought that may be a lubrication issue, but I am not so sure now. That may just be normal behaviour.

[@zx8401ztv]

DrCassette Well yes i'm likely wrong, i don't mind being wrong :-D i like to leave a comment to show i've been watching the video and not skipping bits like some people do. i'm sure colin knows more that ill ever know. Lucky that he is kind enough to make smashing videos about his interests, i could become smarter lol, that was a joke :-D Sorry i know you don't like my silly talk, but i am daft :-D

[@video99couk]

@@DrCassette It struck me as possibly odd, but possibly intentional.

[@bobsbits5357]

hi this is the one that will not take the L tapes not the motor i moved the motor into place and see what was going on just moved to S place again it's plays S tapes ok i have 3 of this model only one is playing up with L tapes funny in some way

[@bobjerome5390]

hi your got to have people asking to take video-audio gear of there hands all the time this year i sometimes i am getting people to pick up fee betacam decks as they just don't understand them lot of gear is in a very bad way i talked to a tec in the south about them kits best to line up with the real thing i have a cat if she kills the real tooling i will not lose alot DrCassette i have watched the video he got some good video's i had 1 video i pulled of you tube about a tascam 34 - 38 i made out of 2 decks i was getting alot of hits big time main part was a tascam 34b with 38 heads the 34 heads were dead i lost my otari 1/2 inch 3 speed deck so i need a 1/2 inch 2 speed play back deck as you know tape deck fans like there decks 100%

[@bobjerome5390]

hi i got this make this will take brtamax tape i will not play the old betamax tapes right way i am using it for sound only as i have some nice tape i need to find some way of using them the betacam digi will play back audio i recorded on betacam sp using betamax tape funny i was having to bin all the betamax tape so i will pull alot apart for the parts a tape to save room all this gear take alot of room up guy;s bob

[@gangstar7823]

I have Sony BVW-D75ps with SDI from 1990... Betacam SP... buy the way, please don't use s-video for betacam SP

[@video99couk]

Sorry, I do use S-Video for BetacamSP because that's what my capture systems use for DV-AVI files. Unless a customer requires 10-bit YUV or similar files, in which case I play BetacamSP via a DigiBeta deck and capture with SDI.

[@nickcharles1241]

Just bought a BVW 75 Betacam SP but it didn't come with any of the cords necessary to connect it to a tv/monitor. I only came with the electrical cord. Do you know which cords I need to make this machine fully functional? Thanks for help on this issue.

[@video99couk]

If your TV has the yellow, red and white sockets, then simply BNC to phono from Composite video to the yellow socket, and photo to phono for mono audio. If you need stereo sound, it's a bit more complicated, you would want balanced to unbalanced cables, readily available on eBay etc.

[@nickcharles1241]

@@video99couk Thanks much. Can't wait to get it connected and take it for a test drive!