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Any one remember this?

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Do you remember the car VHS rewinder?

  • Yep, remember that

  • Nope, never seen one

Results are only viewable after voting.
Rubycon said:
Never heard of wearing out a deck from rewinding.
Have heard of a LOT of tapes breaking due to cheap winders though. Better ones will slow down as the leader approaches and have a gentle stop.

If you had one deck and needed to rewind while the other tape was in the deck playing a winder made sense. (in broadcast biz, for example)

For home it was mainly a novelty item.

Just look at all the "audiophile" accessories they have to "improve" sound. D:
Click to expand...

not really novelty, I remember we used to rent tons of tapes. Mom liked to watch soap and that meant tons of tapes. You have to rewind before you return them, or you get charged extra.

so the rewinder is there so there was no need to occupy the vcr. Mom would just pop in the next tape and continue watching while the kids fight over who gets to stick the tape into the rewinder.

I don't recall ever having a tape snap in the rewinder. VCR chews up a few tapes though.
 
We had one of those. Don't know what happened to it. I think I played with it more as a toy car than we ever actually used it to rewind VHS tapes.

Rubycon said:
We used to mess with rewinding tapes (just about all of 'em) with little air motors that could spin at 100s of 1000s of r/min! Destroyed a lot of tapes doing that. Probably the funniest thing was getting the reels moving super fast then putting the brakes on the hubs with a reversing valve. Problem is hubs stopped instantly but that momentum had to go somewhere! That tape shot all over the place. Imagine a truck running over a catsup bottle.

Now do that in front of a 10,000 hp wind tunnel blower cranked up to about 120 meters/sec and it's insane.

This comes to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVEGCEvS58Y

:biggrin:
Click to expand...

You have lived a hilarious life Rubycon. I applaud you.
 
sdifox said:
not true...

<--- lived in an electronics part store/mid level supplier.

we sold tons of vcr heads to repair shops, everyone of them said people should just buy a rewinder...
Click to expand...

All of our VCRs were replaced or died of other causes well before anything happened to the heads and we never used a rewinder.

MotionMan
 
sdifox said:
not true...

<--- lived in an electronics part store/mid level supplier.

we sold tons of vcr heads to repair shops, everyone of them said people should just buy a rewinder...
Click to expand...

Rewinding does not involve the head. Matter of fact in helical recording systems (VHS/DAT etc.) the tape is drawn way out of the cassette and around a spinning drum which has the heads. (as many as 6 depending on the system).

Rewinding just moves the tape back over to the supply reel. No wear on transport components is involved.

Lack of proper maintenance (including the use of highly abrasive "cleaning tapes") is really what kills VCRs. That and leaving it on pause for extended periods. Most transports do have timers in the firmware that will move the tape after 5 minutes and flash the pause light to tell you. Why? Because having the tape parked over the spinning drum builds up heat. It's a similar principle to the "seek to improve reliability" that was built into 15K drives. (although in their proper use - enterprise computing - not very often the head was resting!)

Raduque said:
We had one of those. Don't know what happened to it. I think I played with it more as a toy car than we ever actually used it to rewind VHS tapes.



You have lived a hilarious life Rubycon. I applaud you.
Click to expand...

I have - oh wait I'm still living it. 😉
 
Rubycon said:
Rewinding does not involve the head. Matter of fact in helical recording systems (VHS/DAT etc.) the tape is drawn way out of the cassette and around a spinning drum which has the heads. (as many as 6 depending on the system).

Rewinding just moves the tape back over to the supply reel. No wear on transport components is involved.

Lack of proper maintenance (including the use of highly abrasive "cleaning tapes") is really what kills VCRs. That and leaving it on pause for extended periods. Most transports do have timers in the firmware that will move the tape after 5 minutes and flash the pause light to tell you. Why? Because having the tape parked over the spinning drum builds up heat. It's a similar principle to the "seek to improve reliability" that was built into 15K drives. (although in their proper use - enterprise computing - not very often the head was resting!)



I have - oh wait I'm still living it. 😉
Click to expand...

older vcrs did not remove the head from the rewind process.
 
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sdifox said:
older vcrs do not remove the head from the rewind process.
Click to expand...

Never seen this before. The tape should only be in contact with the drum during playback including fastforward/rewind (search). When rewind button is pressed, playback stops, tape is retracted back into the cassette and motor switches to high speed. (ramp up-full speed - ramp back down to stop)

Most of the machines we used (professional) were Mitsubishi and Matsushita (Quasar/Panasonic).
 
Rubycon said:
Never seen this before. The tape should only be in contact with the drum during playback including fastforward/rewind (search). When rewind button is pressed, playback stops, tape is retracted back into the cassette and motor switches to high speed. (ramp up-full speed - ramp back down to stop)

Most of the machines we used (professional) were Mitsubishi and Matsushita (Quasar/Panasonic).
Click to expand...

newer ones did do that. Pro machines are not the same as the home machines I guess.
 
Making me feel nostalgic here. This is the first VCR my dad bought:

rcaselectavisionvhsvcrmodelvgt200_1.jpg


RCA VGT200. I think we had this for at least 15 years before finally setting it out to pasture sometime in the late 90's.

And this is what I have sitting in the closet and am so far un-willing to part with:

717XGGRHX2L.jpg


JVC HR-S9600U
 
sdifox said:
newer ones did do that. Pro machines are not the same as the home machines I guess.
Click to expand...

Were they top loaders or front loaders?

I loved the top loader high end machines. The tracking range was awesome on them. You could see what was on erased tapes, or at least partially. 😀

NutBucket said:
Making me feel nostalgic here. This is the first VCR my dad bought:

rcaselectavisionvhsvcrmodelvgt200_1.jpg


RCA VGT200. I think we had this for at least 15 years before finally setting it out to pasture sometime in the late 90's.
Click to expand...

I remember that model. It was made by Matsushita and was under Quasar, Panasonic, and RCA brand names. Great unit! Probably around 1982 vintage IIRC.

The JVCs with shuttle dials were nice too. We had them from Mitsubishi in S-VHS flavor. Built like a tank.
 
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Purely coincidental. I think I started using using when my friends and I had LAN parties in the late 90's.

EDIT: I had to look up what X-BAND is/was 😛
 
Last edited:
NutBucket said:
Making me feel nostalgic here. This is the first VCR my dad bought:

rcaselectavisionvhsvcrmodelvgt200_1.jpg
Click to expand...

I think my grandparents had one of those, or something very similar. The classic top loading model.

The first VCR my parents owned was a Sony Betamax "Hi-Fi". My dad used to use it to dub movies he rented. Ah, the good old pre-DRM days. He recorded a lot of TV with it too. Ironically, it still works great some 25 years after they bought it. I can't say the same for the VHS machines they had. Nor can I say the same for my first Blu-ray player. 😀
 
Fritzo said:
Yeah, there was something lost when we moved from VHS to DVD. The whole tape experience just felt more..."organic" I think is the word I'm looking for.
Click to expand...

Hey you could probably make a "nostalgic" mode for DVR/DVD/BD etc. users...

In nostalgic mode there would be twisting near the top, the occasional buzz in the audio when there was tape crinkling, and above all the white flickery lines when fast forward/ reverse searching! Finally when pausing don't forget the frame would not stand perfectly still but have some jump to it. Finally when in nostalgic mode the tracking control would become active so you could fidget with that. :biggrin:
 
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