Help with JVC BR-S378U!, Eats tapes... Link To video in description.

[PuzZLeR]

What's interesting about all this is that, at least from my point of view, other than maybe the odd Panasonic or a Toshiba, there hasn't been a really good new VCR model out since DvD units made their break in the late 90s. This tells me that manufacturer interest takes a dive when the product's lifecycle starts to hang over to the other side of the curve. It was obvious at that point that VCRs were on their way to doom, and the companies knew it, and didn't care anymore to produce high quality and/or R&D shifted priorities away from it.

I always hear "they don't make them like they used to" which is true in so many ways for many products. You'd think that they can only get better over time - not true. It all depends on the philosophy of the manufacturers at the point in time where the product is most profitable in its lifecycle, or if costs justify higher quality.

[VideoChunkster]

Thanks puzzler and orsetto very informative answers.

Its interesting for sure some of the units i've had -

Good

Toshiba DVD player - 10 years
Xbox - 12 years still going
Fridge - 27 years still going
Old tv - 27 years
Philips stero- 11 years still going
Sharp stereo - 14 years still going
Akai vcr - 11-12 years still going
Chinon projector - 34 years old still going

Crap -

Panasonic 55 3D HDTV - caps went in 10 month peroid
Samsung 3D Home Theatre - Unit died in 6 months
Bathroom exhaust fan - went this morning, lasted about 5 weeks lol

[PuzZLeR]

I bought a CD player in the late 80s. It still works after all that headbanging abuse. It's actually a Sony. Go figure.

I bought a second one, sometime in 1993-ish, and a third/fourth/fifth/nth one here and there since. All of them are busted/lost/flushed down the toilet in a drunken stupor/etc except for that first one which still chugs on. Even one on one of my vehicles busted since.

Just for giggles I put in an MP3 CD in case that 80s CD player decides to decode it. Oh well, miracles have their limits too I guess.

[VideoChunkster]

I just wish i was a techi able to repair units and know what was wrong etc, i know there are online manuals but dont know how to diagnose etc.

[orsetto]

What's interesting about all this is that, at least from my point of view, other than maybe the odd Panasonic or a Toshiba, there hasn't been a really good new VCR model out since DvD units made their break in the late 90s.

VCRs were more brand-dependent than some other devices. Also, when discussing VCRs, we unfortunately need to separate "best performance" from "best reliability" because those two attributes virtually never co-existed in any one VCR. The models that were rock-reliable had mediocre picture quality from start to finish of the VCR era, the models with excellent PQ were hopeless botch jobs in every other aspect. At their peak from 1985-1995 we had a huge selection of price points and performance/feature bundles to choose from. This was wonderful, unless you bought in the top half of the JVC, Sony or Mitsubishi range: three years later, the thing would self-destruct, and 4 out of 5 repair techs would inform you that parts were unobtainable or hellishly expensive. The fifth would take your money, make temporary repairs with chewing gum and cardboard shims, and refuse to back up the repair when the VCR failed again a month later.

By 1994, nice features like manual audio level and flying erase heads disappeared from midprice VHS, which stranded those who couldn't afford 100% more for an SVHS that still had them. By late 1996, PQ went all to hell even on most of the "legendary" brands (non-defeatable "detail boost" circuits on most, and a sudden predictably-perverse shift to "Murk-O-Vision" with JVC). The positive shift was to very streamlined chassis mfrg: mechanics and electronics of midrange VCRs reached their peak balance between mfrg cost, packaging and reliability. That is why ordinary 4-hd HiFi VCRs of the 1996-2000 era, esp Panasonic, are still working flawlessly today while earlier "luxe" units require staggeringly expensive repairs that can't be guaranteed to remain stable. By late 2000 Panasonic had thrown in the towel and shifted to outsourced junk VCRs. Mitsubishi had a rather nice swan song: after a period of deadly unreliability in the '90s they came back roaring with very reliable budget VHS and SVHS in 1998-2002. Their grand finale was the HS-HD-2000U DVHS, the finest overall VCR Mitsubishi ever made and one of the top two DVHS available.

I just wish i was a techi able to repair units and know what was wrong etc, i know there are online manuals but dont know how to diagnose etc.

Yeah, its really a shame how disposable most of this stuff became. To be fair, the cost of "disposing and replacing" is probably less than the "keeping-and-repairing" we did in the good old days. With formats and tech culture changing so rapidly now, by the time something breaks its probably obsolete and needs to be replaced anyway. Those of us mourning the loss of affordable repairs are a tiny minority: the gear we want to keep working is of no value to 99% of the public. Today's consumers have no use for fancy VCRs or DVD/HDD recorders or audiophile components. They don't care if their 32" TV breaks in three years, because in that three year period the price of a 55" dropped to what they paid for a 32" (so in their reasoning the broken 32" is an excuse for an upgrade).

Its also easy to forget the solid, repairable gear made prior to the '80s was only solid and repairable because mfrs had not yet figured out how to make and market disposable crap. People bought 40-lb VCRs because that was the only option, ditto solid "budget" stereo gear and TV sets. If plastic $99 boom boxes and megawatt car audio was available in 1972, the whole hifi cult would have died immediately. If tablets and NetFlix was around in 1993, DVD and BluRay would not exist. Then as now, the average consumer has no clue and no taste: convenience and price wag the dog. Average Joe in 2014 can't tell the difference between a bootleg MP3 file and a live concert: this would have been equally true in 1974 or 1984 had the option been available. It wasn't: even the cheapest audio and video gear was made solidly, cost real money, and didn't cater to our every infantile convenience whim. Those who came of age in that era take such things for granted, and tend to be more skeptical of modern trends. But that chapter is closed: if you have a pressing need for the good old VCRs, accelerate your video projects, because these machines will not survive much longer (or the repair costs become astronomical).

This is even more obvious with cameras. Loads of people who couldn't afford top-flight gear like Hasselblad in the 90s have been snatching the stuff up on eBay for pennies on the dollar. Trouble is, now that no pros are using film anymore, the techs who maintained all this intricate mechanical gear folded their tents and parts supply has evaporated. Paying $300 today for a Hasselblad lens that sold for $3000 fifteen years ago is a thrill, until the shutter starts acting up and you discover the dreaded "oh by the way" Hasselblad curse (their much-vaunted reliability rep is a lie: those pros never mentioned they sent them in for a CLA every month). When you look around today, you find a small handful of techs remaining, all of whom will gleefully charge you $500 to repair the "bargain" pro lens or camera you just got for $300. Yippee.

[Rented_Sperry]

This type of slip-loop post-loading issue can have several causes. Some would be relatively simple fixes, others would be rather difficult. It could be just some old dirty grease hanging up a moving part, resulting in incorrect feedback to a sensor. Or broken/misaligned gears/belts. Or, you could have a bad sensor or failing control circuit. The first two are easy to fix if you're familiar with the unit and such repairs, the last can really defy attempts at DIY service.

Okay so an update, I kind of have it working. In the picture I circled the clutch i believe, But there is the two gears coming out of the side. Now I tried touching it to the right side so it was in contact with the gear there. Put the tape in, and it loaded it fine and kept playing until I tried fast forwarding or rewinding, then as soon as i hit stop the tape seems loose. So it will play it fine as long as I don't touch any of the controls, but then i eject it and it doesn't load the tape back in right and gets caught when ejecting. So I figured I was getting somewhere with this, then I tried touching it to the left side. And it did the same thing as usual, loaded, started looping up, the weird thing was it stopped like it knew it was doing this, tightened up the tape and ejected it perfect.

I'm not exactly sure if this means anything, but it seems something is wrong with those two gears not engaging at the right time.

What do you think?

[Rented_Sperry]

I actually got 2 new spare clutches so i'm hoping this is the problem.

[magikarp99]

It looks to me like this is a problem in the takeup reel, something appears to be preventing it from turning.

[Rented_Sperry]

It looks to me like this is a problem in the takeup reel, something appears to be preventing it from turning.

I believe there is something that is supposed to angle those gears into the correct position. I'm just not sure what is supposed to do that, be it the clutch or something else

[Rented_Sperry]

I have an extra mode switch because apparently its a common thing to go on them. Maybe that's gone and that's what's not engaging those gears properly?

[Rented_Sperry]

So I'm trying to access this mode switch now , using the manual because I'm pretty sure you have to remove the main tape deck to access it. Now in the manual it says you have to remove the video board assembly to be able to remove the tape deck, but when i try removing it it just will not come out. Its like its stuck to the bottom board or something. So is this actually part of the tape deck removal ?, or can you remove it with out taking this out? I'm still not 100% sure that its the mode switch but when I read online when the don't work properly the symptoms are pretty close to what i'm going through. Now I know you can open the BR-S from the bottom side but there is a PCB in the way the mode switch . Is there anyway to test if this is the problem ?

[Rented_Sperry]

I can post the pages of the manual if that would help, just let me know

[VideoChunkster]

What's interesting about all this is that, at least from my point of view, other than maybe the odd Panasonic or a Toshiba, there hasn't been a really good new VCR model out since DvD units made their break in the late 90s.

VCRs were more brand-dependent than some other devices. Also, when discussing VCRs, we unfortunately need to separate "best performance" from "best reliability" because those two attributes virtually never co-existed in any one VCR. The models that were rock-reliable had mediocre picture quality from start to finish of the VCR era, the models with excellent PQ were hopeless botch jobs in every other aspect. At their peak from 1985-1995 we had a huge selection of price points and performance/feature bundles to choose from. This was wonderful, unless you bought in the top half of the JVC, Sony or Mitsubishi range: three years later, the thing would self-destruct, and 4 out of 5 repair techs would inform you that parts were unobtainable or hellishly expensive. The fifth would take your money, make temporary repairs with chewing gum and cardboard shims, and refuse to back up the repair when the VCR failed again a month later.

By 1994, nice features like manual audio level and flying erase heads disappeared from midprice VHS, which stranded those who couldn't afford 100% more for an SVHS that still had them. By late 1996, PQ went all to hell even on most of the "legendary" brands (non-defeatable "detail boost" circuits on most, and a sudden predictably-perverse shift to "Murk-O-Vision" with JVC). The positive shift was to very streamlined chassis mfrg: mechanics and electronics of midrange VCRs reached their peak balance between mfrg cost, packaging and reliability. That is why ordinary 4-hd HiFi VCRs of the 1996-2000 era, esp Panasonic, are still working flawlessly today while earlier "luxe" units require staggeringly expensive repairs that can't be guaranteed to remain stable. By late 2000 Panasonic had thrown in the towel and shifted to outsourced junk VCRs. Mitsubishi had a rather nice swan song: after a period of deadly unreliability in the '90s they came back roaring with very reliable budget VHS and SVHS in 1998-2002. Their grand finale was the HS-HD-2000U DVHS, the finest overall VCR Mitsubishi ever made and one of the top two DVHS available.

I just wish i was a techi able to repair units and know what was wrong etc, i know there are online manuals but dont know how to diagnose etc.

Yeah, its really a shame how disposable most of this stuff became. To be fair, the cost of "disposing and replacing" is probably less than the "keeping-and-repairing" we did in the good old days. With formats and tech culture changing so rapidly now, by the time something breaks its probably obsolete and needs to be replaced anyway. Those of us mourning the loss of affordable repairs are a tiny minority: the gear we want to keep working is of no value to 99% of the public. Today's consumers have no use for fancy VCRs or DVD/HDD recorders or audiophile components. They don't care if their 32" TV breaks in three years, because in that three year period the price of a 55" dropped to what they paid for a 32" (so in their reasoning the broken 32" is an excuse for an upgrade).

Its also easy to forget the solid, repairable gear made prior to the '80s was only solid and repairable because mfrs had not yet figured out how to make and market disposable crap. People bought 40-lb VCRs because that was the only option, ditto solid "budget" stereo gear and TV sets. If plastic $99 boom boxes and megawatt car audio was available in 1972, the whole hifi cult would have died immediately. If tablets and NetFlix was around in 1993, DVD and BluRay would not exist. Then as now, the average consumer has no clue and no taste: convenience and price wag the dog. Average Joe in 2014 can't tell the difference between a bootleg MP3 file and a live concert: this would have been equally true in 1974 or 1984 had the option been available. It wasn't: even the cheapest audio and video gear was made solidly, cost real money, and didn't cater to our every infantile convenience whim. Those who came of age in that era take such things for granted, and tend to be more skeptical of modern trends. But that chapter is closed: if you have a pressing need for the good old VCRs, accelerate your video projects, because these machines will not survive much longer (or the repair costs become astronomical).

This is even more obvious with cameras. Loads of people who couldn't afford top-flight gear like Hasselblad in the 90s have been snatching the stuff up on eBay for pennies on the dollar. Trouble is, now that no pros are using film anymore, the techs who maintained all this intricate mechanical gear folded their tents and parts supply has evaporated. Paying $300 today for a Hasselblad lens that sold for $3000 fifteen years ago is a thrill, until the shutter starts acting up and you discover the dreaded "oh by the way" Hasselblad curse (their much-vaunted reliability rep is a lie: those pros never mentioned they sent them in for a CLA every month). When you look around today, you find a small handful of techs remaining, all of whom will gleefully charge you $500 to repair the "bargain" pro lens or camera you just got for $300. Yippee.

Your knowledge is incredible, i feel like im reading a mini book on the golden age of electronics with posts like these, its awesome.

[magikarp99]

I can post the pages of the manual if that would help, just let me know

Please do, and perhaps a photo of the part you are having trouble removing.