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  #1  
11-26-2013, 08:18 PM
DeeSeven DeeSeven is offline
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Does anyone have any knowledge about a good solid betamax player? I'm not looking for the Sony Super Betamax SL-HF1000 which goes for like 600-900 on ebay lol. I'm looking for something that isn't bottom of the barrel but not super high tech either. Basically a player that works and plays tapes
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  #2  
11-27-2013, 03:14 PM
volksjager volksjager is offline
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Beta is really hampered by the fact they never made a good TBC equipped deck
even worse there is only 3 Beta model ever made with S-video:
SL-HF2100
EDV-7500
EDV-9500.
those should be the ones to look for.

all others are composite only - even the SL-HF1000
if you absolutely have to go the cheap route
these are probably the best of the composite only decks:
SL-HF1000
SL-HF870D
SL-HF860D
SL-HF840D
SL-HF750
SL-HF900

dont even bother with any non-Sony Beta - they are all junk and way too old
Sony was the only Beta maker after around 1986 and you should avoid anything even Sonys made before then.
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  #3  
12-14-2013, 07:12 AM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
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I'm stickying this.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
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  #4  
12-14-2013, 07:23 AM
volksjager volksjager is offline
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i will also ad there are a couple industrial beta model as well
these are just industrial versions of the consumer models
like the EDW-30F is the same as a EDV-9500
and the GCS-50 is just a tunerless SL-HF1000
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  #5  
12-14-2013, 07:33 AM
volksjager volksjager is offline
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LS - perhaps just ad it in to the buying guide
i simplified it a bit

Beta models with S-video
these will be the very best for tape transfers:
SL-HF2100
EDV-9500 / EDW-30F
EDV-7500


all other Betas are composite only
these are the best of the composite only Beta decks:
SL-HF1000 / GCS-50
SL-HF870D
SL-HF860D
SL-HF840D
SL-HF750
SL-HF900

dont even bother with any non-Sony Beta - they are all junk and way too old
Sony was the only Beta maker after around 1986 and you should avoid anything even Sonys made much before then.
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  #6  
12-14-2013, 07:49 AM
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Rather than sticky it, I'm going to incorporate the info into the VCR buying guide. I want to do that with Video8/Hi8 as well. Again, one of your posts is going to be very useful here.

There's a "New Guides" folder in the queue. I've dragged this there for my attention later this month.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
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  #7  
12-14-2013, 08:07 AM
juhok juhok is offline
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This is a good baseline for PAL Betamax : http://www.palsite.com/models.html & http://www.palsite.com/home.html
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  #8  
12-14-2013, 08:08 AM
volksjager volksjager is offline
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so far i got this list going for 8mm
it is not complete but a start

Hi8 stereo with TBC:
CCD-TRV62
CCD-TRV65
CCD-TRV66
CCD-TRV67
CCD-TRV72
CCD-TRV82
CCD-TRV85
CCD-TRV87
CCD-TRV93
CCD-TRV99
CCD-TRV101
CCD-TRV615

Hi8 mono with TBC:
CCD-TRV68
CCD-TRV88
CCD-TRV98
CCD-TRV108
CCD-TRV138
CCD-TRV308
CCD-TRV318
CCD-TRV608

Digtial 8 with video8/Hi8 playback:
DCR-TRV120
DCR-TRV230
DCR-TRV240
DCR-TRV320
DCR-TRV330
DCR-TRV340
DCR-TRV350
DCR-TRV460
DCR-TRV530
DCR-TRV720
DCR-TRV730
DCR-TRV740
DCR-TRV820
DCR-TRV830
DCR-TRV840
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  #9  
12-14-2013, 08:19 AM
juhok juhok is offline
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PAL Video8/Hi8 decks by 1ivanka : http://www.1ivanka.de/GB/GB_05_Tabelle.htm
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  #10  
12-14-2013, 09:10 AM
volksjager volksjager is offline
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there is also 3 TBC equipped Hi8 NTSC decks:
EV-S3000
EV-S5000
EV-S7000

and also a few hi8/d8 walkmans have TBC

the decks/walkmans tend to be harder to find and much more expensive and offer no benefits over the cams.
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  #11  
08-15-2020, 03:11 PM
WestRGB WestRGB is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by volksjager View Post
Beta is really hampered by the fact they never made a good TBC equipped deck
even worse there is only 3 Beta model ever made with S-video:
SL-HF2100
EDV-7500
EDV-9500.
those should be the ones to look for.

all others are composite only - even the SL-HF1000
if you absolutely have to go the cheap route
these are probably the best of the composite only decks:
SL-HF1000
SL-HF870D
SL-HF860D
SL-HF840D
SL-HF750
SL-HF900

dont even bother with any non-Sony Beta - they are all junk and way too old
Sony was the only Beta maker after around 1986 and you should avoid anything even Sonys made before then.
Hope you don't mind a reply to an ancient thread.

When working with Betamax, is native S-Video output considered superior to composite?

I know that in the world of Laserdisc, the discs themselves are encoded with composite video. So even when they have S-Video output, there are better more modern comb filters available that can separate the luma and chroma signals. I'm not sure how Betamax is encoded.

I guess my question would be, in a head-to-head combat, which of the following workflows would produce superior results?

SL-HF2100 S-Video --> AVT-8710 --> ATI 600 Capture Card

SL-HF900 Composite --> Panasonic DMR-ES15 pass-through --> AVT-8710 --> ATI 600 Capture Card
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  #12  
08-15-2020, 08:50 PM
latreche34 latreche34 is offline
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Betamax is no different than VHS, so yes S-Video produces better output for all Betamax tape speeds, I. II ...all the way to ED beta which can only be played back by an ED beta machine by the way.

