betamax video recorders

[geordie1812]

hi guys


i will be heading down to milton keynes on tuesday to pick up an old sanyo vtc 5000.

i was just wondering if anybody remembers them and the pricing for them at the time.

my first one cost me £500 in 1981, any thoughts ???

[geordie1812]

hi guy`s


somebody must have some old betamax films or beta tapes lying in a loft and would like them transfered to dvd for sentimental reasons???. what did you think of the quality of picture as i think the beta was a better machine.

[Skywalker]

I remember my dad having a few of these machines as he used to be a radio rentals regional manager back in the stone ages

[snakedoc]

There is a chap where I work who collects old VCRs and Video tapes. Betamax was in fact a better format than VHS. I used to have an old VHS with piano keys to operate. That was late 70's tech. They used to cost several months wages in those days and now they can be got for a couple of hours work!

[Iainm]

There is a chap where I work who collects old VCRs and Video tapes. Betamax was in fact a better format than VHS. I used to have an old VHS with piano keys to operate. That was late 70's tech. They used to cost several months wages in those days and now they can be got for a couple of hours work!

Was it by any chance a http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gifFerguson Videostar

http://www.thecatalogshop.co.uk/images/video-70s.jpg

http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif

[snakedoc]

Lol, it certainly was! When Ferguson used to make stuff worth buying. If indeed they are still trading.

[geordie1812]

hi

this is the one i first owned sanyo vtc9300p which was fergusons rival at the time.

[Nelly]

I used to have a betamax, had quite a few martial arts / ninja films for it when they was all the craze.

Mine was a Sanyo but was more recent than that one, I ended up selling it for about £25 with 10 videos, was quite difficult to get blank tapes for it.

I wonder how many people still use Videos? still got VHS I bought a brand new from Aiwa about 10 year ago for about £160, always handy for taping anything.

[Sublios_Pixelus]

I seem to remember we had 1 when I was younger only thing I remember about it is that we had spaceballs for it :D

[dave8691]

hi guy`s
what did you think of the quality of picture as i think the beta was a better machine.
I agree, Betamax was slightly better technically but the major rental companies of the day went for VHS (Matsushita developed) and alas Betamax went into decline with Sony, Sanyo, Toshiba etc. eventually manufacturing VHS machines themselves.


Was it by any chance a http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gifFerguson Videostar

http://www.thecatalogshop.co.uk/images/video-70s.jpg

http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif
Seeing this picture has brought back memories of my early days as an AV technician, I repaired literally hundreds of these in the mid to late eighties as £500+ was an awful lot of money and nobody scrapped them at that price. In fact they were built like tanks, the all metal construction making them surprisingly heavy and designed for a long life.

The achilles heel of these machines towards the end of their life was the push buttons.....they would not latch and would spring back up again, especially the play key. All the repair techs would joke that they were made of recycled Coca Cola cans! a quick and cheap repair was to file down and reform the latch, but this could only be done once or twice.


Lol, it certainly was! When Ferguson used to make stuff worth buying. If indeed they are still trading.In fact these VCR's were Japanese made by JVC for themselves and for Thorn UK who owned Ferguson at the time and some of the large rental companies who put their own badge on the front.

Ferguson were eventually purchased by Thomson Multimedia who sold equipment under their own name and the Ferguson brand name. I haven't seen the Ferguson brand name used for a while now

[scratch]

In my young DJ days, me and the lads used to use a few of the Betamax's for audio recording when we were doing mixes/compilations etc. as it's sound quality playback at the time was better than any of the standard tape recorders we could afford (even metal tape types etc.)... very low hiss and good reproduction.

[Mr Grapes]

Was it by any chance a Ferguson Videostar
http://www.thecatalogshop.co.uk/images/video-70s.jpg


Wow... we had one of these When we first moved to the UK (from the US) in '86

[madmaca]

lol - i think EVERYONE had a Ferguson Videostar :D - we certainly did!

I also remember Laserdisc machines and seeing the discs for sale - and the sheer coolness factor when we finally upgraded the VideoStar for a VCR that had an ELECTRONIC eject mechanism (as opposed to mechanical) :thumbs: