Sony Betamax SL-HF950E no color?
 

Hi there,

To digitize some betamax tapes I have 2 very old vcr's who haven't played for many years,

- SL-HF950
- SL F90

First, neither of the 2 gave a playback picture at all, but after cleaning heads the SL F70 played the tapes, but rather bleeding quality.
The SL-HF950 gave quite a good signal, but only black and white. I tried both the bnc video out and the scart output.

After looking on the internet I found some possible solutions:
(I seem to be not the only one with this problem but no one seems to have the right solution)

- bad cap in psu can take away the color info
- bad soldering points on the YC-40 board
- still not clean enough.

ps When I put a clean colorbar from a digibeta vcr into the video input, the video out gives a bit too bright, not very clean, but color!

Any ideas?

Best regards,

Oskar

How exactly did you clean the VCR?
Hopefully not with Q-tips, as that damages/ruins heads.

Hey Lordsmurf,

I think you are insulting the members at this forum here, by thinking that we don't know not to clean the videoheads with q-tips. I always use a leather cloth for head cleaning or sometimes a piece of paper with dried pure Isopropyl alcohol.

but thanks anyway for your reply.

Oskar

Paper is fibrous, made from tree pulp, and just as bad as cotton.

Leather? I've never heard of that. Also not good, similar reason. If you mean "chamois leather", then chamois is a suggested material. But not generic tanned animal hide.

Nobody is being insulted. Until I know you know, it must be mentioned. Because most don't know it.

Of course it it chamois leather. I learned this methode 25 years ago in our 3 machine betacam suite at school. But in some cases, my teacher said, in consumer vcr's where you cannot reach the heads easily you can use the copier-paper methode, dragged in Isopropyl alcohol, let it dry, and then during playback a tape, push it softly to a part of the head which had no tape contact, and watch on a monitor what happens.

I cleaned many many umatics, beta, digibeta, hdcams and many other pro machines with the chamois leather methode with best results. But this old betamax I used a piece of copier-paper.

What is your best way to clean heads on a betamax?

best regards,

Oskar

For those tiny areas unreachable by a foam/chamois swab, I wouldn't fault you for using paper. But there should be many of those, and you still need to be really careful. The head itself should be clear when rotated.

It really depends on the exact deck. Betamax and VHS are much different from other tapes, in terms of cleaning. I don't have direct experience with at exact model deck, nor any images to work from, so can't help to that level of details.