Capture workflows have to be tested first before judging but you can't go wrong with the first one.
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  #13  
08-16-2020, 01:12 AM
lingyi lingyi is offline
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Add the EDV-5000, EDV-6000 and EDV-8000 NTSC, Japan only to the ED Beta line. All have S-Video out and have been showing up on eBay the past few years.

Edit: Also the EDV-7300 and EDV-9300. Japanese equivalents to the EDV-7500 and EDV-9300.
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  #14  
08-16-2020, 04:43 AM
latreche34 latreche34 is offline
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EDV-7300 and 9300 are Canadian models, The Japanese equivalent to 7500 and 7300 is 7000 and to 9500 and 9300 is 9000. The voltage is 100V in Japan, I would stay away from any Japanese deck without a power transformer.
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  #15  
04-10-2022, 10:41 AM
RobustReviews RobustReviews is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by volksjager View Post

dont even bother with any non-Sony Beta - they are all junk and way too old
Sony was the only Beta maker after around 1986 and you should avoid anything even Sonys made much before then.
I'm not sure I can get behind this.

Here at least (UK) the humble Sanyo VTC5000 is a great little player, there is also a stack of spares knocking around if you do a bit of digging and they're very well documented and easy to work on. They're logically laid out and direct-drive. The picture quality is very good. I recently (2021) ordered a new pendulum drive for one, and a linear power regulator for another, both came to less than $15 each and turned up a few days later. The pendulum drive can be replaced in about 5 minutes.

Some of the Sanyo's were derided for being 'cheap', the reason they were 'cheap' was nothing to do with quality, it's quite the inverse in this case actually.

Some of the Toshiba machines are considered the best for playback quality here in PAL land, often the lower-market Sony machines are the most troublesome.

So I wouldn't say non-Sony machines are junk at all, not in Western Europe anyway. Some of the Toshiba Betamax models fetch more money than a Sony on eBay.
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  #16  
04-10-2022, 10:49 AM
volksjager volksjager is offline
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the problem is it does not have S-Video - which makes it sub-par for doing tape to digital transfers.
only the super high end Sony Betas have S-video
transfers are the only reason to even use a VCR at this point in time.
using it for general watching is foolish - you are just wearing out the decks and tapes for nothing
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  #17  
04-10-2022, 10:53 AM
RobustReviews RobustReviews is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by volksjager View Post
the problem is it does not have S-Video - which makes it sub-par for doing tape to digital transfers.
only the super high end Sony Betas have S-video
transfers are the only reason to even use a VCR at this point in time.
using it for general watching is foolish - you are just wearing out the decks and tapes for nothing
Oh, I agree regarding S-Video.

We're in to the realms of impossibly rare and temperamental machines with the S-Video models though, and there are few (if any) extant PAL machines with S-Video.

For what it costs to get into the S-Video game with these, I think there's a genuine case to be made that composite with a decent filter is 'good enough, especially with PAL where the number of models with S-Video is vanishingly small and they command eye-watering prices.

I won't agree that the non-Sony machines are junk though - Sony made plenty of their own to be honest.

Also, complicated Betamax machines are absolute 'hell' to work on, I send our 950s off-site for service, it's the only machines we don't work on in house.
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  #18  
04-10-2022, 11:08 AM
volksjager volksjager is offline
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100% agree about working on them, pretty much all Betas are damned cuckoo-clocks
and finding parts can be like chasing rainbows
the later Sonys are the only ones i would even consider buying
at least for NTSC models, i dont know what was available in PAL countries.
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  #19  
04-10-2022, 03:25 PM
RobustReviews RobustReviews is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by volksjager View Post
100% agree about working on them, pretty much all Betas are damned cuckoo-clocks
and finding parts can be like chasing rainbows
the later Sonys are the only ones i would even consider buying
at least for NTSC models, i dont know what was available in PAL countries.
I think the NTSC Toshibas were quite well regarded, I think you had the Sanyo machines as 'Sears' badged efforts as well as Sanyo models. You also had NEC, Zennith OEMs etc.

It was a lot more limited here, Sony, Sanyo and Toshiba were all that effectively existed. There was little interest in buying Betamax in most of the PAL world past around 1983ish so models tricked to a near halt past this point whereas the Japanese and North American markets looked a touch rosier. There's an argument that VHS won the war in around 1983 here, buying V2000 or Betamax after this would have been a renegade's choice.

I think only Sony were manufacturing PAL Betamax machines from this point on, although weirdly the UK's biggest selling video recorder of the 1982 was the previously mentioned VTC-5000 which was priced below many VHS machines for reasons which rapidly became apparent on a wet evening, in Germany, just before Christmas 1982...

Anyway, history lessons aside, the PAL market died before the NTSC one, it's pretty 'slim pickings' in the PAL world for late machines and they command a huge premium. It could potentially cost many thousands to get hold of a PAL S-Video machine, that's if you can find one.
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  #20  
04-10-2022, 03:45 PM
latreche34 latreche34 is offline
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I don't think I know any PAL beta with S-Video, So composite is the only route as far as I know, For NTSC US and Canada there is basically 3 models, 2 ED beta models and one SuperBeta model with S-Video, the rest are not worth buying for a proper archival job, for casual digitizing from composite is okay.

https://www.youtube.com/@Capturing-Memories/videos
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