cv2000 405 lines - can it be transferred?

[LanceM]

The vtoldboys site is a great resource when researching classic video usage in the BBC. Know that most members who post on this site are aware of missing TV material, and continue to look still for material. As most would love to have a chance to see something they worked with/on all those years ago again.

The chap from Australia who may be able to connect a CV-2000B unit to a DVD Recorder sounds like a very interesting process. Would be very interested to hear more on this process, if he is registered here might you possibly be able to ask him if he may be able to post and describe further?

Cheers, Lance.

[RWels]

Oh I think it's safe to say his name is Adrian Gregg? I quote:

Adrian said:

Interesting bout the cv transfer device, ive infact used one or two when employed fixing cinema equiptment, some of our customers were Old Film collectors who had Old video tapes as well. and seeing there would be plenty of time (cinemas would sometimes NEVER break down after We'd fix service em,!) I took on a complete re-build of a sony type CV-2000 (buggered if i remember the model no) but it was from 1967 and I replaced every electronic component (barring some special semi-componets I could find no substitutes)
remember i was using the original heads just expertly cleaned! and before i could not get any "sync" on the "DV recorder" it would be constantly rolling and losing the picture, but on the playback monitor it looks kinda okish. after the components were replaced (especially the capistors) we had perfect "sync" and the tapes themselves "looked" a million times better for it. and unfortunately it wasnt archive telle or anything remotely missing, just some movies that are extremely hard to get copies of and some "home movie" of plays the owner had recorded of himself as a young man. since then ive been trying to buy any open reel video deck and try to playback the cashe of open reel video tapes i have, all to no avail!

[markboulton]

Jan 8, 2009 18:15:30 GMT Rich Cornock said:

could these people help?

www.vtoldboys.com/

I was going to post a link to Lucy Reeve's "Video Ark" website, but although I found it 6 months ago, I can't find it now.

There are, however, details on here: www.bvws.org.uk/405alive/faq/video.html

[RWels]

One thing though, I suspected it but he just told me, Australia was always 625. So he didn't have any additional 405-625 problems.

[Peter Stirling]

Jan 8, 2009 11:49:23 GMT RWels said:

That's right. I was simply surprised that we can restore colour signal from chroma dots, but we seem to be walking on all fours here. I didn't want to be dismissive about the efforts done just to be able to play the tapes again, but surely, everyone including Terry would prefer a more sophisticated way to rescue this kind of recordings, if only it were possible. Unfortunately, it isn't.
And "people mustn't assume it's the master copy" is a curious remark here, as you've just told me that there isn't a better way to recover this material. So the optical "transfer" IS the master copy now. This was exactly my point in the original question. Don't take it out on me!

It doesn't matter what the quality of the original was, optical "transfer" will always be inferior on principle. But if nothing else can be done, so be it. I just wanted to say it's a pity that it's so near impossible to bring back these tapes from oblivion. I assume the hardest part wasn't even the 405 lines but the cv2000. It's sad to hear that it may have been easier to produce 10 years ago than today!

What I assumed was that somewhere at the BFI and two or three other locations, there is the equipment to perfectly restore the really difficult or extinct media, like N1500 or reels of video tape such as the CV2000. You always assume there's someone somewhere who can still play any old format. I didn't realise these things are quite so hard to do!

In fact, on a different forum someone from Down Under said he could connect a CV2000 to a DVDrecorder, but I didn't catch how far he got with it, if he had actually completed a reel-to-dvd transfer that way. If he insists he can, I'll ask for a sample or put him through or something. Come to think about it, he's registered here already.

Well as I said in a previous answer to your question, you can try transfering direct 'line in' into a VHS from your old player, as at least the old players should lock it up to it, the only problem should be that the drop out compensator will not work.


.

[markboulton]

Perhaps even using a Video2000 machine as an intermediary (instead of a VHS one) might give even better chance of success. The V2000's employed a rudimentary sort of timebase 'correction' (the video signal is locked into a very accurate pilot tone used for tracking) and not only that, regenerate the VBI (Vertical Blanking Interval) which again, (most) VHS's do not.

