Hi Now there were quite a few people who wanted to see what was on this handy fact 1000 operating struction VHS uh video. so I thought I''d uh, try and capture it. So what I've done is I've I didn't have a VCR so I've salvaged a VCR which just so happened to be down in the uh junk room somebody had tossed it out. it's an ENC it's one of these duel one of these modern in quote marks dual uh DVD and and uh VCR um six head o six head highi stereo.

Love it and uh, so it's one of these VCR so I salvaged it I don't know if it works or not. um but we'll give it a try cuz it's the only VCR I've got it did have a sharktail DVD stuck in it. um so presumably that's why it was, uh, tossed out. but anyway, I've um decided to hook it up to a uh hup if that's how you pronounce it.

no idea how to pronounce that. it's one of these Hdpvr capture boxes and I've got um Alan Garfield to thank for that. He uh sent me that so thank you very much. Alan So I've got that uh, hooked up to the composite video output on this thing and I thought we'd uh, give it a go like uh the reason I've got the lid off is not only to uh, show you inside, but also um because I put the tape in before and it got stuck.

It chewed up the uh, it chewed up a bit of the tape. so to free it I had to uh, open the thing up. So here you go. If you haven't seen inside a VCR before, a lot of you young people probably haven't There's the head which uh, spins around the uh top half I believe It's only the top half spins around and you can see those little notches.

If you can see those little notches in there, they're the little heads I believe and there'll be six of those spread around. So as it spins it, uh, spins diag. and the reason it's diagonal like that is because it, um, it, uh, sweeps across the tape as it travels through. I'm not really up on the theory of how VCRs worked anymore.

I Did uh, have a little bit of a clue? you know, 20 odd years ago or something like that. But there you go. that's a six head. um Hi-Fi uh VCR head and it spins, spins around I'm not sure at a couple hundred RPM or something.

and uh, there's a little uh Drive motor and some uh cogs to operate all of the pinch rollers and stuff like that and I'll put the tape in in a second and you'll see it. Uh, see it all operate but there's not much to it. The Old Fashioned VCRs used to be a lot more complicated than this. They would have Dr belts and pulley and I mean this one still has a there's a pulley down in there.

Looks like it's still got a belt on it. but they had a lot more belts and pulley and pinch rollers and things. Or they seem to. that's my recollection of it.

Anyway, back in the old days, so um, but they still have a few pinch rolls and the tape you'll see. the tape will actually go up here. These sliders will slide along there like that and actually wrap the tape around the head like that. and uh.

anyway. um, here's the switch mode power supply. as, uh, fairly, uh, common inside. almost Universal Actually inside these sorts of, uh, consumer appliances, they build them down to the last scent.

so they use a single-sided board for the switch mode power supply. There's not much for the DVD player, it just connects over to the main board. Down in there, they got a fairly looking main. modern, uh, main.

PCB down there. half the components aren't populated, which again, is uh, common. Maybe for different models or something like that. We've got our tuna over here and our output connectors and there's not much else to it.

So uh, hopefully this, uh, suck is going to work. It's fairly modern. It's got one of these um, uh, 2D uh barcodes on it. There you go.

So anyway, let's give it a go. hopefully it won't chew it up again. And here we go. There we go.

It pulls the tape around the head like that and you can probably hear that or see that uh spinning at the very least. So it spins around the table and uh, it looks like it's ready to go. So I've got my Uh software up there and we'll give it a go. So as you saw there, it's got uh, several steps it goes through when you insert the VCR in here, they once you push it in the front here because you'll notice that it's actually further.

it's dropped down inside there. so you push it in, they've obviously got a sensor which detects that the Uh tape has been uh has been inserted and then they've got uh roll is in there which grab it and drag the tape in and then it drops. um then they've got a you can probably see the mechanism there which the tape sits in and then it levers down like that and pushes the VCR down onto the transport uh plate or the transport mechanism uh down in there and then it um lifts up the flap here cuz the flap has to lift up which actually protects the tape during Transit and uh handling and uh, things like that and it's got a little latch on the right hand side here which pushes in it releases that there's an arm which comes in motor, lifts it up like that and then the rollers in there can get uh inside and they actually get behind the tape and then they roll out like that and it pulls the tape and wraps it around. there.

It wraps it around and it makes physical contact with these things as it spins and moves. and that t tape is moving. Now you can see it. Uh, you can see it rotating in there so it dries it from this side.

and uh, so there's another motor in there which drives out. So there's several uh Motors and uh, lever arms and uh, things like that inside one of these. uh VCRs So but I I think that's relatively, um, simple operation. really? For one of these, uh, as I said, I think they were much more complicated than this.

uh, back in the original types, they seem to have a had a lot more in them. But as you can see, that's why these tapes are wore out. You had to clean them. There were alignment issues that you had have to demagnetize things it was.

You know, these things had to be uh, serviced. and uh, that was a big industry. You know, back in the day servicing your VCR your tape got stuck in there and it chewed up the tape so you'd have to cut some off. You'd have to rewind it.

and uh, it was. These things required. You know, a lot, lot of percussive, uh, maintenance and a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, you know, care to actually use them. And of course kids would, um, you know, shove things.

They'd shove toys inside there. So one of the common, uh, most common jobs for any VCR service tech was to extract toys from inside the transport mechan mechanism in there because little Johnny shoved his little toy car inside the VCR or shoved his uh, peanut butter sandwich in there I Love it. Okay, so let's stop this thing and uh, let's rewind it and we'll take a look at what happens when it rewinds. Once again, there we go.

Hey woo doesn't sound good and it slows down when it gets to the end and then it should. Kach chunk, kach chunk. kach chunk stop. and yeah, and it forwards it.

It takes up the uh tension on the tape I think that's what it was doing there and let's eject this thing and uh, you'll see the uh, this mechanism on the side lift up. There's one of the arms I think for lifting the flap there. So and this one here lists the transport mechanism so it looks like it all works in one continuous step driven by that Cog down in there which almost looks like it's sitting on the PCB actually. so that's uh, rather curious.

Anyway, Let's uh, eject this thing and have a look Bingo and our tapes back back out. Thank you very much. Ah, 80s technology I Love it! I'll give you another perspective of that. As it's pushed in, you can see that's the mechanism there that holds the tape and there we go.

Boom and it automatically starts playing ribbon cable going into to it there with the four pins on the back. I'm sure that one is the sound head because if you look on the front surface you'll uh see the head which is on the um edge of the tape cuz the video is in the middle and I believe the audio is encoded um right out on the edge of the Uh tape itself and you should be able to see the actual Uh sound head pickup itself on the top and the bottom there of the sensor head and some people desperately wanted to see this thing uh switched on and yes it is just the micro switch in there I believe So let's oh beep beep just press the on on off button. oh nothing's contrast. oh hello McFly it's beeping but uh look looks like she ain't working anymore whether or not that has something to do with the tear down or whether or not it just never worked I have no idea.

Obviously to get that beep, the uh the Uh processor itself is working but uh, looks like we have nothing on the screen. bummer sorry whether you're from the office, well there you go. it's uh, it's working and I will Capt try and capture the real video and play the entire tape after this if you really want to watch it. but uh, it looks like it's not framed that correctly.

that's uh, completely way out. so I'm not sure what's going on there I have to play around with the Uh software. it is set for pal B and uh seems to be set up correctly. but uh, no, the framing's all wrong.

so let me fix that and see if I can capture it. There it is. I got it. Just had to switch to uh Pal M in there and uh, it's looks really good actually for a VCR So I'm going to record that and uh, sit back and relax and watch the entire 22 minutes.

If you dare, just try and stay awake. see you is now installed.