Duty Cycle for Professional VCRs?
 

What is the duty cycle/lifetime of professional VCRs? Specifically a JVC-SR unit.

I have been working on a video capture project and decided to bite the bullet and buy a professional VCR (one of the DigitalFAQ recommended models) from TGrant Photo. I started my project using a consumer VCR but it wasn't doing so well with certain tapes, especially home movies. This will be my first pro VCR.

My specific question is, how much should I rely on the Pro VCR for copies? Longevity-wise should I use it for everything or just tapes like home movies that I know will need the TBC on the Pro unit? I don't want to rack up hours on it just to record tapes that seem to play with solid results on the consumer unit.

Thanks

Commercial/industrial-class VCRs, such as the AG-1980, were used in production environments where they ran several (or more) hours per day. Thus finding a good used one not in need of overhaul is a bit of a trick. But all VCRs contain parts that wear and require periodic maintenance, such as cylinder (head) replacement, lubrication, cleaning, and adjustment/alignment, and worn parts replacement. Home machines were generally used less, but still may have accumulated many hours depending on owner and age and will require maintenance at similar intervals.

As a point of reference, the service manual for the AG-1980 calls for servicing every 500 operating hours, upper cylinder replacement every 1000 hours, and significant overhaul every 2000 hours to keep it within specs.

Whether you use a good machine, or a throw-away $40 (new price at COSTCO 20 years ago) consumer VCR is your decision of course. Over time VCR parts wear and age, alignment drifts, belts and rubber hardens, and at some point the machine may start to eat tapes. And tapes age, may dry out, become brittle, and glues weaken. This puts your video tapes at increasing risk over time.

I would use a good machine for transfer/capture to digital format where quality counts, and then use a digitized (cleaned-up) copy on DVD or other media for general viewing. The $40 machine, if it still runs and plays back watchable video, can be use in the guest room to feed the old analog SD TV with old prerecorded tapes (and material that no longer needs to be digitized) when the in-laws visit :laugh:, if you have any left. (However, if the consumer machine meets your results expectations, feel free to use it.)

Thanks. Personally I don't like VCRs and these days would not willingly subject myself to watching a video on one if it weren't connected to a capture card. :wink2:

The actual unit I bought is a JVC SR-V101US and it is a TGrant refurbished unit. I am going to trust them and their work since they come highly recommended here. I was just curious if I should try and avoid extra hours on the new-to-me unit or just use it for all my captures. I know the Panasonic unit is very different from the JVC but just taking the low number, 500 hours, that works out to more than 100 tapes. I guess that makes me feel a little better about using it for all my captures.

If you can find the suggested service schedule for your unit it would give more information. For example, the JVC-HR-S5900 lists upper drum replacement every 1000 hours as well. It all depends on the history of the machine you have and what work TGrant did to refurbish that machine.