Recording on old VCR
 

Hi All;
Just wondering, can an early Reel to Reel type of VCR, like a Sony AV 3400 or an AV 3600 be used to record off of an old TV, or any TV.. OR is it just from a camera..
THANK YOU Marty

As long as you feed any kind of NTSC video to the deck it will record. The deck and the tape does not know the difference between camera, off-air tuner, DVD, etc.

That Would be neat to watch on a pireod set!

I don't think it is possible to record a DVD onto NTSC video tape, since DVDs are digital media and NTSC VHS is an analog format -- not to mention the copy-protection schemes (Macrovision, to name one) used to prevent such copying. If an NTSC analog VCR records at all from a DVD, I'd be surprised if the recording was anywhere near watchable. The incompatibility of the two formats, in addition to Macrovision and whatever else is used to thwart copying, also prevents illegal copying of DVDs onto NTSC VHS, etc. video tape. The same schemes also prevent such copying of commercial DVDs onto blank ones, using a DVD recorder.

It would not surprise me if DVD recorders are eventually outlawed, although the elimination of analog video inputs/outputs on new Blu-ray players is a step in that direction. The motion-picture industry will not allow itself to be put out of business by people who think they can copy DVDs at will and get away with it. It is a business, after all, and every illegal copy of a legitimate, purchased DVD, multiplied by tens or hundreds of thousands (!), means that much less in revenues for the production companies. If you want a certain DVD, purchase it from a store or rent it from Netflix, Blockbuster, et al.

To dub a DVD onto that machine would probably require an adapter of sorts, they make a fairly simple device to take the component outputs and turn them into an analog signal. An old VCR can often be used as well, as a converter.

There is not any sort of format incompatibility. That's like saying it's impossible to use a CD player with an old stereo system. It doesn't matter that the DVD itself is a digital format, because it's a digital encoding of regular NTSC video, and DVD players have internal converters to bring that video back out to analog outputs.

Most DVD players have component and composite outputs... the component isn't directly of much use with a VCR, but composite is a straight shot. Meaning that, on an unprotected DVD, you can take the composite output from the DVD player, plug it into the composite input on a VCR, hit 'record,' and end up with a tape recorded copy of the DVD video, in however good a quality the tape is capable of reproducing. Of course it won't look as good as the original DVD, but it'll at least be on par with most commercially recorded tapes.

For copy protected DVDs, it's almost the same steps, except you'd need to put a TBC in between the DVD player and VCR, to strip the Macrovision. As long as it's a decent quality TBC, you won't really lose any video quality by doing so (at least not any more than you'd lose by going to tape in the first place). In the late '90s / early '00s, before DVD burners were available and affordable, it was a pretty common practice to back up DVD movies to VHS... the process is quite well established.

Man, I gotta say that I used to be guilty of recording DVD's to VHS.

My old Panasonic VCR (top loader with wired play/pause remote), didn't seem to care about macrovision, it still recorded.

That was then, these days with red box and netflix, pfft, I can just re-rent the movie.

I had a GE (built by Panasonic) top-loading VCR in the early 1980s, also with the wired 2-function remote. The machine served me well for six years, then the heads wore out (it would have cost me $250 -- almost half what I paid for the VCR when new -- to replace the head drum; this was the estimate I received from a TV sales and service shop in my old neighborhood). If it weren't for that, I might have used that VCR well into the '90s, as I understand aside from heads wearing out, these machines were built like tanks.

BTW, I've been following your progress in your construction of a new cabinet for your TV. Are you also planning to build shelves into it (below or above the television) to accomodate your gaming console, extra cartridges, DVD player, etc.?

Also, I think it's a good idea to rent DVDs from Netflix, as they do not charge late fees as do most other DVD rental services such as Blockbuster and probably Redbox. I like to take my time watching DVDs I rent from Netflix; I currently have had three discs here from Netflix for well over a month, but I'm watching them more these days so I can send them back and get the next three in my disc queue. The discs I'm currently watching are of the first season (2002) of CSI: Miami.

That's part of the two-piece plan I am thinking about. Because I don't want an upright console, I want a wide console, 19" is rather small, so I have an idea for a 2-piece console where the bottom part is a little stand of it's own. I wasn't having shelves in mind, but that sounds like a good idea.

My old Panasonic VCR still works. I might hook it back up just for the retro appearance of it.

To be 100% correct, if it is reel to reel, it should be called a "VTR"... no cassette (C) is involved. :)

jr

Hi All;
My mistake, I knew it, but, some how overlooked that fact.. Yes, it is a VTR and not a VCR.. Thanks for the correction..
THANK YOU Marty

I thought about correcting that too, but I didn't really figure it mattered much. I usually refer to such things as VCRs as well, even though it's not really accurate... it's just easier that way. If you were to say 'VTR', most people wouldn't know what the hell you're talking about.

IIRC, Olson Electronics was selling a VTR deck, that was built for Warwick, by Ampex. It was intended for a console combination, color TV/VTR.
They actually built and sold them at Sears, but they were too expensive and didn't sell very well. They sold the surplus to Olsons, just the deck.
An experimenter actually tapped one into an RCA CTC48 chassis and it worked fairly well. :scratch2:

I've found VCR's can record 240p too from old game systems (since they don't output 480i).

I tried once to record PAL on an NTSC VCR, and of course that didn't work out. It wasn't just no color, but it was wobbly, like the entire picture was jiggling (even on a TV that supports 50Hz).

"Cartrivision". I dreamed of buying one from Olson for the $250 they wanted in 1978 or so. Later, I found a real Betamax VCR for $320 instead.