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Author Topic: Thinking back to BETAMAX... And Beyond Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 07-05-2004 03:03 PM                     We've gotten spoiled. DVD's look incredible, and you can see things you've never seen in films that you've seen time after time. I was at Goodwill and bought 3 beta movies for $1. They are in excellent condition. I wound each of them to the end and back before I played them. Only one of them is actually new enough to have Beta Hi-Fi sound. They are as follows: Dr. Strangelove (1964) The Apple Dumpling Gang (197?) Stayin' Alive (1983) in Hi-Fi Doctor Strangelove looks like it was dubbed from an old print. There are several pops and repairs, but it is complete and is sharp. The Apple Dumpling Gang is sharp as a tack and dirt free. Stayin Alive also looks like it was dubbed from an old print. Dirt specks and black lines that come and go. And someone paid big money for these back in the early 1980's! Too bad BETA took a dive for VHS. I've always thought that Beta was the superior format. I love the reel changes on all of these films. BIG tape splice at the reel changes and lots of image bounce! Those were the days.... [ 07-06-2004, 06:38 AM: Message edited by: Bruce McGee ]  |  IP: Logged Ron Lacheur Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 650 From: British Columbia, Canada Registered: Feb 2002 posted 07-05-2004 09:59 PM                     About the reel changes appearing on the video release, 2 dvds I own have that. The Man with the Golden Gun and National Lampoon's Vacation have the reel change marks on them.  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 07-06-2004 12:39 AM                        Of course, the sticking point is the playback equipment. It's difficult to find someplace that will fix the decks. I've got tons of beta tapes, but when my deck quit, I sent it to a place (one of very few) listed as reputable on a beta-centric website. They never sent it back. Called after a month, they said it couldn't be fixed, told them to send it back, called again after a month, they said they sent it, no they didn't insure it. I really don't see much personal gain in trade-off of time, money, deniability, etc. in an interstate small-claims court fight. They probably fixed it & put it on eBay.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 07-06-2004 06:37 AM                     My Beta Hi-Fi deck has been repaired twice since 1986, by a brilliant person that posesses paper copies of the service manuals, and has access to the proper tools for repairs. **ME!** Now, if I need parts other than what my dead spare machine uses, I'm out of luck. I understand that most of the part numbers from Sony are NLA. I bought a set of NOS heads for this deck on eBay last year for $12. It has less than 200 hours of use on it. I bought it to use mainly for recording 5 hour long music tapes.  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 07-06-2004 01:03 PM                     I've been buying people's recorded blank tapes, if I can at least tell how old they are. I've gotten some good 70s and early 80s commercials- the oldest tape I have right now is Rolling Stone Magazine's 10th Anniversary special from 1977, complete with commercials and it still looks brand-new! I've transferred it to DVD with chapter marks. For pre-recorded movies, nothing beats CED videodisc- the 8-track of video!  |  IP: Logged Evans A Criswell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1579 From: Huntsville, AL, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 07-06-2004 04:45 PM                        quote: Bruce McGee Too bad BETA took a dive for VHS. I've always thought that Beta was the superior format.[ Actually, the entire family of "color under" video recorders were all pretty terrible. VHS and Beta both, instead of recording the full composite video signal like professional-grade recorders like quadruplex, Type B, and Type C, separated the chrominance from the luminance. The luminance was recorded FM with 3.5 to 4.8MHz range for Beta and 3.4 to 4.4 MHz range for VHS. Even if Beta has a slightly higher luminance bandwidth, both formats suffer tremendously from the way the color is recorded. The color (I (limited to about 1.5 MHz in a composite video signal and Q (limited to about 0.6 MHz in a composite video signal) are not recorded directly, but are heterodyned down to a low frequency carrier. It's 0.688 MHz for Beta and 0.629 MHz for VHS. Think about this. Although broadcast composite video supports around 330 lines of resolution for transitions between black and white, 120 lines of resolution for transition between red and cyan, and around 48 lines for transitions between green and magenta, when this signal is recorded on VHS, Beta, U-Matic, SVHS, ED Beta, EIAJ. etc, the color resolution drops considerably to the point that no more than 40 transitions between the above colors are possible, although the luminance component may be 240 or more. With SVHS, the luminance is 440, but the color is still the measly 40 or less. That's why the colors bleed all over the place when these machines are used. If Beta were better than VHS, it was only marginally so. It's a shame that these "color under" types of machines were popular so long and that so much video was shot with them.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 07-06-2004 05:49 PM                    Marginal or not it was definitely noticeable. And a VHS to VHS dub? William, if you want a broken Beta I'll make you a deal on a SL-HF450 (IIRC mostly broken because of that model's known problem with the cassette loading); then you'll be back to square one. Maybe Bruce can fix it for you.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 07-06-2004 07:34 PM                     My machine is a SL-HF900 as is my parts machine. The junker has a bad loading tray. MY deck has the updated replacement tray parts. What I meant on the merits of Beta over VHS is: Beta is gentler on the tape than VHS is. The Beta was based on the U-Matic 3/4" system. I have 4 working U-Matics too. One, a VO-1600 from 1972, was my first home VCR. Got it in 1976, and still have a few recordings from it in the collection. It has a built-in tuner, and will play stereo tapes. I cant believe how durable this machine has been. Sure, everything has drifted, but it can still produce color. The tracking can be touchy, and the skew... Didn't hurt having an endless supply of used 3/4" cassettes from the TV station where I worked, either. Evans: I hope you enjoy your work. Your knowledge astounds me at times.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 07-06-2004 08:32 PM                     Actually the place Beta shined through was in its lower video noise levels. The average Beta machine had quite a bit lower noise than the best VHS machines out there, Betas smaller head azimuth angles and the larger drum diameter all contributed to its very slightly better quality image. This larger drum diameter allowed about .4mhz wider bandwidth to be recorded and this could easily be seen by recording and playing back a simple multiburst test signal. Keep in mind that all pro formats also recorded FM modulated luminance and color info at differing frequency bandwidths in the spectrum. In the pro systems I repaired which covered many 3/4", 1" type C and 2" Quadruplex machines, the real visual and measurable improvements were all due to the correction that was being applied by both the time base corrector and video dropout/enhancement circuitry that was also normally a part of the TBC unit. You ought to see the output of a BVH-1100 type C without TBC correction. Its awful looking, similar looking to VHS but with less overall video noise and very unstable horizontally on a good color monitor. What really killed Beta was its shorter recording time which you all seemed to overlook. Just my 2 cents worth........ Mark  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 07-06-2004 09:03 PM                  quote: Evans A Criswell Actually, the entire family of "color under" video recorders were all pretty terrible. quote: Mark Gulbrandsen What really killed Beta was its shorter recording time which you all seemed to overlook. I agree with Evans and Mark 100%! Right on target! I would LOVE to get a hold of A RCA TR-60 Hi-Band quad machine! Hubba Hubba! >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 07-06-2004 11:25 PM                     I used to work with a fleet of RCA's TR 66's and later Ampex AVR-2 quad machines. The Ampex's were way better than the RCA's, rock solid and much more reliable. We got all the head blocks rebuilt by Spin Physics as I remember. I think thats a Kodak Company today or some relation. The RCA's were all germnanium semicinductor no less!! Orignally B&W low band machines then converted to low band color then to high band color... Phew! Glad I don't work on those RCA's any longer. Will look for pix's. Mark  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 07-06-2004 11:29 PM                  The 60's were silicon based and were MUCH better and had a much SMALLER footprint than the POS Ampex machines. >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 07-06-2004 11:35 PM                     The 60's must have been later machines. The TR-22's(not 66's) that I worked on were very old but ran pretty darn well. The AVR-2 is much smaller than the TR-22 was and about 1/4 as much weight. The Ampex's only weighed about 700 lbs compared to one ton for then TR-22's. This is one end of the old master control after de-comissioning it. We had two more TR-22's in another room. immediately to my left was a TK-27 with a typical RCA slide/multiplexer system and two LW Athena 16mm projectors. Old master control just before de-comissioning. Third TR-22 of the pack, all four TR-22's were left abandoned in place. New master control across the street. Am on the left still hooking back up the brand new Grass Valley air switcher. The old studio location was the location of the very first TV station in chicago which was WBKB TV. The 44th floor penthouse of the Civic Opera House in Chicago, 1 North Wacker Drive. The new location directly across the street, 1 South Wacker Drive, was 20 times larger and was originally the Chicago RCA recording studios. Mark  |  IP: Logged Jeffry L. Johnson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 809 From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 07-07-2004 01:32 PM                        It's been a few years, but I have had my Betamax machine repaired by Absolute Beta.  |  IP: Logged Ron Yost Master Film Handler Posts: 344 From: Paso Robles, CA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 07-07-2004 03:06 PM                     Mark, Fascinating! Thank's for posting the information and the great pictures. Are your pictures at WBBM, by the way? The history of television is a particular interest of mine, though I've never worked in broadcast TV. Being an almost-seasoned citizen I did grow up with its evolution. I lived in L.A. when KTLA (another Paramount station) was doing a lot of ground-breaking experimentation, too. First live TV broadcast from a helicopter, among others. It's kind of relevant to film, too, since the "BK" in WBKB stands for Balaban & Katz. Of course, you and Phil know that, but probably many don't. For those who don't know, Balaban & Katz (and their ties with Paramount) built many of Chicago's grand vaudeville (later film) theatres, before their involvement in early broadcast TV. There's a fairly good (though short) website of early WBKB television, and a little of the history of B&K, at: Early WBKB Chicago My Brenkert BX-80 came out of one of the Chicago B&K theatres, though I don't know which one. Not a big deal, but I think it's kind of neat that it's still going strong after spending all those years entertaining people in one of those beautiful picture palaces. It's in my screening room now so sees light service, the many years of commercial service long over. It's out to pasture, but still runs like a top. Thanks again! Ron Yost  |  IP: Logged

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