What it would make of a 405-line signal is anybody's guess. My guess looking at the way dropouts and poor tape condition are handled, along with the way Philips kit in general seems to operate, I think you'd either find that you'd get a fantastic result, or it would give up and show nothing at all (except a screenfull of noise). You probably wouldn't get anything in-between.

It's a pity no manufacturer has ever built an 'all-in-one' helical scan VTR which can have its head drum and fixed heads moved to various locations and at various angles to mimic the configuration of the various helical scan formats that have ever been around. Surely it would be technically feasible to have a machine with multiple 'head position/angle/tape path' profiles. It would have to be fairly sophisticated, e.g. having a separate guide shoe to the head drum (so that the tape edge could be kept straight regardless of drum angle) - and you'd have to have the choice of lacing up from above or below the head drum (depending on whether the tape was recorded as alpha-wrap or omega-wrap). But surely possible. Just think how many hundreds, or thousands, of various spools of old tape get thrown away because it's just not feasible for the owners of most of them to get anything out of them now. Pitching a machine like the one I've described to high street photo labs (not the consumer) would add another useful facility, alongside 8mm movie transfer. I'm sure such a machine would be cheap (or, at most, similar in price) compared to a mini-lab or telecine.

[RWels]

You mean a universal tape reel player? For all types, ages, speeds, lines? Hm, maybe it's too late now... it might have been useful if it had been around twenty years ago?

VCC a.k.a. Video 2000 isn't too hard to find, so that part might be worth a try.

[Peter Stirling]

Also dont write off optical transfers altogether as they have one inherent advantage, in that they are isolated from the source material and therefore source sync and stability problems are not passed on to the recording medium, (obviously they might be still seen)

[RWels]

Hmmm... but using a 625 line machine to play 405 line recordings wouldn't work, would it? I can't imagine that would give a proper picture.

[Gary Critcher]

I worked with Lucy Reeve at Tvi in about 1990!

[RWels]

(Googles) Oh one of these guys?
www.radiocraft.co.uk/directory/formats.htm

That's probably where you saw that How to irritate people tape, no?

[Gary Critcher]

Yes, it was at TVi when we had the master 2" in to dub down to BetaSP.

[Adrian Gregg]

Oh Its me Ade
Yes i (like many others) have transferred a few cv type reels to DV , Not to crummy dvd recorders but nice raw DV tapes. ok it might be a bit "overblown" but i like the idea of too much data on my transerers.

but alas it was 625 reels to 625 PAL DV, so not much in the way of dificulties, but i discovered many ways to get a much better playbacks on certin tapes.

I was at the home of a chap who wanted his tapes transfered to DVD so I brought my computer to do the DV transfer, I don't own a open reel deck, though I'd LOVE to have a bestie myself.
Now the thing i do before anything is check out the "player" now this deck hadent been pluged into the mains for well over 25 years i was a bit hesitant in doing so, why you may ask?.
so what I did was to go over most of the electronic components with a meter in the beast so see how they have stood up, most are okish, but I usually replace all i can. this costs only a few pounds and can literally "save a playback" the most important parts to replace are the electro caps!
after doing this which can take about 2-10 hours you will find that the Tape that "had no sync" will magically now play. remember after as little as 5 years electronic components "break down" in doing this they lose a bit of whatever "electronic value" they once had, this can mean a dramatic increase in Frequency response in audio circuits, this almost complete loss of hum and hiss (not of course if it's burnt in the tape) and the VT is always more stable and "sharper"
of course your audio VT heads may be knackered and this whole enterprise makes it worthless but even so you Do get results even with worn heads.

I find it appalling that most of these transfers mentioned in previous posts are now gone,
this is a bloody crime! is anyone investigating where the 1" tape could reside?

[RWels]

It certainly sounds worthwhile to me, but apparently some people have given up, and consider the matter closed. Pity.

[A.Doe]

Aussie CV2000 transfers are quite common it seems. This YouTube channel contains many Australian CV2000 recoveries and they are not bad considering... www.youtube.com/user/FrozenDoberman