Repair Sony UVW-1200 1400A BetacamSP decks?

[pokeprodbreak]

I had read about some sort of nuline polish being applied. It seemed more aimed at prevention of the sticky shed issue, and I'm understanding it as an alternative (or in addition to) tape 'baking'. Less at fixing problems and more at preserving tape.

Most of the tapes with this issue are non-SP, but according to a card in the cases, both Betacam and BetacamSP can come either as 'oxide' or 'metal' -- attached this info card for reference and some good hints on tape storage. Fuji tapes in my experience so far have been the least likely to have this issue (or any issue). I have encountered BetacamSP tapes with the 'same issue'.

I also think it's odd to be worse after baking; maybe I didn't bake it long enough or maybe the baking was irrelevant (and it just got worse on the 2nd playback).

'tape dropout' were the magic words and it seems likely that is what I'm currently chasing with these issues. So I picture these culprits as causing the 'tape dropout' I see:

• Permanent tape damage (somehow)
• Poor tension resulting in poor contact with the heads
• Bad or dirty heads

As far as I know permanent tape damage that is unaffected by baking would mean I'm basically SOL. So Hopefully that's not the case with all of them...

Poor tension is something I'm wondering about. I had heard maybe this method for improving tape tension: rewind or make sure tape is all one one spool, bake for 24 hours, fast forward to other spool, bake another 24, etc.. I have yet to try this yet but am curious about anything inside the machines I could check for tension as well. Do dynamic tracking adjustments have something to do with this?

Bad or dirty heads, hopefully that can be found out conclusively. As I said the trouble tapes act the same across machines, but all these machines are old and all either UVW-1200 or 1400A, so I could have worn heads exhibiting similar issues with specific tapes. So..buy more, higher-end machines to test... Willing to try something slightly more abrasive on the heads as well, but as they play many tapes perfectly, am also hesitant.

I don't watch many youtube videos, to my great detriment. Also I said before 20-30 years old, but most of these tapes are from the 1980s, so a minimum of 40 years since they've been put inside a tape deck...

Oddly enough, the older Umatic tapes are much more predictable. Incubate for the right amount of time and I've had no trouble whatsoever with those -- although I do bake every one pre-emptively at this point.

Thanks for the thoughts

[aramkolt]

For science, I'd be willing to try to transfer one of your problem tapes for free that you've already done the best you can with and send it to me along with the captured file you were able to get. PM me for the ship to address if interested.

[latreche34]

The desktop Betacam players from Sony use to be cheap, nowadays everything is expensive, Those are hell of easy to work on and being players only they are not complicated inside, they are smaller than a consumer VHS VCR, They take the large and small tapes, they support all Betacam SD formats from the first analog Betacam all the way to the digital MPEG IMX tapes, they can be set to both NTSC and PAL, The versions with SDI out you only need a SDI adapter, they digitize analog tapes inside the deck. I can imaging how frustrating working on those microwave size Betacam recorders.

[pokeprodbreak]

Thinking of, for example, a J-30? I picture these as the higher end solution for betacam capture. With firewire out it seems most of the chain, such as external capture card, could be totally avoided...

In a perfect world with unlimited budget would the ideal capture setup start with a J-30?

P.S.: To me, they actually look a little scary to repair. Hopefully they are as robust as the UVW series...

[latreche34]

Almost all professional formats machines are scary to repair, too advanced compared to consumer formats, The advantage is they are built to standard, they didn't cut corners to save a buck. also, you can still get some parts for the later machines vs a beast from the 80's, I don't know what your model year is.

Sony made the J3 and J30 for all SD format, there are similar HDCAM machines that look physically identical. the two SD machines came in different versions based on what outputs they have, The ones with SDI output are the preferred ones, there is a version with component out and another with a Firewire port. I would say the one with component is good for analog tapes, but you don't need the firewire version, it just converts everything to DV.

The main differences between the J3 and J30 and their versions as far as I know is the audio output, The J3 can only output 2 channels over SDI selectable by menu, the J30 outputs all 4 audio channels over SDI and I assume that also applies to the separate audio outputs such as XLR or RCA.

One thing I can tell you is they are not cheap now, when I bought the J3-SDI few years ago they were around $200, So basically I was looking for a low hour machine, I wasn't worried about the cost.

My advice to you is just repair the machine you have for now if you can before investing in another machine.