Shibaden Recorder Sales !

[LanceM]

Hello All,

I have heard of a few past recoveries of missing material from domestically recorded missing material from reel-to-reel Shibaden Tapes. How common were these recorders, and how was this material located ? I was just currious ? And how would you connect a Shibaden recorder to a 625 line television screen for playback ? I was just wondering, and could not find any info on the net on the subject. Help would be great.

Thanks, Lance.

[john g]

In the 1960s there were about three rival domestic VTRS
Shibaden
Sony
Philips & Peto Scott

They were open reel, so were soon laid up with dirt or damage leading to repairs.

Their numbers must be in the tens or hundreds as they cost the equivilent of a middle size family car.

One of the Philips' ones had a neat way of getting a TV picture out of a TV
it had a wire and cap from the VTR, that you fitted over a valve (sort of a glowing glass transistor) inside the TV set.

[Tony Goodman]

I used to own a Shibaden VTR but it was many years back now. They were mainly used by TV stations initially for various purposes though U-matic became much the preferred format. They were widely used by colleges and uni's in the US in particular and by certain businesses and airlines also I believe. Few members of the public in the UK owned them aside from well-off individuals who could afford them and liked the idea of recording their family's films and TV programmes off the air for viewing whenever they liked, people who worked in the TV industry and also TV preservation enthusiasts and collectors like myself. I bought mine in the late 70s second-hand and at nothing like the cost brand-new a few years earlier (they were several grand i think) though it still set me back a bit. I had a U-matic player later also. Missing material turning up on Shibaden is not surprising, programmes like Dr. Who, the Avengers and classic comedies would have been recorded by a number of fans and VTR enthusiasts. There could be plenty of stuff out there undiscovered. A short while back, Mark Ayres of the Dr. Who Restoration Team recieved a call from a woman who said her grandad or uncle or whoever had a Shibaden recorder in the 60s and taped numerous programmes off-air, including Doctor Who.
He was basically an eccentric by all accounts who had an thing for gadgets like VTR's and CB radios and so on. Mark and some other members of the team visited the guy and he had boxes of these Shibaden tapes. They found plenty of old BBC stuff recorded on the tapes, I can't remember if any of it was missing material but I know Mark found one episode of Doctor Who he had recorded and initially believed it was a missing episode of The Space Pirates, only to realise it was actually the one episode of the The Space Pirates that exists in the archives! Still, it just goes to show, this guy had no idea his recordings could contain valueble missing material and nobody knew about his tapes until his relative seen an advert asking for the return of missing BBC episodes or whatever. There will be a number of people like that out there and probably some missing episodes will exist on Shibaden. If I remember rightly, missing Hancock and Steptoe & Son turned up on Shibaden tapes many years ago.

In any case, with regard to playing stuff back, the Shibaden should have seperate video and audio outputs and you would need to connect each of these into the appropriate inputs on either your TV or your VHS player.

[Ted Rogers]

"If I remember rightly, missing Hancock and Steptoe & Son turned up on Shibaden tapes many years ago."

No Hancock, sadly, but you're right about the Steptoes - which were found in Ray Galton's Cellar...

[Deleted]

Tony said:

A short while back, Mark Ayres of the Dr. Who Restoration Team recieved a call from a woman who said her grandad or uncle or whoever had a Shibaden recorder in the 60s and taped numerous programmes off-air, including Doctor Who.
He was basically an eccentric by all accounts who had an thing for gadgets like VTR's and CB radios and so on. Mark and some other members of the team visited the guy and he had boxes of these Shibaden tapes. They found plenty of old BBC stuff recorded on the tapes, I can't remember if any of it was missing material but I know Mark found one episode of Doctor Who he had recorded and initially believed it was a missing episode of The Space Pirates, only to realise it was actually the one episode of the The Space Pirates that exists in the archives! Still, it just goes to show, this guy had no idea his recordings could contain valueble missing material and nobody knew about his tapes until his relative seen an advert asking for the return of missing BBC episodes or whatever. There will be a number of people like that out there and probably some missing episodes will exist on Shibaden. If I remember rightly, missing Hancock and Steptoe & Son turned up on Shibaden tapes many years ago.

For the full story of the above, Tony, go to the main page / "News and features" / "Missing Episode Hunting" by Steve Roberts!

[Nigel Blunt]

The last few minutes of an ABC "Hancock's" turned up on a Shibaden reel, Ted. I believe it's all that exists of the series.

[Ted Rogers]

Nigel, indeed, you could well be right... I actually have that clip, and the top of the picture is chopped off. Does this sound like it could be the same thing?

[LanceM]

So, no one has any technical ideas of how to connect a shibaden recorder/player to a tv ? What connection cords would be needed ?

Lance.

[Tony Goodman]

laurencepiper said:

Tony said:

A short while back, Mark Ayres of the Dr. Who Restoration Team recieved a call from a woman who said her grandad or uncle or whoever had a Shibaden recorder in the 60s and taped numerous programmes off-air, including Doctor Who.
He was basically an eccentric by all accounts who had an thing for gadgets like VTR's and CB radios and so on. Mark and some other members of the team visited the guy and he had boxes of these Shibaden tapes. They found plenty of old BBC stuff recorded on the tapes, I can't remember if any of it was missing material but I know Mark found one episode of Doctor Who he had recorded and initially believed it was a missing episode of The Space Pirates, only to realise it was actually the one episode of the The Space Pirates that exists in the archives! Still, it just goes to show, this guy had no idea his recordings could contain valueble missing material and nobody knew about his tapes until his relative seen an advert asking for the return of missing BBC episodes or whatever. There will be a number of people like that out there and probably some missing episodes will exist on Shibaden. If I remember rightly, missing Hancock and Steptoe & Son turned up on Shibaden tapes many years ago.

For the full story of the above, Tony, go to the main page / "News and features" / "Missing Episode Hunting" by Steve Roberts!

Cheers Laurence, I don't think I read the original account at the time.

[Tony Goodman]

lancem said:

So, no one has any technical ideas of how to connect a shibaden recorder/player to a tv ? What connection cords would be needed ?

Lance.

Sure, I did say in the reply that the Shibaden should have seperate audio and video outputs which you connect to the inputs on either your TV or VCR. Which particular cables you'd need depend on the types of outputs on your Shibaden, there are different models which may have different size outputs requiring different jacks, I'm not sure. You'd have to locate a Shibaden and then see what that model requires. Rest assured, it won't have obscure outputs that you would'nt be able to get cables for or suitable adaptors to put on other cables. Once you know the type of outputs on the model, you know the cables you need and getting the signal into the VCR or TV should not be a problem provided there are no faults in that area on the Shibaden. However, getting the Shibaden to play or at least play consistantly might be a problem if it hasn't been serviced and looked after. Also, playing old Shibaden tape-recordings can be a problem as they can degrade quite badly.

Yo can come across Shibadens on Ebay so it's worth having a look every now and then.

[WilliamM]

two of the best sites are

www.totalrewind.org/

and

www.labguysworld.com/

and you can e-mail them with enquiries as well